FIFA World Cup 2026: GBUF - Top 10 Memory Listicle

LV and the Trophy!

#sriGINthoughts #GBUF #GoodBadUglyFunny #FIFAWC2026

After 104 matches, that post-final brawl, and the World Cup trophy ending up in a plastic bag after all the Louis Vuitton pomp, here's what I'm left remembering. Enjoy!

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SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles

1. 🏟️ The ticket prices were obscene. The in-stadium food was exorbitant. There were thunderstorms (or was it a typhoon, or whatever?) that forced thousands to be stacked in the concourses for hours. But... but, the sheer size and magnificence of the USA, Canada and Mexico stadia were something to behold. FIFA managed the unmanageable. Full houses! #KickAssStadia

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Lingering on...

2. 📸 Trophy presentations are usually about the winners. Not this one. Infantino handed over the trophy alongside the FIFA Peace Prize winner before sensibly vacating centre stage. The Roja-tie man, though, refused to take the hint. He lingered... and lingered... until it felt as though the trophy belonged to him. Well, he thought that he could pull it off like the Balogun red-card vanishing act! Poor Spain probably never got a proper photograph with it. #LingeringPhoto

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Lakshmi Ammal with Selvi Ammal (AI)

3. 👕 It started as a meme. Lamine Yamal became Lakshmi Ammal; Messi became Lassi; Ronaldo became Narado; Mbappé became Mappillai (son-in-law)... But Selvi Ammal from Puducherry, India, did not worry about any of it. She sold her fake jerseys with gusto and became an instant sensation, with people from far and wide descending on Puducherry just to post stories with her. Those who condescended were floored by her disarming smile! #SelviAmmalStyle

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CBV Vozinha

4. 🇨🇻 Every edition throws up a surprise package. This time it was Cabo Verde, the Green Cape! The country's stellar performance generated more articles than its entire population of 500,000. Vozinha became a household name and did not concede a goal against the eventual winners! Bonus: perhaps the Goal of the Tournament by Sidny Lopes against the other finalists, Argentina, in the Round of 32! #SuperDogCBV

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Kane and Juju

5. 😂 What do you do if you suffer from vertigo? Take Viagra. The English footballers may or may not have done that to beat Mexico. But the meme factory never stopped running, with the best one being Harry Kane's goal being ruled offside because of a longer-than-usual appendage! The wags, of course, said they definitely needed one during the hydration break against Argentina in the semi-finals! Or was it a delayed-release Juju from the Ghanaian witch doctor? #DilatoryTactics

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How to name it? Haaland's Raccoon

6. 🛶 Yes, Erling Braut Haaland was the darling of the tournament. The paternal and maternal surnames. The stuffed raccoon. The braided tresses. Oh, and a small matter of seven goals, including that outrageous trundle-and-header against Brazil. Yes, the Norwegians behaved like our Gujju uncles and aunties by bringing their own food. But the real scene-stealer was the Viking Roing. Dum-Dum-Ro! If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favour and look it up. #VikingRoing

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Hey Jude!

7. 🎵 It was a tough quarter-final. England and Jude Bellingham held on to win a bruising encounter. But Jude took a happy song and turned it into a war cry! When asked about Tuchel saying that the English team could do better, Jude's repartee was simply: "Whatever!" Not sure whether the boss excoriated him sufficiently, especially after the young man had a go at Messi (sacrilege!) following the semi-final! #RefrainJude

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Adiós from Tijuana, Iran!

8. ✈️ I think the Iranians accrued a million frequent flyer miles each just by travelling back and forth between California, Washington State and Tijuana. Well, if Algeria had won that game against Austria (3-3 after a last-minute equaliser), they would have accrued even more! #HormuzVisas

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White is the new black!

9. 👟 I was told the excessive use of pink in the players' apparel was because it looked better against the lush green pitches on television. Fix It For Argentina (FIFA) head honcho (and soon to be UN Secy General if DJT has its way!) Infantino went one step further and wore blindingly white, custom-made Adidas trainers (complete with the FIFA logo) for the final. Why? Apparently, he wanted to look cool and relatable to the younger generation. #BoomerBlanc

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This was before they ran out of beer!

