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Tag Archives: Sinhala

In-line, online, and where to draw the line?

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Notes on Colombo’s books and bookmen in the time of Covid-19. — For The Critic

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged alcohol, Aleksandar Hemon, Amazon, Ashok Ferrey, B&Q, Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, books, bookshops, Buddhism, Ceylon, Ceylon Bible Society, charity, China, Chuck Palahniuk, clothing, Colombo, Colombo Fashion Week, Colombo International Book Fair, construction, Covid-19, Dan Brown, David Duchovny, democracy, Denis Johnson, Donald Trump, Dr Sudath Samaraweera, Dutch Burgher Union, education, Emma Donoghue, Emmanuel Carrere, England, Eventbrite, Facebook, Galle Literary Festival, Harrods, health, hygiene, Iran, James Hadley Chase, Jilly Cooper, Kumar Sangakkara, letters, LIDL, Lt General Shavendra Silva, Malaysia, Michael Chabon, Milo, money, music, Nicholas Mosley, Nixon, Northern Ireland, novels, One Galle Face, Ottawan, Panos Karnezis, rain, religion, Robert Knox, satire, schools, Shangri-La, Shehan Karunatilaka, shopping, snacks, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Exhibition & Conference Centre, Tamil, TASCHEN, taxes, TGI Fridays, The Big Bad Wolf, The Critic, the internet, the Sistine Chapel, Tisara Prakasakayo, TS Eliot, tsunami, VIPs, Waterstone's, weddings, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne | Comments (0)

The One That Got Away – David Blacker

Sunday, July 5, 2020

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

Filed in column, interview, Journalism | Also tagged Buddhism, China, clothing, David Blacker, demons, Interview, Kandy, light, monks, New York Times, novels, photography, Ritigala, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), Sweden, terrorism, travel, veddahs, war | 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

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also 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, Sri Lanka, Tamil, Teilhard de Chardin, The Critic, the Duke of Pirajno, The New Yorker, Tom Wolfe | Comments (0)

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, Colombo, 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, socialism, Sri Lanka, swimming, the British, The Critic, UberEats, work | 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, Colombo, David Balfour, David Sharp, Everest, Fa-Hsien, Forrest Gump, health, Hinduism, Ibn Battuta, Islam, Marco Polo, meteorology, mosquitoes, mountaineering, music, Neighbours, podcasts, River Kwai, 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, Colombo, 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, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), The Mahavamsa, The Matrix, war, Wisden | Comments (0)