It's Fantasy Football Time!

Who says footballers can't fly?

WARNING: Reading the following text without adequate knowledge of the beautiful game called football may result in severe mystification and a delusional belief that human beings are mercilessly bought and sold via the Internet. The author cannot be held liable for any actions of wrath or despair that may occur.

In an attempt to replicate the jobs of those suit-clad individuals who make multi-million pound purchases to eke out a living, premierleague.com, the official website of the Barclays Premier League created Fantasy Premier League, your ultimate fantasy football game. With an initial budget of £100 million, you have to pick a squad of 15 players and manage them on a weekly basis – earning points for their triumphs and losing points for their blunders.

Whether you already have a team or are looking to create one, read these guidelines carefully. Who am I to guide you? Well, I’ve played the game for the past seven seasons and have consistently made the national leader board. I know what I’m talking about. So if I were you, I’d take this advice:

1. Let’s start from the back – your goalkeeper. Traditionally, a goalie from one of your Top-4 clubs would guarantee you a bunch of clean sheets on a regular basis. Times have changed, though, and even the top clubs are finding it hard to enjoy consistent clean sheets. Do not spend too much money on a pricey goalie. Instead, pick someone who’s cheap and will make tons of saves.

Fuse Tips: Tim Krul (Newcastle, £5.0m) or Tim Howard (Everton, £5.4m)

2. Moving on to your defence – arguably the most difficult area to score points. Out of your five picks, make sure at least four of them are nailed down First XI regulars for their clubs. As far as possible, pick defenders who are likely to contribute in an attacking sense as well with strong headers from corners and assists from wide positions.

Fuse Tips: Micah Richards (Manchester City, £6.3m), Benoit Assou-Ekotto(Tottenham, £5.9m), Ryan Taylor (Newcastle, £5.5m), Martin Skirtel (Liverpool, £6.2m)

3. The midfield is an area where you can capitalise on creative players who will bag a whole lot of assists along with a decent goal tally. You may find it difficult to choose from the galaxy of stars plying their trade in the Premiership. Keep tabs on players who are enjoying a run of form and use your transfers to regularly update your midfield. Clubs like Manchester City and United adopt a rotational policy so you must have a contingency plan in case your player has been left out for a couple of matches.

Fuse Tips: Clint Dempsey (Fulham, £8.8m), Gareth Bale (Tottenham, £9.6m),Antonio Valencia (Manchester United, £8.3m), Matthew Jarvis (Wolves, £5.7m)

4. Your attack should consist of two absolutely fantastic strikers who their cubs cannot do without. These two strikers must guarantee you 20+ goals come the end of the season. Your third striker should be a regular starter for a lesser club, someone who is sure to score a few goals in patches and will serve as a backup to your main strikers. Always be wary of the form-factor as well as which strikers are out-of-favour with their club managers.

Fuse Tips: Robin Van Persie (Arsenal, £13.3m), Demba Ba (Newcastle, £7.6m),Bobby Zamora (QPR, £6.8m)

Appointing your team’s captain is another crucial decision as your captain’s points will be doubled every week. Robin Van Persie, Wayne Rooney and Gareth Bale are popular captains, with good reason too. Make sure you use your free transfer each week to freshen up your squad. In case things are going horribly for you, there’s a transfer wild card which can be used only once during the game, allowing you to make unlimited changes to your team.

Now that you’re all set, log on to www.fantasy.premierleague.com and join the Fuse Readers’ League (Code: 1430564-575546) where you can keep track of fellow readers’ teams and scores. Good luck to you, gaffer!

Let It Be?

It’s a typically crowded evening in the bustling streets of Mumbai. Our dear friend Cyrus is comfortably seated at the back of his BMW, his iPod plugged in as he grooves to some Beatles classics, on his way to Wadia Uncle’s 50^th birthday party. A shrill siren interrupts Let It Be and his earphones fall off as he jerks his head around to glare at his oppressor. He curses. It’s an ambulance.

A few cars around them slow down, hesitantly. His driver, Rajesh, slows down too, but only in order to swiftly open his door and spit out his accumulated paan.

“Rajesh, jara fast chalao boss, bahoot late ho raha hai,” Cyrus manages to say in his first-class dialect of Hindi.

“Yeh bloody ambulance sahib, I tell you koy patient-vatient hai bhi nahi, nonsense kahi ke!” Rajesh replies in his first-class dialect of English.

Cyrus tries to encourage him to speed up but his squeaky voice is drowned out by a symphony of car horns as Rajesh Schumacher cuts across the on-passing emergency vehicle with a vroom of the BMW’s powerful engine, causing the ambulance to brake violently. Rajesh laughs and curses triumphantly into his rear-view mirror.

*****

It’s said to be the most difficult part of a doctor’s job and it was the part Dr. Vipul Gawande dreaded most.

“I’m so sorry,” he ventured, helplessly, as a wife could only stare horrifically while two children let their tears flow.

“Perhaps if the ambulance reached a few minutes earlier, but it was just too late...Mumbai traffic, you see....there was nothing we could do. I am truly sorry for your loss.”

God, I am horrible at this, he thought angrily. A husband, a father, is dead. And why? Probably because somebody was too late for a goddamned party to make way for an ambulance!

*****

As per the Rules of the Road Regulations 1989, if a driver is in the path of an approaching Fire Service Vehicle or an Ambulance that is displaying a flashing blue or red light or sounding an alarm, the driver must move out of the path of the vehicle as soon as he can do so safely.