10. 🍺 Football without booze is simply not football. Especially with the Scots around. Apart from strutting around in kilts (Kilt Lifter is a beer in the US, by the way), their adorable claim to fame was running Boston dry of alcohol. A forewarned Miami ordered six times more booze and just about managed to keep afloat, pun intended! #TartanTricks

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Staale, Cody, Didier

10+1: ❤️ Football is not about life and death. Take it from Norwegian coach Ståle Solbakken, who came back from the dead; the Netherlands' Cody Gakpo, who stayed on despite the loss of his stillborn son; and French coach Didier Deschamps, who flew home and back after his mother passed away. Football was, and is, simply life for these men and billions more. Hashtag, you ask? My favourite. #CircleOfLife

Life is not messy!

Goodbye Messi, Ronaldo, Modric and a few other beautiful people. 

Thanks to the USA, Canada and Mexico for a wonderful tournament, despite "some" people trying to hijack it. 😉

Well, these are my 10+1. I am sure you have your own ten too!

Views are personal. Any hurt unintentional.

Sources: Various. Thanks to all of them.

GBUF - 15 Mar 26

 #sriGINthoughts #GBUF #GoodBadUglyFunny #15Mar26

> From Mahatala to Paatal: A Cultural Descent

I had planned to do the usual roundup this week. But with the world focussed on the Bad and the Ugly in the Gulf ‘conflict’, I thought I’d turn my attention elsewhere.

Little did I realise that other areas were not doing much better.

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First up, books.

Picked up The Chola Tigers by Amish Tripathi (who, for reasons unknown, seems to have quietly dropped the Tripathi). Somewhere along the way, the BusinessWorld described him as the “ Paulo Coelho of the East ”.

After this, Coelho might want a word. 🥹

His earlier Shiva Trilogy was passable — entertaining enough, with the occasional interesting idea. Roll forward the entire duration it took RCB to win the IPL, and the transmogrification is… a masterclass in pandering. I picked up the Chola book hoping for some insight into the life of Rajendra Chola I. 👑

What I got instead was “historical fiction” that was as light on history as it was heavy on Islamophobic tropes.

I finished the book only to see how low it could go. Suffice it to say that I safely arrived in Mahatala Loka. 🛄

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Okay, litt was not lit.

So I decided to go back to my favourite staple: movies.

Chiranjeevi is a proven crowd-puller and usually knows how to keep an audience hooked. Yet, despite his “ hooku steppu ” in #Mana_Sankara_Vara_Prasad_Garu , my own pull was increasingly towards the remote.

A botoxed Nayanthara, an intolerable Venkatesh Daggubati, and two rather interminable hours later, I touched down in Rasatala Loka. 🛬

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Now literature had burnt me. Films had finished me.

What about the news?

Out comes the announcement for the Jnanpith Award .

Vairamuthu!!! 😡

After living for almost six decades on this planet, I have come to understand that most awards operate on the you-scratch-mine-I-scratch-yours principle — a kind of institutionalised itchguard balm.

But to give it to someone who was average in film lyrics (certainly not deserving of the grand title கவிப்பேரரசு), below average in most other literary work, and exceptional in cultivating the powers-that-be and hurting the sentiments of the devout?

Perhaps the award should have been for lifetime achievement in predation and for being the ultimate #MeToo Teflon .

Hello, Paatal Loka. 👋

Time to rewatch Sanju Samson’s trio of innings and climb back up to terra firma. 🌏

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Views are personal. Any hurt unintentional.

GBUF - 03 May 26

 

#GoodBadUglyFunny #GBUF #03May26 #sriGINthoughts

A round-up of what tickled the brain and the ribs in the recent past.

