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Tag Archives: Sri Lanka

Master class

Sunday, October 27, 2019

An evening with Kumar Sangakkara. — For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged charity, cheese, Council for Business with Britain, County Championship, cricket, Cricket World Cup, drink, education, film, Foundation of Goodness, geography, Great Britain, Heraclitus, HSBC, Kumar Sangakkara, Kushil Gunasekera, Lord's, Mark Prothero, Marylebone Cricket Club, parents, records, Seenigama, Shangri-La, Sunday Times (SL), Surrey | 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, Colombo, Debussy, education, etiquette, Fauré, Ieva Jokubaviciute, Lakshman Joseph de Saram, Lionel Wendt, Midori Goto, music, piano, Sunday Times (SL), violin | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, September 30, 2019

. Football was a crime in England during the reign of Henry VIII. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, October 2 1906 . The moon is up for longer than the sun. Your antivirus expires in 29 days. The Dogmata Theologica of Petavius are a work of incredible labour and compass. The steep limestone walls of a […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged America, anatomy, astronomy, books, eggs, England, expectoration, football, geology, health, Henry VIII, homosexuality, humanity, law, money, Nelson Evening Mail, Oscar Wilde, pachyderms, Petavius, religion, Russians, satire, scholarship, the Chinese, university, war | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, April 1, 2019

. There are now about 54,000 Chinese coolies in the Transvaal gold mines. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, March 14 1907 . Los Angeles is a lousy, boring little town. A European could die there from boredom. January ain’t about the blues. Piers Morgan is sick. The veins of Englishmen flow with rainwater. In a land […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Andy Murray, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brexit, Cana, Chernobyl, crime, death, deer, Dominic Hilton, drink, Englishmen, Europeans, fathers, gold, health, hobbies, homosexuality, January, Los Angeles, marriage, men, money, Nelson Evening Mail, philosophy, Piers Morgan, rain, Sellafield, sex, South Africa, the Chinese, the West, women | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE #5

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Of arshins, poods, and workplace happiness. A whole new week’s worth of the news where you aren’t. — For Queen Mob’s Tea House

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged accents, Alan Titchmarsh, Armenia, army, BTS, children, Christmas, doctors, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, employment, health, Italians, measurements, men, Nelson Evening Mail, pens, politics, Queen Mob's Tea House, Richard Dawkins, Robert Browning, Russians, satire, Shakespeare, the Irish, the Orient Express, the Scots, theatre, train-travel, vending machines, wolves, work | 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, Colombo, 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, 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 16, 2018

. Electricity is now used to improve the complexion. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 4 1908 . The Chinese Christian warlord Feng Yu-xiang (1882–1948) baptised his troops en masse, using a firehose. Vincent Kompany has suffered more than 40 injuries. Time passes very slowly when you’re in a hippo’s mouth. Poetry must be entered into by a personal encounter, or […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Baby Bunting, Cadbury, children, China, chocolate, electricity, Feng Yu-xiang, football, German, hair, health, hippopotami, insults, Japan, Johnny Cash, men, Milan, Nelson Evening Mail, onions, Poetry, Queen Victoria, religion, song, sport, suicide, tennis, the Irish, time, Vincent Kompany, water, writers | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, April 9, 2018

. Last year 15,391 persons kept bees in this colony. The number of hives was 74,341. — The Nelson Evening Mail, April 10 1907 . It’s not every day a virgin conceives and bears a son. Indifference to facts is not confined to the alt-right and the hyper-liberal Left. The word ‘minge’ is of Romany extraction. […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Alcoholics Anonymous, alt-Right, anatomy, apiarists, bees, Bill Wilson, Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club, British Empire, chronology, computers, cricket, Dr Bob Smith, drink, elk, empathy, England, Erith, Europe, Gamini Jayantha Molligoda, hashtags, health, India, intelligence, Nelson Evening Mail, New Zealand, offspring, politics, Queen Victoria, religion, Romany, science, sex, Truth, weather, women | Comments (0)

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, Colombo, 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, Switzerland, tattoos, Thomas Nelson, West Africa, West Dart, Wittgenstein | Comments (0)

Around the world in 60 minutes

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

On microlecturing, the RGS, and a whistlestop tour around the Jaffna peninsula. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged anthropology, Australia, Christopher Ondaatje, cinema, coral, cycling, depression, drink, exploration, Fearghal O'Nuallain, geography, Hemingway, India, Jaffna, Levison Wood, Mary-Ann Ochota, Matthieu Tordeur, microlecturing, migration, Mongolia, Nicholas Crane, photography, public speaking, Pushkar, Rajasthan, Royal Geographical Society, running, Ruper Sagar-Musgrave, Scotland, South-East Asia, the Himalayas, The Oldie, the Pacific Crest Trail, the Zambezi, Transcaucasus, travel, TV, walking, war | Comments (0)