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Category Archives: Journalism

The One That Got Away – Kesara Ratnavibhushana

Sunday, June 28, 2020

The Sri Lankan artist and photographer talks about the greatest shot he never got… and one he did. — For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

Also filed in column, interview | Tagged Aishwarya Rai, architecture, Arthur C Clarke, Barbara Sansoni, canals, Canning Town, Chamber Music Society of Colombo, CHOGM, death, fire, Galle Literary Festival, Geoffrey Bawa, India, Keir Hardie, Kesara Ratnavibhushana, London, Mahela Jayawardene, photography, police, Pune, reportage, SHUNT, Sunday Times (SL), weddings | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, June 22, 2020

. The veddahs, or wild hunters, of Ceylon mingle the pounded fibres of soft and decayed wood with the honey on which they feed when meat is not to be obtained. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Monday, January 21 1907 . Samuel John Taylor Coleridge is the first descendant in more than two centuries to be […]

Also filed in NEWS AT A GLANCE | Tagged bears, cartography, Ceylon, drink, family, food, hair, honey, hotels, humour, Laurie Lee, libel, London Zoo, Maradana, monarchy, Native Americans, Nelson Evening Mail, news, Oxford, parsnips, Richard Branson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, satire, the Welsh, veddahs, Washington Redskins | Comments (0)

The One That Got Away – Dominic Sansoni

Sunday, June 21, 2020

Sri Lanka’s pre-eminent photographer talks about the greatest photo that he never took… and one he did. — For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

Also filed in column, interview | Tagged air travel, Anagarika Dharmapala, AsiaWeek, Barefoot, BBC, Ceylon, Der Spiegel, Dominic Sansoni, driving, Geoffrey Bawa, Jamie Foxx, movies, photography, portraiture, postcards, Richard Simon, roads, Robert Knox, roti, Sebastian Posingis, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), Thames & Hudson, the Maldives, The One That Got Away, Tom Cruise, travel, trees, war | Comments (0)

The Ones That Got Away

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Introduction to a new column on photographic misfires, beginning with my own amateur misadventures. — For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

Also filed in column | Tagged Antarctica, Argentina, birds, cows, England, Ethiopia, France, Gamini Jayantha Molligoda, Gundulf, in-laws, Instagram, leopards, London, phones, photography, Russia, South Africa, statuary, Sunday Times (SL), technology, The Fast Show, The One That Got Away, Wilpattu | Comments (0)

Quaker lives matter

Friday, June 5, 2020

A tribute to my somewhat improbable Quaker ancestors, murdered/martyred on this day, at Scullabogue, in 1798. — For The Critic

Also filed in correspondence | Tagged Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey, crime, Daniel Gahan, death, Dr Thomas Hancock, family, George Cruickshank, Ireland, James Joyce, John Jones, Kilbraney, New Ross, Oliver Cromwell, Quakerism, religion, RF Foster, Samuel Jones, Scullabogue, The Critic, Thomas Cloney, Thomas Keightley, Tom Dunne, Ulster, United Irishmen, Wexford | Comments (0)

Booksheds

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

As Colombo emerges from the Covid lockdown, I go immediately to one of my favourite places. — For The Critic

Also filed in correspondence | Tagged Alfred Douglas, Andre Gide, Arthur C Clarke, bibliomania, books, bookshops, Borges, Ceylon, coconuts, Colombo, colonialism, Covid-19, Craig Raine, Cyril Connolly, David Blacker, David Kugultinov, David Nichol Smith, Dee Brown, Dervla Murphy, Dickens, Edmund Waller, education, EM Forster, English, fauna, Georges Bataille, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Harold Nicolson, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Joan Collins, Joseph Conrad, Kalmykia, Lenin, libraries, Lionel Shriver, Louis Mountbatten, Madeleine Albright, Maradana, Michael Ondaatje, Nabokov, Peter Ackroyd, Richard Flanagan, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sinhala, Sri Lanka, Tamil, Teilhard de Chardin, The Critic, the Duke of Pirajno, The New Yorker, Tom Wolfe | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, May 25, 2020

. The barnacles are scraped off British men-of-war twice a year..5 — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, September 6 1906 . Wicca is the fastest-growing religion in the UK after Islam. The Dutch term for a sex buddy is ‘seksbuddy’. George I and his prime minister conversed officially in dog Latin. Irish 6th-formers know what The Communist Manifesto is […]

Also filed in NEWS AT A GLANCE | Tagged carparks, crime, Dutch, employment, Fred C Trump, George I, Harvard, irony, Islam, Kalutara, Karl Marx, Latin, law, museums, Nations Trust Bank, Nelson Evening Mail, New York, news, politics, Port Said, property, religion, Royal Navy, satire, school, seafood, sex, the British, the Irish, Unitarians, Utilitarians, Walter Rothschild, war, Wicca | Comments (0)

My first Carr

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

On my personal discovery of eccentric English novelist (and teacher, and artist, and airman, and footballer) JL Carr, the night before what would have been his 108th birthday. — For The Critic

Also filed in feature | Tagged Andy Miller, architecture, Backlisted, Booker Prize, books, Byron Rogers, clergymen, Colin Firth, coronavirus, education, Englishmen, football, Frank Muir, Gambia, Goldsmiths College, Guardian Fiction Prize, JL Carr, John Clare, John Mitchinson, Joseph Conrad, Kenneth Branagh, Kettering, Laurence Sterne, maps, Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Berkmann, Methodism, Nicholas Lezard, novels, painting, Penguin, publishing, Pushkin, Quince Tree Press, RAF, religion, Richard Coles, South Dakota, The Critic, Thomas Hardy, Vogue, writing, WW1, WW2, Yorkshire | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, May 18, 2020

. In the United States only one about one building in three thousand is even nominally fire-proof. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, March 14 1907 . Ellis Paz has become the first man in history to be awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford while wearing just his pants. Matthew Perry once entered a Vanilla Ice lookalike […]

Also filed in NEWS AT A GLANCE | Tagged Air India, air travel, America, bears, biography, birds, BMX, books, construction, Covid-19, Edinburgh, Ellis Paz, Emma Bunton, emojis, fire, health, homosexuality, Matthew Perry, Mussolini, nature, Nelson Evening Mail, Nigeria, Oxford, Oxford University, Parsees, Pashto, Poetry, satire, Tamil, trypophobia, underwear, Vanilla Ice | Comments (0)

Strength and honour

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

A love letter to 20 years of watching Gladiator. — For The Critic

Also filed in column | Tagged Academy Awards, Alain de Botton, army, Classics, Cleopatra, Commodus, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou, drink, Edward Gibbon, Facebook, film, Germans, Hans Zimmer, Harry Sidebottom, history, Holst, Jesus, Julius Caesar, Kent, Loeb Classical Library, love, Marcus Aurelius, Moravia, Morocco, music, Nick Cave, Odeon, Oxford, painting, religion, Rich Hardcastle, Ridley Scott, Rome, Royal Albert Hall, Russell Crowe, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Suffolk, Surrey, tattoos, The Critic, Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts, war, YouTube | Comments (0)

Category Archives: Journalism

The One That Got Away – Kesara Ratnavibhushana

NEWS AT A GLANCE

The One That Got Away – Dominic Sansoni

The Ones That Got Away

Quaker lives matter

Booksheds

NEWS AT A GLANCE

My first Carr

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Strength and honour

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