Objects In The Mirror....

....may be closer than they appear.

So said the little stickered bit of writing on the American Cadillac El Dorado or whatever it was called that I pulled up next to the other day.

I heard a head teacher being interviewed on the radio the other day. She'd been asked exactly how schools make the decision whether to open or close at the moment, in view of the extremely snowy conditions we're facing here. All the kids love a day off school, the parents are usually less enthusiastic.

This head teacher went on to explain that, in this litigious ambulance chasing society we've suddenly found ourselves living in, through no fault of our own of course, they have to consider very seriously the possibility of being sued, or the threat of being sued, if a child, or anyone for that matter, falls on ice and gets injured.

The commercial radio station we have on in the background at work is awash with adverts for no win no fee compensation seeking companies. "Have you had an accident lately?" "Have you fallen over recently? Then call us, you may be entitled to compensation." they scream at us.

Life over here is like that. It's getting to the stage where someone has to be at fault for everything, not the same person, but you know what I mean. Slip over on some ice and someone's accountable. And, by accountable I mean that you can get money from them. You don't even have to be injured, you just have to be prepared to say you're injured.

Have a car accident here, go to your Doctor and tell him you've got whiplash and you get a certificate. Then you get money. You have to make a couple of phone calls and sign something to say you're telling the truth and that's about it.

In Lanka of course things are different. I like that. There you can drive into a sixty foot pothole on the Galle Road, fall down to the bottom of it, get eaten by deadly poisonous snakes, then get electrocuted just for good measure and it's an act of God, one of those things. The official verdict will be something like "death by falling down a pothole and snake bites and electrocution", the important thing is that no one's responsible.

On those very rare occasions where someone is responsible they usually suffer a fatal illness while in custody or have to hurriedly exit Sri Lanka for the most urgent of medical treatment. Allegedly.

If a chap had an accident in Sri Lanka and he was driving an American car, one of the ones with the "objects in the mirror" thing, he could probably claim that he wasn't at fault because he was too busy looking at the mirror, reading the text, which I reckon would be ironic.

I do yearn a bit for the days when people would slip over and not sue someone, just accept that bad stuff happens and get on with their day. The days when Americans would have accidents and not blame it on their wing mirrors making the image too small. Not that their cars are ever fast enough to have accidents, but you know.

Have a good week out there. We've got more snow and the fun and games that entails.

My Thoughts On The Election

With only a couple of weeks to go until the Presidential election things are hotting up and reminding me of everything that is bad about politics the world over.

The mudslinging is relentless and the arms of the slingers are rotating like those of a cartoon character throwing, well mud at a wall. I was chatting to an old friend at lunchtime yesterday about the imminent general election here in the UK and was I remarked on how governments, Prime Ministers and Presidents are voted out, never in.

Some would jump up and say that Barack Obama was voted in, but I beg to differ. Dubya was voted out for bad grammar, we all know that.

MR's campaign is seemingly being paid for by state funds and based around pointing out the things that are so wrong about SF. SF's campaign isn't being paid for by state funds and largely consists of saying bad things about the Rajapaksas.

And then we all know that the few positive election promises made by both of them will be reneged upon anyway. The MR supporters tell people not to vote for SF as he'll never actually abolish the executive presidency as he has promised to do, but MR promised and failed on that count too. So it's better to vote for the chap who's failed on one count than on the one who'll no doubt fail on the same count if he gets the chance.

I'm glad I'm not eligible to vote. It would be a Hobson's choice for me; do I vote for the bloke who has never really run a country during peacetime or do I vote for the other one? Do I vote for the crook or the patriot? I'm as confused as a fart in a colander.

Vut too dooo?

Which way to go?

I know, I'd vote for the one with the moustache.

Here In London Town

The big freeze is settling in for what the weather experts are telling us is going to be some time. This morning I left home early, about six or so and drove over icy roads with my car telling me that it was as low as minus six outside.

Driving is precarious fun. Last night it took me an hour to do a fifteen minute journey. At times my car was wheelspinning from rest. That is, I'd accelerate just to move off and the wheels would spin wildly as they failed to get any traction on the road.

I remembered the tips my old Danish Uncle taught me when I was about seventeen; try to brake as little as possible, use the gears to slow down and stay in as high a gear as possible. They actually take a fair bit of discipline but make a big difference. To a driver it's instinctive to slam the right foot on the brake in times of panic, sometimes these things have to be unlearned. And, when I say stay in a high gear, I mean be in third when you'd normally be in second, that kind of thing. I'm never really sure if third gear is a higher or lower one than second, but I understand the theory.

It's getting so cold that they tell us grit on the roads won't be much use, schools are closed and the rest of our infrastructure is struggling to handle the situation, like a tree sagging and struggling with the weight of snow.

As I sit at my desk and write this I'm feeling a bit like a batsman facing Murali. The balls coming at me are varied, from one colleague texting to say she can't make it in through the snow, another ringing in sick to a customer calling to see if they'll get their collection today. Which, come to think of it, is not really anything like a batsman would have to face, but it's just a simile, there's no need for you to split

It's only just gone eight in the morning and the fifteen year old has called to excitedly inform me that their school is closed. Her and her sister are going to be out with the toboggan today. That makes me smile, it's an old wooden one that was given to me and my brothers in 1981 when we went to Denmark one Christmas. I was fifteen then and we had the best snow filled Christmas you can imagine. The divorced Dad in me wishes I could close the office door and go and play in the snow with the girls.

