Dear Your Excellency,
With the forthcoming Presidential election looming larger than a huge thing hovering over a tiny thing, perhaps even larger, I think the time is right to outline my conditions for my support. According to Blogger I have the grand total of sixteen people who are now official followers, I feel that my support for any candidate could gain between ten and fourteen of those votes, a large sum by anyone's standards.
Here they are:
1. Embarkation cards - You know when Suddhas leave Sri Lanka, well there needs to be better signage to tell them / us that we need to fill out an embarkation card. Otherwise they queue up to get their passport checked, making the queues longer for all of us, only to be told to go over there and fill out the form.
2. Odel - Please sort out the mens' department. And also we could do with a down escalator. Why is there just the one, why does it go up, then get us to the wrong floor? These are important issues.
3. Freedom of speech - I reckon it's a good thing and should be encouraged. Dissent is usually constructive and helps people to formulate decent opinions and ideas. Violent protest, terrorism and hateful behaviour aren't good things, most people would agree, not that I've spoken to most people. Get rid of the "if you're not with us you're against us" mentality, start a "you can be with us and disagree" one.
4. Barefoot devilled King Prawns - Please get rid of this delectable dish from the specials menu. It's all well and good to enjoy when a fellow's there but dwelling on the taste and the aroma from my desk on a December morning in West London is quite painful and makes my mouth water. It's not as painful as nailing your balls to a wall but you probably get what I mean. Just ask DD, he'll no doubt agree with me.
5. A Sri Lankan passport - May I have one please? My parents are Sri Lankan, as were their parents. I feel Sri Lankan and love the place, for all its madness and sheer frustration, for its beauty and serendipity. I'd quite like to get one without the need for thousands of pounds to change hands and be verified by all sorts of people, most of whom we're all related to anyway.
6. Release the IDPs.
That's it really. I suppose some of these things are easier for you to do than others, but just imagine if you lost the election by ten votes or so. To be honest with you I'm not too fussed about the whole embarkation card signage business. I actually find it quite funny to watch the tourists get turned back after queuing up.
I'd be happy to come to your house sometime if you want to hear more, I think I know roughly where it is. I can't come on Friday though as I'm on a diabetes clinic thing.
Good luck and all.
RD
Sri Lanka’s Ingenuity paradox
2 weeks ago
15 comments:
My man, trust me, you DON'T want a Sri Lankan passport. It's useless, and you'd lose all the privileges you enjoy now with your one. The passport I mean.
:D
If you like, I'll send him an sms and ask him when he's free.
Sach - Call me greedy, but I wasn't planning on giving up the Brit one, I'd really like to have both!
DQ - Yes please, tell him I'll bring some cutlets too.
GDMRD!
Dual citizenship - Yes we can. But it also means that next time you travel, especially in the west, you will need to get a visa for the Paradise PPT, despite the UK! The only thing that holds me back.
The grilled prawns at Barefoot - Agree with you wholeheartedly. The thing is can we hold that off until Jan next year as I hope to partake this dish in the very near future!
DD - Yes, I know we can have it but getting the SL side is a complicated and pretty expensive procedure. I wasn't aware of the visa implications though.
GM2U2!
I have a feeling DD's mistaken with the visa thing...I have a lot of friends with dual citizenship and they leave their SL passport at home when they're travelling anywhere except SL.
As good a list as can be had, in my opinion.
Pseudo - Yes, I have seen the same as you. Would be interested to hear more from DD on this one though.
JP - Thank you, high praise indeed.
LOVING this!... hilarious stuff :)
RD - this is a good and simple list.
As for the passport thing, I really commend you on that. I've always felt Sri Lanka treats people who want citizenship here very badly. I know someone who's father is British but has lived here for the last 30 years, his mother is Sri Lankan and he and his brother were born here and have lived here all their life. It's a tragedy - because the British don't consider them British enough to get any of the benefits (they only have the passports) and they live here, in their own country, on residence visas and unable to do a lot of things due to their foreign nationality. Another friend grew up in Germany, born to a German father and Sri Lankan mother and came back here to live and work - and after many years and a lot of money he was granted his citizenship this year. And I know so many of these cases - and in order to get citizenship, as you are saying, it's a lot of money to be spent and many years to be wasted waiting, bribing and hanging around government offices. How sad that we don't make it easier for people who CHOOSE this country.
Macho's
You can't just leave one PPT at home and travel. Dual means - Just that - both PPT's will be noted officially with this fact. The only time it won't apply is if you are traveling between the two countries that you hold dual to.
Travelled in Europe recently with someone who had dual. While it was not difficult, they had to get visa on their SL PPT.
New laws with this whole 'war against terror'.
It becomes a nightmare if you travel to Eastern Europe and the USA for obvious reasons.
RD while it's expensive its not really difficult to get dual in UK through our High Commission in London. Time consuming yes on their part of it.
Electra - thank you. Yes, I think it's sad too. There must be so many people who want dual nationality and it's the Sri Lankan side of the equation that makes it a hard thing to achieve.
DD - I wonder if there's a difference between the theory and the practice. I know quite a few people who travel on either passport, depending on where they're going. Maybe it's only if you volunteer the info that you've got 2 passports that the problems occur?
The new chipped PPT's will definitely identify you as holding dual. Check with someone who has travelled recently because this getting a visa for your SL PPT is relatively new, but definitely on.
BTW do you think they will give us a two for one deal at the High Commission? After all recession and all no?
DD - Yes, I'll definitely look into this further.
I think you could be onto something, Tesco, Asda, they all do so many buy one get one free offers, why not the High Commission also? As long as we can use my photograph, not your's!
Hah ha ha, entertaining post. Just to add to the passport thingy, I think its another case of special treatment for Sri Lankans. I travelled to Lebanon with a Canadian/Palestinian friend who just put his Egyptian passport in the bag the moment Saudi immigration put the exit stamp. (You know Palestines don’t have passports, right?) He uses his surrogate Egyptian passport only in Saudi Arabia, because he has a resident visa on that.
Hell, just keep the British passport and get a National ID from Sri Lanka, that’ll do!
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