Funny Old World

In a book review Professor VEDAGIRI SHANMUGASUNDARAM writes: “Funny Old World’ — the same words that Margaret Thatcher used at her last cabinet meeting to describe her experience as Britain’s Prime Minister. Here, Patten attempts to satirise nation states. ‘Mushroom Clouds’ is about nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation. Patten notes how the US and some other countries attempted to block the re-election of Mohammed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in 2005, because he advocated a strict and firm inspection schedule. Ironically, ElBaradei went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize the same year….best in Chapter 15, where he writes about a world without borders, a world invested in creativity, rationality and kindness. It is the grandfather in him, as he has remarked, that hopes and wishes for a better place for coming generations….Sir Winston Churchill once called a “third-rate watering place”, has now become the symbol of India’s IT might”..