I'm wearing my new DM shoes, the perfect footgear for the conditions, practical yet stylish too. There are extra warm socks on the RD feet and I even have a hat and a scarf.

It's funny to read the Lankan blogs, to see the facebook pictures and statuses of people there. Our respective climatic conditions couldn't be more contrasting and they're both fun in such different ways.

Then, in other areas, I've got three new songs to learn by Monday. There's Sunflower by Paul Weller, a rocked up and stripped down version of Poker Face, as done by You Me At Six and Uprising by Muse. Three really brilliant choons that will be quite challenging for me in varying aspects.

My birthday yesterday was one of the best ever, surrounded by the people that mean the most to me. Thank you for the wishes.

That my friends, is the latest from auld London town.

The Ectoplasmic Mystery Solved

In the kitchen bit in RD Towers I've got a stainless steel wall of sorts. You can see it in the picture, in between the top of the work surfaces and the bottom of the cupboards. It's a classic case of form over function. It looks nice, it's trendy and sexy and it's about as easy to clean as the mind of many a male Sri Lankan bus passenger at the sight of a woman, one with breasts.

And, on the other side of the equation, I have a cleaner. We'll call her P, she's from Bulgaria I believe, though it may be Romania. She can't speak much English except bits about money and prices and times and she's not particularly talented in the whole cleaning thing either. Some might say that she's not ideal for the role. Before you ask, no, she's not in the least bit good looking either.

As all cleaners do she charges me an hourly rate, supposedly for two hours of work. Then she whizzes around the place in far less than the two hours, takes the money I leave her and pretends that she's been there for the full whack. I actually wouldn't mind this in the least if she did a good job. Generally she doesn't and eventually, when I can be bothered to stop complaining and do something about it, I'll stop complaining and do something about it, like sack her and get a new person to do the job.

In the meantime I make do with Eastern European P, as Darwin would no doubt call her.

At this stage of my post I feel a sense of satisfaction. I've introduced the stainless steel wall to you, my reader, and I've also introduced Eastern European P, or EEP as we'll call her. I guess the next thing to do is to bring them together, to blend all the ingredients into a nice cake, perhaps a chocolate biscuit pudding.

Well, the thing is that every Thursday, which is when EEP does her thing, though it used to be Wednesday but she asked if she could change the day, she attempts to clean the stainless steel wall. Every Thursday evening when I get home from work, until last week, I would look at the stainless steel wall and it would make me feel surprised, bewildered, a bit startled and slightly scared, like Dinidu must have felt when he saw his first naked woman.

For the stainless steel wall would be cleanish, with smears and the appearance as if it was bleeding. It was like something from a horror film, as if there was ectoplasm being expelled from it. I know about these things from Ghostbusters and other academic studies. The ectoplasm was clear (I'm not sure if all ectoplasm is clear or is you can get the stuff in different colours) and would slowly ooze down the wall. It smelled funny and was oily to the touch, it had that familiar sense to it, like an old friend whose name you can't recall.

Talking to EEP is quite an arduous task for two reasons. The first being that I'm rarely at home when she pretends to be there doing her two hours, the second is that her command of English is only slightly better than that time when Dinidu saw his first naked woman. She's rarely able to get a word out, let alone a sentence that makes sense. I suspect she might be quite good at the old Bulgarian, but I'm not.

The result is that all our communication is by text message and each session of textual intercourse must make the predictive text part of EEP's phone want to commit suicide. I tell you all this to explain why I haven't done what might seem to be a simple task and just ask her what the story about the ectoplasm is.

Then, lo and behold, the other day I solved the mystery.

EEP has a bucket full of Bulgarian cleaner's equipment that I very kindly allow her to keep in the coat cupboard, the one by the front door. I was going through it, looking for my new specially formulated cloth that I'd bought at great expense a few days before. My first finding was the cloth, which annoyed me anyhow. My second finding was a bottle, a clear one, one that was out of place.

It was a bottle of.........


......baby oil.

I knew straight away that this was the mysterious ectoplasm. Damn, I tell you. Or I ask you.

What on earth do they teach these people at Bulgarian cleaning school? Presumably they reckon the trick to clean a stainless steel wall is to smear baby oil all over it. Pffff is all I can say.

So, if you are bulgarian and you've been to one of their cleaning schools then please explain what goes on there. Also, while we're here, if you can tell me how to ask EEP to stop using the baby oil on my wall, in Bulgarian, I'd be eternally grateful. It's a sentence that I must get entirely correct, or things could go so wrong.

And Now We Are 2010

You'd think that my first post of the year might be one of those humorous and stimulating ones, regaling you with stories of my festive period and the incredible things that happened to me and my loved ones.

No, not because those things didn't happen, more because I'm lacking in inspiration. It's an interesting concept to me, not so much about what has happened but more about how a person views the events and is able to narrate them afterwards.

Here I am, back at my desk and about to deal with a bit of a work crisis that has loomed up out of the calm and quietness that was the past week or so. If I had a penny for each time I've thought that life would be easy if it wasn't for staff or customers I reckon I'd have about twenty four pence, sadly no way near enough to retire on.

