Such poor shots

Mostly, it’s rough, furry, like a morning beard. What is it? Why, DD’s picture quality on the first three days of the World Cup. Then, every so now and again, an unidentified flying object would get between the satellite and the dish, scrambling the signals and we would see something which was a cross between a tangled film and noughts and crosses but not football. Otherwise too, the colour would fade in and out like the sun behind the clouds; irritating. Whereas PTV’s transmission was sharp, focussed, clearer than unflawed diamonds.

The absurdities don’t end here: DD2 is telecasting a programme The Road to France which traces the finalists road to France. That the finalists reached France quite some time ago, doesn’t seem to impinge on DD’s sense of timing. Any other channel would have carried this programme before the teams arrived at Orly airport; any other channel (like BBC) would now be showing daily highlights of the previous day’s matches (especially late night ones) for viewers who can’t sit up till the final whistle has been blown well past 2 am. Any other channel might indeed have considered showing recorded versions of the late matches the next day ….

DD is not the only offender. In their first game, the French have shown that they know how to shoot goals. Not matches. The camera-work has been indifferent; instead of zeroing in on the action we had stock long shots of the field which made pigmies of the players and the ball the size of a pin. Both DD and PTV have taken BBC commentary. Which is understandable but somewhat incomprehensible. You will appreciate the difference better if you compare the commentary teams in Paris and Marseille. The former was in English; the latter was English so heavily accented, it was harder to understand than some of our regional varieties. These voices often belonged to former football players who, understandably, spent more time on their footwork than their schoolwork.

Fortunately, you don’t need the commentary to appreciate Ronaldo but you might miss some gems: “This World Cup has had more media hype than any other; now let the game prove mightier than the pen.” Or really decisive details: “Brazil has never won after encountering Scotland along the way”; “England is the only team to have won the first game and gone onto win the World Cup.” So?

Archana Puran Singh Uncensored on Sony is a mouthful. Not for the lady of course who can bite off more than most of us can chew. Still, she does talk a lot. Words rush out of her mouth as if scared they might get left inside. She’s pure gossip about film stars and/or their strange habits: star behaviour at parties; stars at their goof-ups, stars and autographs. According to Singh, the bigger the star, the greater the signs of boredom as they sign. On and on it goes. Singh does well to try and hold the show together; well, there’s nobody else around, anyways. She’s also looking stunningly slim-trim and disgustingly healthy. Lucky devil.