He is one of those totally charming and disarming waifs straight out of a Dickens novel; all of seven years old and blue eyes and angelic face carrying the dirt of three days. He sells pop-corn at the traffic light where I turn in for home, and I occasionally buy a bag for five rupees, and neglect to eat it because the pop-corn looks like it has been passed down from generation to generation, without being washed in between. So also the polythene bag.

Then the other day, I stopped at the traffic lights to this heart-rending scene. His bag was sprawled on the roadside with a swath of spilled popcorn all over, and he was sitting in the midst of it, on the curb. It was a picture worth a thousand words. Believe me, I am tenderhearted and I yelled and asked him what had happened. And he didn't say a word and pointed to his spilled goods and satchel, and his dimpled chin quivered and my heart bled, and I gave him a hundred bucks and told him not to worry.

I am suitably ashamed of my soppiness and I wouldn't have mentioned it except that the next day the exact same scene was repeated, and the next. And I discreetly asked, and it seems the whole family has been touched by the scoundrel over the last month, and only now we realise it is a put-up job. Because, yesterday the rascal saw me from afar and quickly sneaked off - and sent an even littler and cuter brother to sit in the spilt corn with quivering chin. If I wasn't so tender, I'd kick his butt off.

There is nothing to do but sit home and watch telly, on which there are 50 glorious channels on the cable. Most in a language no one understands, and the rest keep changing channels so you can never be sure what you are watching. But there are four channels reserved, on which our friendly server runs taped movies. It seems the video shops were up in arms because no one is renting films from them any more - they're all on the cable.

So they petitioned the authorities to put a stop to it. Odd behaviour, considering that all their tapes are clandestine anyway. The latest movies are camera-prints, as you can tell because the cameraman doesn't always get a middle seat so the prints are off-centre and out of focus. Also, he takes friends along, and you can hear them talking, giggling and eating popcorn, while you miss the dialogue. The only part of the screen in focus is the ads, which also flick from side to side and wander all over the screen.

The authorities, with their usual fanfare, banned the screening of films on cable channels. No one gives a darn and the films are running as usual. I rang my cablewallah and asked why, and he says they are mostly Indian movies which are not allowed in Lahore anyway, and being unlawful, the law of the country doesn't apply to them! If you can make sense of that, let me know too.

The other legal snafu in the news is that the conviction of former premier Benazir and her husband in a certain case has been set aside by the Supreme Court. Set aside because, it appears that while the case was being heard, the then premier Nawaz Sharif's henchmen phoned the sitting judge and did what is obviously a bit of arm-twisting to get a conviction; and the conversations were taped by the Intelligence people under an illegal order of the premier's, and the transcripts sent to the president, who, rightfully refused to accept them, being unlawful! The party is crowing as if the last few years have been cancelled and they are queens. If you can make sense of that, keep it to yourself!