The Lankanosphere is predictably filled and dominated by posts about the presidential election. Some are interesting but mostly I find myself feeling fortunate that I'm not a voter there. Why? Because neither candidate would be my choice yet not voting seems a waste. I don't envy you lot, I really don't.

I went to Scotland you know. Me and C drove up there to spend a few days with her friend. It was a nice and relaxing time with good company and fun and laughter. Edinburgh was covered in snow like one of those Danish Christmas cards. The drive there and back was fun and hard in a concentrating all the time sort of way.

At one point the driving machine told us that the outside temperature was seven degrees in the negative. The roads were mostly clear and gritted but demanded my attention at all times. The drive from Edinburgh to the motorway was about an hour's worth on an A road that was a mixture of every driving condition you can think of, except heated ones of course.

The snow laden scenery was spectacular. There were so many points at which I wanted to pull the car over, get out and take photographs but stopping on a narrow road in those conditions might have resulted in some fantastic pictures at a very high cost. We made do with C taking some picture on my phone.

The trees looked like intricate sculptures, the heavy snow making each one droop with an eyecatching delicateness. I reckon that God, should he or she exist and should he or she ever get bored of running everything, could easily get work as a sculptor or pehaps even an interior designer.

At one point we drove through a small village and just about every house had ginormous icicles hanging down from the roof. They were deadly and beautiful looking things, maybe like some would describe Angelina Jolie, not me though as she's not my type.

The trip also gave me a chance to fully road test the new Kindle. It passed the extensive range of RD tests with flying colours and I finished my first Kindle book, the third in the dangerously addictive series by the late Stieg Larsson. If you fancy a good thriller chock full of interesting but at times stereotypical charcters, then I'd recommend you go out and buy yourself the first of Mr Larsson's books. Whatever you do make sure you start with the first one and then move through the next two in order, trust me on that one.

Then, we get back and I find out that TMS has only gone and retired. What the WTF? as the youth these days say, when they're not writing Lankan political posts. It sounds to me as if she's about to embark on a journey, not one to Edinburgh in the snow, I mean one of life's ones. I wish her well and thank her for the words and for letting us into her mind, just a bit.

I'll be off then. I really must get on with the award writing stuff too.

PS - It's my birthday, keep it quiet though.

And The Box Contained......

I battled bravely through the mental trials and tribulations and managed to take home the box without opening it and revealing its contents. I didn't even, as Rikaz had suggested, bung the barcode numbers into Amazon's website and deviously find out the answer. Nor did I go down the DQ route and open it using the old "this is all for the greater good, be a man" excuse.

Also, while we're on the subject, I'm not lying to you, I'm not using the widely utilised "write a post pretending I hadn't opened it" tactic when in actual fact I had. The truth is out there and it's in here, truth be told.

I found out the answer on Christmas day. I did a bit of unwrapping, something I'm fairly good at, and discovered one of the best presents I've ever received; an Amazon Kindle, one of these rather fantastical book reader things.

In case you don't know or haven't figured it out a book reader is not a bloke who follows you around reading books out aloud, or even silently. No, it's an electronic device that enables a fellow to buy and store up to about a thousand books or so. Then, that same fellow can read them on a screen, a clever and pin sharp screen that kind of has the solidity to it that the printed word does.

The screen's not like any screen I've viewed before. It's a tough thing to explain, what with my lack of descriptive powers, but it's got a total lack of flicker and movement to it. You know as you read this on a monitor there's a brightness and sense of animation and illumination to it, well the image on the Kindle screen justs sits there in a kind of high definition greyness. I mean that in a good way, it's really rather amazing.

You view a page, press a button to go to the next one and the image changes in an instant, to another page that stays totally and utterly still, stiller than a barman in a Colombo 5 star hotel tomorrow night.

This device has got its own wireless built in somehow, I'll be buggered if I know how it works. What I do know is that I buy a book from Amazon then it gets sent through the airwaves directly to my Kindle. There's no syncing with a computer like with iPods and iTunes and the like. According to the blurb the global wireless thing operates all over the world, probably why they call it "global wireless", so in theory I can even do it in Colombo.

I have to go to the Amazon.com site rather than the UK one, a bit of a bummer I must admit. These American readers lean towards self help, motivational how to beat everyone around you books and novels by chaps called Jack or Chuck. It's only a minor negative and I assume that, in time, Kindle books will be available on the UK Amazon site too. The price of books is about the same or less than the real thing, so I'm not forced into a situation where I have to pay through the nose for the things.

All in all it means I can take a shed load of books around with me in a smallish package wherever I go. This is exciting, good and fun. Of course coffee table books are nigh on impossible to reproduce in this format. Even if the scientists could make a screen that would be colourful and high enough in definition the smell, the feel and the sound of a real book would be missing. Not all books are currently available and most of my shelves full of books on or about Sri Lanka only exist on paper in ink.

At first I thought that reading text on a screen, pressing buttons to turn a page and generally moving around the Kindle would be a big change, perhaps too drastic a one, from reading paper books. I was wrong. After about a day of reading and feeling very conscious of the new medium I realised that I'd begun to do ita naturally and was as engrossed in my e book as I would have been if it were a book book. I've still got some things to get used to but I know that they'll follow.

