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Tag Archives: Colombo

May Day, May Day…

Monday, May 4, 2020

A lockdown letter from Colombo. — For The Critic

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Amazon, Argentina, army, beer, children, China, coronavirus, cricket, Dominic Hilton, drink, Facebook, food, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, health, letters, lockdown, May Day, Mel Gibson, money, Osama bin Laden, painting, peacocks, quizzes, Sanskrit, shopping, Singapore, Sinhala, socialism, Sri Lanka, swimming, the British, The Critic, UberEats, work | Comments (0)

The Pelican

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Or; Some Further Notes Towards the Bestiary To the researches of the antiquary and scholar Jorge Luis ‘Vintage’ Borges, a few points offer further context on that most peripatetic of birds in this, our present century. . Learned reports come from South Asia, where the spotted-bill Filipino pelican (phillipensis) is found, with no small irony, only in Cambodia, the Indian peninsular, and in Sri Lanka (or the contemporary […]

Filed in Fictions | Also tagged America, animals, army, babies, basketball, Borges, British Library, Cambodia, Captain Scott, children, Corpus Christi College, daughters, death, Egypt, employment, fables, food, Gartagena, General John Guise, Hebrew, hieroglyphs, Horapollo, India, Jesuits, John Grisham, Joseph Hall, King Lear, murder, oil, pelican, Post-modern Bestiary, psychology, Roald Dahl, Spain, Sri Lanka, St James's Palace, St James's Park, St Jerome, stupidity, the Bible, The Spectator, Thomas Aquinas, US Supreme Court | Comments (0)

Peak fitness: a virtual expedition diary

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Climbing a mountain, lest I start climbing the walls In January, I promised a visiting Reservist mate that we’d climb Adam’s Peak. That plan was scotched when, days before he landed, I went down with dengue fever. But I’d done Adam’s Peak before (the first time, Christmas ’04, probably saved my life when the tsunami struck…), and […]

Filed in feature, Journalism | Also tagged Adam's Peak, Adidas, army, boredom, Buddhism, Christianity, cigars, coffee, David Balfour, David Sharp, Everest, Fa-Hsien, Forrest Gump, health, Hinduism, Ibn Battuta, Islam, Marco Polo, meteorology, mosquitoes, mountaineering, music, Neighbours, podcasts, River Kwai, Sinhala, Spectator, Sri Lanka, stairs, Tamil, the Bible, The Mahavamsa, the Matterhorn, The West Wing, Thomas Tallis, Zumba | Comments (1)

‘It is the living we should fear’

Sunday, March 29, 2020

DISCLAIMER: Ten years ago, I reviewed Shehan Karunatilaka’s debut novel, Chinaman, for this newspaper. It was brilliant, I said, and everyone should buy it. I noted, though, for form’s sake, that I’d done some light proofreading of the manuscript, and hoped that this would not be taken either as cause or symptom of inoperable bias. […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged BBC, children, Commonwealth Book Prize, cousins, cricket, death, DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, Elvis Presley, Gratiaen Award, Herodotus, independence, Marlon James, Marxism, Michael Ondaatje, Nietzsche, novels, Oscar Wilde, pangolins, Penguin India, photography, Richard de Zoysa, Shehan Karunatilaka, Singlish, Sinhala, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), The Mahavamsa, The Matrix, war, Wisden | Comments (0)

Applause for thought?

Sunday, October 6, 2019

Midori Goto’s violin recital in Colombo, reviewed. (Along with half the audience.) — For the Sunday Times (SL)

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged audiences, Brahms, cell-phones, Chamber Music Society of Colombo, children, Debussy, education, etiquette, Fauré, Ieva Jokubaviciute, Lakshman Joseph de Saram, Lionel Wendt, Midori Goto, music, piano, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), violin | Comments (0)

Bleak Howzat!?— Charles Dickens pays a visit to The Cricket Club

Monday, November 26, 2018

(in loving memory of its former incarnation) . Colombo. The Galle and Pallakele matches lately over, the series lost, and the selectors falling back on Maitland Place in hopes of inspiration for the third and final test. The last of the erratic rains now gone, the water in the half-uncovered sewers stagnant, rank with garbage. […]

Filed in Fictions | Also tagged Australia, Bambalapitiya, Bata, bats, buses, chicken, Cinnamon Gardens, cricket, crows, Dickens, dogs, Don Bradman, Eden Gardens, frangipani, Galle Pallakele, Greg Chappell, Havelock Town, hotels, Ian Botham, India, Lion lager, Lord's, Maitland Place, Mount Lavinia, Muttiah Muralitharan, Newlands, newspapers, parties, R Premadasa International Cricket Stadium, school, Shane Warne, Slave Island, Sri Lanka, the British Council, the Chinese, The Cricket Club Café, the English, The Oldie, the West Indies, Wasim Akram | Comments (2)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, April 2, 2018

. There are more Jews in New York than there are in Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland put together. They worship in 37 synagogues. Every fifth person belongs to the family of Abraham. — The Nelson Evening Mail, December 1 1906 . Coleraine Blackjack is the cheapest porter in the world. Thomas Nelson […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged anatomy, Australia, Ben Affleck, books, Britain, Bruca Chatwin, Canada, Coleraine, computers, crime, Cuba, death, Devon, drink, East Africa, emojis, flags, France, Germany, health, hyenas, Italy, Judaism, London, Microsoft, money, Nelson E, New York, Northern Ireland, philosophy, religion, River Dart, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, tattoos, Thomas Nelson, West Africa, West Dart, Wittgenstein | Comments (0)

Fun run

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Or; how to raise money for charity and feel bad doing it. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Adidas, Bilal Hassen, Borussia Dortmund, cappuccino, charity, Hilton Residences, Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Manchester City, Mount Lavinia, Nigel Havers, rugby, running, Sri Lanka, Thaabit Ahmed, Thaabit Ahmed Football Academy, The Oldie, Valencia CF | Comments (0)

If you build it they may come

Monday, November 22, 2010

An inter-cultural stroll around Colombo. — For theartsdesk

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Anil Mihiripenna, China, conducting, drums, Eshantha Peiris, esraj, flute, Japan, Keiko Kobayashi, music, Musicmatters, Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, The Compound Eye, theartsdesk, Thriloka | Comments (0)