June 30, 2004

Out of the frying pan into the fire

In sinhala there is a proverb that can be loosely translated to say "being gored by a bull after falling from a tree". Somewhat akin to the english proverb "out of the frying pan into the fire". That seems to...
Posted by raditha at 5:34 AM

June 29, 2004

I don't give too hoots about democracy.

Can you hazard a guess who might have said that? is it Roberr Mugabe? Saddam Hussein you are wrong. How about the ayatollah? wrong again. The headline of the daily mirror reads "I don't care 'two hoots' to Opposition: CBK"....
Posted by raditha at 5:24 AM

June 28, 2004

Back to Colombo

It's back to Colombo from The Great Western and it's amazing what difference a mere 140 kilometer can make in this country. The temperature never rose above 17'C during our stay their, today the temparature in Colombo is nudging close...
Posted by raditha at 5:16 AM

June 27, 2004

The spirit of a monster will endure

According to the minister of finance the railyway system in sri lanka is a monster that gobbles up vital resources, woefully inefficient overstaffed and corrupt. That's probably why the previous government attempted to restructure it. No government has had the...
Posted by raditha at 1:48 AM

June 26, 2004

Don't act like dogs and donkeys

That is apparently what a magistrate had told a police officer (according to the newspapers). This come in the wake of a huge muddle to arrest a senior minister of the previous government (a member of the present parliament) Both...
Posted by raditha at 5:12 AM

June 25, 2004

back to Great Western

It's back to Great Western after a gap of nearly two months and what a change it is from colombo. Although colombo has been getting it's share of rainy and mild weather for the last two months that seemed to...
Posted by raditha at 9:37 PM

June 24, 2004

Press Release: From oral tradition to audio book

The first audio book from Sri Lanka, "the saadhu testament", using synthesized speech, will be launched on the 25th of this month. It is another first by the Sri Lankan author daya dissanayake, who is convinced that the future of...
Posted by raditha at 4:25 AM

June 23, 2004

Monsters

"As Finance minister I am burdened to look after four monsters namely the CPC (Ceylon Petrolium Corporation), the CEB (Ceylon Electricity Board) the CTB (Central Transport Board) and the CGR (Ceylon General Rail)." That ladies and gentlemen was the minister...
Posted by raditha at 4:21 AM

June 22, 2004

The UNP, Gobbels and Arithmatic

Some time ago I wrote about how poor the UPFA is at simple arithmatic. Apparently the UNP is no better. They have still not noticed that (22/3) * 2 = 14.67 and not 14 as claimed by the UPFA advertisments...
Posted by raditha at 2:40 PM

June 21, 2004

Petrol

A senior governement minister appeared on television to state that the price of petrol and diesel will not be increased any time soon. Since the UPFA usually does the opposite of what they say you can rest assured that the...
Posted by raditha at 2:14 PM

June 20, 2004

Scammers Paradise

A tourism promotion theme in the old days used to be 'Sri Lanka Paradise', then as the Hikkaduwa area achieved international notoriety for sex tourim, people started to say 'Sri Lanka gay paradise' and the term fell out of use...
Posted by raditha at 1:04 PM

June 19, 2004

War mongers have won.

"Will the cease fire hold?" You are behind the times. That is a question no longer worth asking. More suitable is to ask "When will the war break out again?" or perhaps "Who will strike first?" or better still "Where...
Posted by raditha at 2:10 PM

June 18, 2004

End of the road for small business?

During the ten years or so when the UPFA which was then the PA governed the country the economic growth was minimal. Finally it went into recession during 2000. Many of the businesses that were worst effected were the smaller...
Posted by raditha at 11:26 AM

June 17, 2004

3 months salary for 4 days of work.

I kid you not. This is the happy situation that 225 Sri Lankans are faced with. All indications are they may get 4 months of pay for 5 days of work. It's true that their salary is a small compared...
Posted by raditha at 12:38 PM

June 16, 2004

and the dollar jumped over the moon

So far this year the dollar as appreciated by over 5% against the Sri Lankan rupee, if anything the rate of change seems to be increasing over the last few days, are we run on the rupee? The government and...
Posted by raditha at 12:27 PM

June 15, 2004

The unkidest cut or censorship

A monk almost had the unkindest cut of all delivered to him in parliament administered by thugs masquerading in the guise of members of parliament. While this priest is still in hospital, the government is getting ready for another kind...
Posted by raditha at 12:44 PM