For example there's no such thing as page numbers as we know them. Why would there be? I can change the size of the text to suit my liking and therefore the number of pages in any given book is a moveable feast. Instead of page numbers there are locations to each point in the book, like Stardates as used by the Captain of the USS Enterprise.

I've been buying books just for the fun of it, the need to chuck them on the Kindle will die I hope, though my bank manager and Mr Amazon are both quite happy about it. I've bought, for next to nothing I might add, the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes and all the Jeeves and Wooster stories ever written. I'll probably never read the Holmes stuff and I more or less know all the Jeeves stories backwards anyway, but they seemed like good things to have.

Well there you have it, a truly stunning present. You know me, I love a good gadget.

See you in the next decade. May your celebrations be banging and your year be a fine one.

Cous Cous - So Bad They Named It Twice

Hello all, welcome back on this, the first Monday after the season. It's been a good one over in these parts. C's here, A and K have been in and out, and things have been fun, festive and food filled.

Cooking has been a thread, and a pleasant one at that. I'm fond of attempting to do my thang in the kitchen and, even if I say it myself, I'm getting reasonably good at some dishes. Truth be told the dishes I'm better at tend to be the ones that have a second name that sounds like "curry", it must be something in the blood I reckon.

I'll tell you what though, cooking for one, as I usually do, is a pain in the arse. On Wednesdays and alternate Fridays I get to cook for the girls, which is nice though not conducive for stretching my culinary abilities.

The rest of the time, when it's only me hovering round, cooking a decent meal involves a lot of effort for the satisfaction of one person's enjoyment; me. And when it's only me around it doesn't really matter anyway. I could lie, just pretend that the meal was gorgeous and no one would know anyhow.

Having C floating around means that I get to try out new recipes, I can flaunt my prowess on the cooker, flex my culinary muscles and generally make attempts to tickle her taste buds with my delectable dishes. She can attempt to do the same to me, and has.

The other night she made a lamb thing, a tajine I believe it was called. It was seriously delicious, in one of those melt in the mouth sort of ways. But there was a problem. It came in the shape of cous cous, surely the most evil and unnecessary invention ever, second only to the service charge on a restaurant bill.

I can't stand cous cous. It tastes of nothing except the little flavouring that's sometimes added to it in the cooking process. It has the texture of sand and the succulence of feathers. You may be interested to know what it's made from and exactly how it's made, I'm not though.

I say all of this from my position as a general lover of all things carbohydrate. Rice, noodles, pasta, hoppers and string hoppers are some of my best buddies, some of the friends that accompanied me through my formative years. Cous cous is the old enemy, the class idiot that no one ever liked.

C cooked this tajine thing and asked me whether I'd eat cous cous with it. She'd smuggled a packet of the stuff into RD Towers earlier in the week. I felt as if my kitchen had been violated but, even now it lurks in a cupboard just behind me. Knowing my strong feelings C kindly offered to make me a separate portion of rice. That was cruel, I couldn't say yes to it, I know about these women traps. I gallantly said that I'd eat the cous cous, even though I hate it.

We served our food and the cous cous had that dry and dangerous look, as though it was teasing me with little whispered taunts.

"Look at me RD, I'm so nearly rice, but I'm not". I could hear hear it saying.

I put some on my plate, added butter, salt, pepper and sauce, then tasted it. I'd managed to persuade C to add some chicken stock to it in the cooking process so I did quite enjoy the sensation of chicken stock, salt, pepper and the sauce from the tajine, it was only the dry feathery nothingness of the cous cous that was the problem. So much so that I could only eat about two, perhaps three platefuls of it.

It was strangely satisfying. Strange because all the flavouring was delicious, it was just the substance that wasn't. I suppose it was like watching and enjoying a film when the lead role is played by the actor you most detest in the whole world. I couldn't help but enjoy it yet would so much have preferred the lead to have been played by Tommy Lee Jones, Miley Cyrus or one of those other thespians types.

Despite that I shan't be repeating the cous cous thing. When C does leave here I'll probably make her take the packet of cous cous with her, or give it to charity or something.

While I remember why on earth is it called "cous cous'? I mean why the same name twice? It's not New York, which in reality isn't so good they named it twice. Rice isn't called "rice rice", I can't think of any other food that's got a doubled up name. I suppose Reggae Reggae sauce might squeeze in but you're unlikely to have heard of that.

I'll leave you with that question. I've got a sublime beef and potato curry on the go, courtesy of Channa Dassanayaka, and I must go and put the rice on. Mmmmm....that's more like it.

A Very Merry Christmas To You

There we were, me and C, watching TV. I know that rhymes but it was coincidence.

In the middle of some documentary about flies or something, which I was paying next to no attention to as I was busily writing a blog post about old age farts, this advert showed up. For obvious reasons it grabbed my attention.

I felt proud, there were butterflies in my stomach and excitement and joy oozed out of me.

Cool.

Sri Lanka, what a great country to come from.

A happy Christmas to you all, whatever your views, whatever your style, whatever you think of me I wish you the best and thank you for reading LLD this year.

I'll be back soon, with the Lankanosphere awards and more of the same. In fact I'll probably be back before the year is fully done.

RD

What's Happened To Humour In The Lankanosphere?

Seriously.

