Global Voices in Delhi

The Global Voices Summit is in full flow. You can participate remotely through listening to live audio stream or logging on the IRC chat channel. All the information is on the Global Voices website. Or if you are more of a voyeur the pictures may interest you. Congratulations to Nicolás Luco who managed to catch my question and link on the audio stream. I’ll say hi to Rosario when I see her!

The African contingent here is strong led by the brilliant Ndesanjo. Gaphiz and Inktus are also representing Tanzania and Uganda respectively.

As with every other blog conference there is a lot of controversy in the air. Why did they take so long? What were they thinking? What excuses would they give? Will he stay? Will he go? I am of course talking about Monty Panesar and the whole world – v – the England selectors. Monty finally got his chance to attack the Australian batsmen in the third test of the Ashes. The brilliant thing about being in a cricket mad country such as India at this time is that we can talk cricket all day and all night as there is so much cricket going on. We tut tut as the England bating line up collapses faster than Uchumi. We wonder whether reverse spin was just a myth, we wonder which India batsmen who are struggling in South Africa would make the English team and vice versa. Yesterday Rezwan, my cricket loving brother from cricket mad Bangladesh, and I had a long discussion on which countries should get test status, whether Kenya should replace Zimbabwe as a test nation, whether Kenya is still better than Bangladesh in the one day version of the game.

I threw down the challenge; Kenyan bloggers –v- Bangladesh bloggers in a 50 over one day game. KenyaCricket, we need you to whip us into shape bruv. (I’ll bat at number 5 or 6 and field at 2nd or 3rd slip – I’m a rugby forward don’t you dare put me on the boundary!) On the coach to the conference this morning, Georgia and I gave Ndesanjo a quick lesson in cricket. Georgia is from Trinidad and Tobago which is where I hear the Kenyan cricket team will be based in before going to St Lucia in next year’s cricket world cup. T&T has enjoyed a fantastic sporting year the highlight of which was the Soca Warriors playing at the football world cup.

A couple of things about these conferences; if you want to make friends fast carry a multi socket electric extension lead. That way when you commandeer a electricity outlet for you laptop you can share it with your grateful neighbors and look well organised. Secondly, if you aint got mac, you aint got game. Us PC users are hiding our laptops under the tables as the mac boys and mac girls strut their stuff with their apparently superior machines. Thirdly it’s all about the stickers baby. Stickers on laptops are back in. Not useless brand name stickers but cool obscure stickers. The best one I’ve been so far is has a black ground and in big white letters “will work for world peace” that’s currently flossing on Rebecca’s laptop (which is mac of course).

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