This week, we’re...

With the pro-waxxers. It’s November. Mariah Carey has defrosted. And she’s brought back-up. A new wax figure of the singer was unveiled at Madame Tussauds in NYC. It’s so good, so lifelike, that most people do a double take when they see the two together. After so many years of wax-figure fails (never forget how they did Nicki Minaj and Chris Hemsworth wrong), we’re just happy that dummy lookalikes are cool again.

Missing the action. In 2001, there was Gadar vs Lagaan. In 2004, there was Veer-Zaara vs Aitraaz. In 2007, Om Shanti Om and Saawariya released on Diwali. How did it go so wrong in 2024? Diwali blockbusters just aren’t blockbustering. Singham Again vs Bhool Bhulaaiya 3 is probably the lamest showdown, ever. Pfft!

J walking. At a recent Taylor Swift concert, one fan, Paige Gross, wore a white dress and asked other Swifties to write the name of the “smallest man that ever lived” on the fabric. Fans immediately bonded over the activity – there were the usual Dylans and Evans, Trump and Kanye. Strangely, a lot of J-names too, which checks out. Everybody knows a toxic person whose name starts with J, right?

Taking sides. Martha Stewart, Ryan Reynolds’s neighbour, has said that he isn’t funny in real life. Hugh Jackman immediately agreed: “Finally someone said it”. The two men have been playfully feuding for years. So, Jackman likely doesn’t mean it. Stewart’s comment, at least, makes the rest of us admit that dear Deadpool isn’t worth half the hype. #SorryNotSorry

Keeping our peanut salaries. Sarthak Sachdeva’s research into the momo street-vendor business (he basically shadowed one guy in Delhi for what looks like one evening) suggests that if we started selling momos every day, we’d make ₹30 lakh a year. Here’s what he hasn’t accounted for: Labour, logistics, storage, salaries, bribes, off-seasons, even disposable plates. Revenue is not the same as profit. Stay in school, Sarthak.

Blinded by the lights. Don’t get us wrong. We love that men are paying more attention to what they wear. But who told Indian guys to wear the exact same almost-see-through, shimmery kurta this Diwali? Who made this the Diwali template?

Asking kids for advice. Elementary school teachers in the US have been giving their little students half of a popular proverb, asking them to guess the rest. The made-up answers are smarter. “Two wrongs... don’t feel good.” “Don’t make a mountain out of... ice, because it will melt.” “You can lead a horse to the water, but... it’s difficult”. “Don’t cry over spilled... tea”.“If you can’t beat ’em...give up.” That kid gets it.

Doubly confused. Blake Lively’s It Ends With Us featured domestic violence but was promoted as a frothy rom-com. Now, Shashanka Chaturvedi’s Do Patti mixes up the message. Twin sisters, one sweet and the other spicy, get back at the sweet one’s abusive husband by swapping places and making a public show of the violence, just for the proof. Then, oddly, it emerges that their father had abused their mother. Keep it simple, people.

Rekindling our faith. A lost Mayan city has been discovered inside the jungle of Campeche in Mexico. Archaeologists unearthed pyramids, sports fields and causeways, and believe that as many as 50,000 people lived there between 750 and 850 AD. Canadian archaeologist William Gadoury must be cheering. Two years ago, he worked out that a lost Mayan city existed in Mexico. He didn’t find it, but then, Mayan predictions rarely unfold as expected.

Read Also: Being a hero: Why Gurfateh Pirzada is the greenest flag on screen