I've been doing a lot of browsing around the Lankanosphere as research and development for the forthcoming awards and, as far as sidesplittingly funny writing is concerned, there's a distinct lack of it.

The only single blog listed on Kottu that makes me smile, laugh and fart involuntarily is DramaQueen's, but she went and scooped all the awards last year and only writes a post on Thursdays when Halley's comet is clearly visible, occasionally Wednesdays.

There's no shortage of blogs and bloggers who can make me laugh. I've chuckled heartily, like Father Christmas after a night when he's smoked a few too many, at posts by Cerno, Indi, Java and others, but I wouldn't class their blogs as ones that are funny per se.

I've laughed like a demented Hyena leaving the dentist after having some fillings on that troublesome tooth at the back at some of Sittingnut's comments and posts, but something tells me he's not actually trying to be funny.

The "troll" type blogs, those HH Zoltan and Pada Show ones are hit and miss, usually the latter and I fundamentally think that to gain attention by piss taking is quite cheap anyway, far better to create something oneself than mock others.

I've found myself a new funny, no make that hilarious blog. I've been trawling through its archives and I wince and chuckle with equal and copious amounts at just about every sentence. Have a look at it here, I guarantee you'll find it funny. The problem with it is that it's about as Sri Lankan as one of those Great British dishes, like curry.

JCP has morphed into a purely political place and the once clever satire has been replaced by insults and name calling, not my thing really.

I think I'm going to end up with a funniest post award instead of the funniest blog one as I can't find a blog that fits.

So I ask you dear reader. Which Lankan blog posts have you read that made you laugh, that made you pee just a little bit and put a smile on your face in the morning?

Answers on a comment please.

Involuntary Emissions Of A Gaseous Nature

Good morning all on this, the Christmas week, the penultimate week of the decade, unless you're one of those new fangled fellows who believes a decade hasn't begun until the year is one with a one as the last digit in its name.

It's been a while, but events in my life dictate that the time has come. Yes, it's time for a fart post. You see, at the grand old age of forty three I've noticed that the muscles, those in the posterior region, are getting somewhat lazy. This has taken me by surprise for, as you probably know, they're quite well trained and well used, which may actually be part of the problem.

I've discussed the matter with some other chaps of a similar age and they've given firm indications that it's a common issue in us more mature types. Frankly, at the most unexpected and inopportune moments, my inner workings can get together and conjure up a fart out of nothing.

The first time I met C, at Barefoot actually, we were sitting in the garden and had a brief conversation. After some minutes I stood up, laughed at something, as a fellow does, and farted. I had no control over it whatsoever, it just slipped out like one of those phantoms; a ghostly and eerie experience indeed.

When this happens, particularly in front of a sexy piece, the man is left in a quandary. Do you confess to the crime before it's even been discovered, knowing full well that it may not get unearthed anyway? If the wind is in the right direction, quite literally, then there's every chance of committing one of those victimless crimes.

Or do you keep quiet, taking the chance that you might have unleashed a beast and in a matter of seconds all around you will be holding their nose and asking who's dropped one? There's no easy answer, it's a question of judgement that needs to be tackled on a job by job basis.

On this one, in the Barefoot Garden I chose to confess for a couple of reasons. It seemed to me that C would be the sort of woman to be impressed by some fart talk, she had that air of sophistication about her persona. Also I wasn't sure if she had heard the noise or not, so it was better to be upfront than to take the undercover approach. I was right. She laughed and is sitting next to me as I type this, feigning disinterest.

What I've noticed is that as I strain other parts of my body I can inadvertently let rip. Last night I was bending down to get a saucepan out of the cupboard and laughed at something. It was too much strain on my body and I popped out a little one.

The other day at work I was bounding up the stairs with the eagerness of a dog chasing a cat with a bone tied to its tail. As I hit the last but one step I coughed. It was like a car backfiring. The cough made the engine splutter just a bit and the exhaust popped one out. No one was around, I got away with it and continued my bounding happily. The next person on the stairs may have been in for a slightly unpleasant surprise though.

At this age the audibles aren't a worry. All the involuntaries tend to be silent, at worst there's only a small amount of noise and it's usually only heard by me. But what worries me is what might happen with advancing years.

Will I end up as one of those old blokes who strolls around the place farting loudly with every consonant? As I get even older I'm sure that the little muscle control I have in that region is going to reduce. Is this something I should just accept and deal with or can I fight it with muscle exercises or special tablets?

You young kids won't believe that this will happen to you, but it will, you just have to wait about twenty years.

Which reminds me, I must give DD and Java a call.

Rhythmic Diaspora (C) - DO NOT TOUCH

The first line, the name on the address label says the above, without the "DO NOT TOUCH" bit. "DO NOT TOUCH" is the phrase in my head, most definitely in capital letters too.

The address label sits, stuck happily to a box about fourteen inches away from me on my desk. How do I know it's about fourteen inches I can hear you almost screaming in a mad frenzy. I know it because I have just measured it with a tape measure. Accuracy means everything in these parts.

The box is an Amazon.com one and it contains my Christmas present from C. I know this because she told me that she was going to get it delivered to my office. It was my smart idea to put her name in brackets on the delivery address label so that I would see it and realise that it was not for me.