June 14, 2004

Dummy with the left hook with the right

That appears to be the government strategy with the power supply projects. Today they might make bold statements about going ahead with the upper kothmale hydro power project, while quitely making preparations to go ahead with the coal power project....
Posted by raditha at 1:50 AM

June 13, 2004

Blame it on the monks

The UPFA has a grudge against the monks. Their decision to contest the recent elections deprived the UPFA the platform they were occupying. After the spin doctoring, re-positioning and retoric what eventually happened was that people who had voted in...
Posted by raditha at 2:38 PM

June 12, 2004

The Wedding

While in school and university I made up every excuse to avoid weddings. If you are invited to a wedding, especially that of a close friend or relative, there's no 'but' you have to go. Yet until the year in...
Posted by raditha at 3:56 AM

June 11, 2004

The Home Coming

Yesterday I attended 'Home-coming'. Not sure if this is something that's practiced in other parts of the world, but in Sri Lanka, the wedding ceremony (and of course the honeymoon) is followed by the home coming which is a small...
Posted by raditha at 3:51 AM

June 10, 2004

Flogger

Yesterday the picturesque Negombo lagoon recieved the single biggest piece of junk that has been thrown into it in recent years. It was a MIG 27 fighter air craft belonging to the Sri Lanka Air Force. Since more SLAF fighters...
Posted by raditha at 2:31 AM

June 9, 2004

Priest Asaulted in Parliament

Two monks have been man handled, the speaker has been verbally abused, the mace hidden away, it's all in a days work for the thugs masquerading as members of parliament from the UPFA. If that's not enough at a press...
Posted by raditha at 9:22 AM

June 8, 2004

Four Blind Mice

Just finished reading the Four blind mice by James Patterson. In all honesty it's not much of a book. Though it does have a bit of intrigue in it, it's not very well written. In other words the book does...
Posted by raditha at 6:07 AM

June 7, 2004

Tiruchelvam, Murali and Racism

The other day, there was an article in the papers published by Nirgunan Tiruchelvam. It had been reproduced from an Indian Journal. The story is ostensibly about Murali but it's really about racism. Not the kind of racism that I...
Posted by raditha at 2:00 PM

June 6, 2004

World Enviornment day

Yesterday was wolrd enviorenment day. The city's sanitation workers were probably taking part in some ceremony, that's why they forgot to pick up the garbage. There is a myriad of ceremonies, (often lorded over by petty politians) 300 days of...
Posted by raditha at 2:51 AM

No Sale

Mr Thondaman, leader of the CWC has shown once again that this country does have hope, but only if the good people work together. As someone once said all that's needed to triumph is for good men to do nothing....
Posted by raditha at 2:33 AM

June 5, 2004

The Lord of the Rings

Finally I succumbed to temptation and decided to watch the lord of the rings movies. That means I no longer bleong to that (persecuted) minority of people who have read the book and not seen the movie. The films were...
Posted by raditha at 2:40 AM

The Return of the Koel

The Koel returned yesterday with the possible intention of laying one of her own eggs in the sparrows' nest. I have not heard of koels devouring other birds so I think it's unlikely that the hatchlings who have just left...
Posted by raditha at 2:24 AM

June 4, 2004

Baby's Day Out

Yesterday was the first day out for the baby sparrows. There are two of them, they had taken their first steps out of the nest to catch the last rays of the sun. They can't fly yet, the chicks move...
Posted by raditha at 1:56 PM

June 3, 2004

4.5 Billion Dollars down the drain

Last year around this time, donor countries pledged around 4.5 billion dollars of funding for Sri Lanka. When it happened the PA (now the UPFA) was in opposition. They were highly critical of the UNF for securing this aid package....
Posted by raditha at 10:03 AM

June 2, 2004

It was the sparrow's nest

It was the sparrow's nest that attracted the Koel the other day. She probably found this particular nest a cause for confusion. Sparrows are extremely attached to humans. Instead of dwelling deep in the forest they choose to live in...
Posted by raditha at 1:59 AM

June 1, 2004

Award for inefficiency

Surely the Ceylon Electricity Board and the ministry of power and energy are the two most in effective organizations in Sri Lanka. However not everyone will agree. The police might say the title belongs to them. Other will argue that...
Posted by raditha at 4:03 PM

 

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