World Cup Fudgeball

The world's biggest carnival's here and we can look forward to a lot of misquotes, googled news, articles stolen without attribution, misprints and bloopers in the Indian newspapers.

While the media circus doesn't stop for even a minute through the year, this World Cup will probably see it hit new lows.

"If you are shocked by the nose-dive the Sensex has taken, you haven't seen anything yet", said an insider, on the condition of anonymity. This is confirmed by a friend of a famous editor who reports that the editor has been seen scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Take this instance, for example - Sepp Blatter, in a promotional campaign for ESPN Star Sports said that in South Asia, India is a key market as regards fan following. "I am pleasantly surprised with the great interest in soccer in a cricket crazy nation like India," were the exact words. Fortunately, the creative team was able to misrepresent this and turn a boring cliche into an astonishing headline - "India biggest viewers of the Fifa World Cup"Such opportunities however are few and far between. Mostly, the newspapers have to just make up facts without any cliche to support them. "What gives most thrill is being able to conjure up numbers out of a hat rather than misrepresent someone's statements. The freedom we get is similar to what Ronaldinho will get in the 4-4-2 scheme."

"I got immense thrill when I calculated on the back of Delhi Times, the viewership of the Football World Cup. It came to 30 billion by my estimate. It made the front page of the newspapers"When being told that that's five times the world's population, the reporter slinked away, hand in hand, with a handsome upcoming football. Friends say that a relationship is brewing and that the back of the Delhi Times was actually a page of Khaleej Times.

Watch this space for more. Or not.