"Just get it delivered to my work", "just put your name in brackets", "no, of course I won't open it, don't be silly", "I'll be so busy that I won't be tempted" were all the things I said to her.

Now, as I write this post, the little box is staring at me, daring me to do the only decent thing. Boxes are made to be opened aren't they? C would never know if I deftly opened it, examined the contents, then resealed it and proclaimed innocence and surprise on Christmas day.

I keep glancing to my right and it's there. If there was a huge big red button with "Do not press this button" written on it I'd have to press it eventually. It's not a question of whether I open it or not, more an issue of whether I can last long enough.

I've already interrogated the outside of the box at some length and extracted no information. If I were a machine, one who understood barcodes, I'd be pretty clued up. I'm no machine though, just a mere mortal. Well, I say mere, but I guess I'm blessed with good looks, intelligence and humour, but I don't like to brag.

The box is teasing me and sneering at me. It knows it's got the upper hand, that it's going to win the battle, that my willpower is about as strong and committed as HI!! Magazine's political column. But it also knows that I'm going to waver, I'll hover on the brink of doing the wrong thing and I'll eventually make the right decision.

What will it be though?

Three Wicked Things

They're different, but here are three random phrases that I've read in recent weeks that have stuck with me.

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." - Charles Mingus.

"It's sort of like the fort railway station suddenly becoming an exclusive members only club." - Cerno

"You wouldn't know subtlety if it punched you in the face." - Someone on Twitter who I can't recall.

Words can be very beautiful, particularly if they're put in the right order.

Ooooh Oooh This Sex Is On Fiyiyerrr

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I play in a covers band, the drums you know.

It's quite a kick arse rock band, playing songs like The Cult's She Sells Sanctuary, The Foo's Learn to Fly, The Jam's A Town Called Malice and The Killers' When You Were Young. We also do some songs by bands whose first name isn't "The", but we keep them to a minimum. We don't do any songs by The The and, much to my dismay, there are often a couple of Snow Patrol songs in the set.

Since I joined we've done Kings of Leon's Molly's Chambers, one of their best songs I reckon, and it's always gone down well with people. And some months ago we decided to add in Sex On Fire to the set. I say "we decided" but it was more a case that if we didn't bung it in the set we'd be in severe danger of getting attacked by irate drunken revellers after each gig, well more attacked than is usual.

We had so many gigs in which people would be asking if we did Sex on Fire that it became a necessity, of course it was nothing to do with the fact that's it's dead easy and dead popular. Each time we play it we witness a crowd singing along to the chorus, waving arms, pointing fingers and generally at a point of euphoria that makes me understand how fellows like Hitler and the like could get so many people to follow them and hang onto their every word.

It's the epitome of great songwriting skill in a pure pop/rock genre, perhaps not up there with songs like Bohemian Rhapsody, Paranoid Android and Lunu Dehi as all time greats but I'll guarantee you that, in years to come, it will be as popular as songs like Hi Ho Silver Lining and Summer of '69.

It's a short song with sexy verses and an anthemic chorus. The phrase "sex is on fire" is a memorable and catchy one too. I've never heard it used before as a way of describing sex, yet it's blatantly obvious that it means good things about the copulation concerned. Mr Leon could easily have used another phrase like "this sex is fantastic" or "this sex is outrageous" but they just wouldn't have had that same sense of edginess and kickarsity.

And the real beauty of the song is that, when we get to the chorus, every single fucker ( a word I choose most deliberately) in the house is standing up, singing along and doing that pointing with one arm thing in time with the s in sex, the i in is, the o in on, the f in fire and then the y in fire.

As I drum along I sometimes look at their faces and I can see and sense what's going on in their minds. Us drummers are renowned for our sensitivity to other people's feelings and thoughts you know. Yes, what I can pick up is that each punter, whether with a partner or not, thinks that the description is about what's it's like to have sex with them. They're fooled into believing that the song was written for them and that all the other people in the room are bad at sex.

How cool is that?

I would love, absolutely love, to write one song in my life that could be as memorable and impactful as that.

The 2009 Lankanosphere Awards Are Coming...

No, wait, it's not happening just yet but this is a little heads up to let you know about what's going to be happening oh so very, very soon.

It's that time of the year, the one of that bloke who comes once a year down the chimney. Here at my office we have a twelve inch high moving Father Christmas, not that unusual you might say, and I'd agree with you. The unusual thing is that he's black. I don't know how we got him but I like him and I'm quite proud to be the "keeper" of the chap. He dances too. Anyhow, just thought I'd share that snippet with you.

Things may be a bit quiet around here in the short term as I'm putting most of my effort into the forthcoming 2009 blogging awards. This will be the fourth year that I've done this and it's about as nepotistic and undemocratic as, well any Lankan election could be really. It's hopefully going to be a bit of fun, a chance perhaps to discover some Lankan related blogs that you may not have seen before, to catch up on some that you'd forgotten about.

Sadly I have to exclude blogs written in Sinhala or Tamil, simply because I cannot understand those great languages. It's not something I'm proud of but it is life, or current life. So we're limited to Lankan related blogs published in English. Don't ask me what Lankan related means, as the definition is as fuzzy and complicated as one of Sittingnut's better arguments.

The only other rule, which I might change if I fancy it, is that last year's winners don't win the same title this year. It's potentially a little bit unfair, but I hope that it makes things a bit more varietical (my own word).