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🏃‍♂️ Almost 72 years ago today, Roger Bannister ran a mile under four minutes. It was the invisible barrier that kept middle-distance runners dreaming. That record got shaved significantly (currently it is 3:43.xx) once Bannister banished the baggage. Another one such record is, no was, the sub-2-hour marathon. Last week saw two runners (Sabastian Sawe, Yomif Kejelcha) crack it and the third one missed it by a whisker. Nike responded to the winner Adidas, “There is no finish line.” Yes... to human endeavour. #Target1_59

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⌚ If endeavour is the father, intent is the mother. Ask Singh Deepak, an Italian national, who got caught in Singapore for selling a real Rolex watch as fake. You try to exchange a ‘fake’ Rolex for three real Rolexes. Shopkeeper agrees. The twist was that the ‘fake’ Rolex was actually a real and rare one! In the end, the transaction was to Deepak’s detriment. Yet, the court said, “Sorry, you get an ‘A’ for effort but ‘F’ for intent.” #RolexRoulette

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🗳️ From one finger game to another. Five states in India saw elections recently [~175 million voters from the ‘hellhole’; half the US population]. In a few hours, you will know who is winning or losing. This is one election that the ruling BJP is unlikely to walk away from ecstatic, although inroads are likely to be made. With a reported > USD 2 billion spent by parties and government to woo the voters, the stakes are indeed high. Tamil Nadu is promising to be fun. Is it going to be whistling dixie or clean as a whistle? #MovingFinger

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🛢️ Indeed the finger moved when UAE decided to get out of the OPEC cartel. This frees up UAE to pump more oil and price as they wish. It reduces Saudi hegemony over the group and makes life easier for Trump as oil prices will go down, hopefully before the November mid-terms. Of course, this is predicated on that Schrodinger Cat of Strait of Hormuz opening properly. MBS will perhaps have to work hard now to keep the bloc from going up in smoke. 4D-Chess loading. #SlickMove

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🏏 Well, the records in IPL this year are going up in smoke, alright. Batters (left-handed, Indian, openers to be precise), led by wunderkind Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, are having great evenings in walloping poor bowlers. You score 220? No problems. We chase it in 17 overs. You score 264? It takes a bit longer. That’s all. As if this smoke isn’t enough, Rajasthan Royals’ captain Riyan Parag was caught vaping in public during the game. Illegal? Tick. Bad role model to the kid? Double tick. #TeachKids

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🦛 If vaping is bad, drugs are worse. Yet Colombian ‘plata o plomo’ Pablo Escobar had a soft corner for Africa’s water-loving pachyderms. He brought 80 hippos to Colombia for his private zoo. Once he faded, they were let loose and today 200 are causing havoc all over. Govt wants to plomo them. Enter Anant Ambani: “These animals did not choose where they were born. My Vantara sanctuary can house them.” Maybe his investments would fare better than brother Akash’s in Mumbai Indians. Good man. #HighOnHippos

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🎨 What was not good was when the great Godrej decided to change its logo to something that screamed AI and, horror of horrors, used one already by a small agency in Australia. Godrej (founder to the left), and its signature logo, stood for trust, quality and heritage. The new one, apart from being a copy of someone else’s logo, looks like a reversed logo of the idly-dosa company iD Fresh Food. Can you shoot yourself in your foot? Which foot? #LogoBlock

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🧱 Talking of food and blocks, here is Texan Matthew Hine, who frequented two hawker centres in Singapore: Melvin Soh’s Toast Hut and Rahmath Cheese Prata. Ang mohs flocking to hawker centre? Normal, you say? Hine was so happy with them that hecreated miniature Lego 3-D models of the stalls and gifted them to the emotional owners. If a toast and coffee or prata and curry took five minutes to make, Hine took 9 months. There is no end line to human creativity. #MaxiLoveMinature

Views are personal. Any hurt unintentional.
Till the next one...

Photos/News Courtesy: The Straits Times, CNA, Forbes, NPR, NDTV, BBC, TOI, MSN

GBUF - Jan 2026

#sriGINthoughts #GBUF #GoodBadUglyFunny #MonthThatWas #January2026

Well, the month that was... 

Views are personal. Any hurt unintended. 

Enjoy. [3 min read]