This year's awards will see more guest judges and hopefully a little more input from you, which is where we start.

Last year the categories and winners were as follows:

Photoblog - Amila Salgado
I wish I hadn't written that - Dinidu (for his religion post)
Blog of the Year - TMS
Best Newcomer - Kalusudda
Best written blog - David Blacker
Shitloads of comments whenever they post - Voice In Colombo
Best Overseas blog - Dance In a Triangle
Funniest Blog - DramaQueen
Funniest Post - DramaQueen
Legend of the Lankanosphere - Indi

I'm not going to ask you for nominations, though you may want to send some in anyway. I am however, going to ask for your ideas for any new award categories. I've decided to get rid of a couple, namely the funniest post and the I wish I hadn't written that ones. The former gets the big boot because it's too related to the funniest blog awards, the latter goes the way of all previous presidential candidates' promise to abolish the executive presidency because so many people have deleted posts that it's almost impossible to judge.

I have to go now. There are some chaps trying to deliver a red carpet for some awards ceremony. Send your suggestions in please, if you want to nominate a blog for an award don't even think about it unless you write the nomination on the back of a large cheque made payable to me. Or I will accept payment in sex, though not from you Sanjana.

Have a fine week.

RD

A Bit Of A Mystery

Can anyone give me an explanation about this? I was doing a bit of googling and came across it. It's the weirdest thing ever. My work, but not my work.

Please tell me what it is. One of you computerish nerdy types must know surely.

And have a good weekend out there, I'm gigging tonight if anyone wants to come.

Sansoni Al Pacino

It's the time for a quick search term post. A sporadic glance through the stats for my blog always throws up some interesting, some puzzling and some fascinating bits of information. The things people have searched for to get here are no exception.

Here are some recent juicy gems:

1. Psychology for bum wiping.

2. Do people in London wear willies?

3. Audit chat up lines

4. How to do absofuckinglutely nothing forever

5. Are very tight flare jeans gay?

6. Sansoni Al Pacino

7. Mock Wattalapam

8. Sri Lankan Astronaut

And here are some of my thoughts about them:

1. There are people who look into the most everyday things to levels of mad detail. Somewhere there's probably an academic writing a paper on this.

2. Yes, mostly men though.

3. Was this an accountant looking for chat up lines? What would be the accountant's version of Joey's "How you doin?". Perhaps something like "Fancy a bit of double entry?" or "Can I put my column in your spreadsheet?"

4. Why?

5. No, but wear them and people will probably think you are. Though I know DD wears them quite often.

6. Finally they're making a Hollywood epic about the photographer and Al is playing the lead. About bloody time too. Morgan Freeman will be Java and Nimmi Harasgama will play herself.

7. Is this sometime who has a big bowl of wattalapam and wants to tease it mercilessly?

8. Frankly it just makes me smile. All the jokes about the spaceship pulling out in front without indicating, about it needing a horn, perhaps no lights, you get the gist, well they all spring to mind.

What's happening over your way then?

Women Are From Mars, Men Are Normal

C's here for the Christmas period, which fills me with feelings comfort and joy, comfort and joy, feelings of comfort and joy.

Yet there are going to be some complications. The girls will be with their mother and her family on Christmas day itself and so, after a wild moment of mad uttering, I find myself in the situation of having my parents over for the Christmas dinner. All well and good, I'm sure it will be nice and cosy, but I haven't got the faintest clue how on earth to cook a roast dinner, let alone a full Turkey and all the trimmings Christmas one.

Give me the job of conjuring up some rice and c and I'm up for it, ask me to cook a spaghetti bolognese or microwave a ready meal and I'll stand up and be counted. The Christmas dinner is going to be a challenge, one that I'll no doubt keep you, the reader in this saga, informed about.

That wasn't the thing I wanted to tell you about though. Today's topic is about women, presents and the tests we men have to face. C told me some weeks ago that one of the things she'd quite like for Christmas is a watch, "not an expensive one", she added. You'll understand if, by the time you come to read this, these words have been deleted, as I don't want C to read it and realise that I've told you all about it.

The younger, perhaps less experienced men among you, will wonder what the fuss is about. You're probably thinking right now that it's all quite simple and straightforward, just do what she says, buy her a watch, one that isn't expensive, and the job will be done and everyone will be happy. Frankly I shake my head and roll my eyes, which is easy for us drummers, at people who think like that.

You see, women do these things, they throw out challenges like this and it's never as easy to respond in the correct way as it may seem. Often there is no correct way to respond, making it slightly harder to do the right thing, a bit like an election in which neither candidate would be your choice and you end up voting for the one you think will do the least damage, an unlikely scenario I know.

In the world of the female predator I'm like an innocent grazing deer; enjoying myself and munching on some foliage whilst remaining in a state of receptiveness and awareness.

Now the very first important issue to be tackled in this situation is whether I should buy a watch at all or go for something totally different. No way am I going to fall arse over wallet at the first hurdle, this has to be pondered and cogitated on. On the one hand, I go out and buy a watch and gain kudos for doing what was requested. An easy win? Nope, for doing what was requested may in itself be a bad thing. Some women, you'll find this hard to believe but I assure you it's true, want men to think for themselves.

Then, if I go down the alternate route and get something other than a watch, it's a potentially risky situation that even Barrack Obama would steer clear of. My instincts tell me that buying C a nice snare drum instead of a watch would be a lovely and thoughtful present, using my imagination and courage to their limit. But no, my head tells me that she wouldn't want a snare drum, women are weird like that. As men our job is to deal with it.

So the snare drum option, or any other drum related present for I'm open minded about these things, is out and the watch is the favourite. What direction do I go in next?

"Inexpensive" she said. Well, what the Bejeezus does that mean exactly? And, before you even think about it, asking her is the second worst idea in the world, the worst being to ask my Mum. The only thing that the word "inexpensive" indicates is that I probably shouldn't go online spend many hours browsing in jewellers' shop windows and buy the most expensive top of the range Breitling, Rolex or Raymond Weil I can find, nor should I get the cheapest thing money can buy.

This leaves me with a large range in which to operate, particularly worsened by the fact that I'm not really sure about the whole not buying a Bretling, Rolex or Raymond Weil thing. The word inexpensive, I've decided, should be banned and sent off to the word graveyard, to be replaced by more man friendly words, ones like £200, £150 and £50 and similar.

I forgot to tell you the other "useful" bit of guidance C gave me. And, when I say useful, I mean useful in the same way that the button to call a member of the air crew on a Sri Lankan Airlines plane is useful, or in the way that a roundabout lurking on a Colombo road at night time is useful.

"You know the sort of thing I like, you choose" was the thing she said, when I asked what sort of watch she wants. I managed to bluff my way through, nodding with an air of wisdom as if all women are predictable and men know exactly how to read them, as if I had won an award for my ability in this highly scientific field.

I remain as confused as a tourist in House of Fashions mens' T shirt section.

Vut too doo?

Language And These Highly Intelligent Fellows

I know a few of them and these brainy coves are all well and good. I can often be found in the company of a gang or two of them, I'm the one saying very little and listening with all my ears fully open, trying to learn, but more importantly trying to understand. Thinking about it, it's impossible that the collective term for academics would be "gang", no it would have to be "school" wouldn't it?

But something I've noticed with these brainboxes is that they often talk and write in words and sentences that are beyond the level of comprehension of us regular and normal types. It's a phenom that genuinely perplexes me, one I've asked Academic Bro about quite a few times, the problem being that I've failed to understand his answer.

Academic Bro often writes papers and articles, books and things and I get to read them. The thing that has always struck me is that they're written in a language that is so different to my everyday speaking one, or my writing one. Yet it's language that many academics find familiar and comfortable, it's words, phrases and sentences that they really say to each other. Mad.

I wonder if this two tier liguistic approach is a way in which the brainy chaps try to keep themsleves separated from us lesser mortals, or is it the fact that the language happens and that's what separates us?

Why exactly did I start on this rather rambling introduction? Well it all came about when I read this review of The Travelling Circus on Groundviews. It's by Sanjana himself, a good pal of mine, but, fuck me, as we commoners say, it's hard to make sense of. It's well written, with grammar worthy of one of PG Wodehouse's better known characters, though not Bertram W himself, and, though I haven't analysed it mathematically, I feel sure that he's probably used at least eighteen, maybe even nineteen, of the letters in the alphabet.

There are words in English that I've never heard before, let alone the ones in obscure foreign languages, like Italian and French, that leave me with a puzzled frown and lines in my forehead. The first paragraph starts lightly, presumably to get the reader's interest and persuade him to pursue things. The only two controversial words are "juxtapose" and "highfalutin". Even I might use the former sometimes.

The second paragraph is where the big guns come out firing. As early as the second sentence Sanjana makes adroit use of the Italian "commedia dell'arte." I only use the word "adroit" in a vain attempt to prove my own intellectual credentials, the truth is that Sanjana uses it later on and that's where I got the idea. I know that "commedia dell'arte" is Italian purely because he helpfully wrote it in the language of the Italians; Italics.

As we progress muddily through the paragraph we encounter "inflorescence" and "insouciance", words I'll get around to looking up soon, with the benefit that they'll be within a few pages of each other in the dictionary. Mr H tells us that

"The Travelling Circus, in this respect, was a technical tour de force"

Now come on. I'm not totally stupid, I've read things, watched a bit of sport of TV and I've got a trendy green bike, one of those ones with brakes so good that I'm constantly in danger of flying over the handlebars. I know the Tour de Force is probably the hardest and most famous cycle race in the world, I know about the yellow jersey and all, I just don't think one can compare The Travelling Circus to it.

The review continues with complicated, confusing and mind boggling language, though it's spelled correctly and our Sanj, as I like to call him, puts all his apostrophes in the right places, never confusing an it's with an its. He uses the word "denouement" and even puts an accent above the first e. How clever is that? I can do an ê, but an e (with an accent) evades me. Mind you, I bet Sanjana can't play Sex On Fire on the drums, particularly the middle eight.

It took until I got to the very last line for me to figure out if he liked the play or not. Even I got the gist of it.

"This is theatre at its best".

He could have just said that really.

I must dash, I'm trying to cook beef with jus in bello, it's a recipe Sanjana mentioned to me the other day.

A Parody

Apparently.

Presenting My Conditions For Political Support.

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