One one things

This evening was awful. I spent 4 hours watching the most ridiculous session of ego massaging in history. 13, yes, 13 Johnnies spent 3 hours telling one other Johnny how great he is, and finally the great Johnny tells all of us how great he is (and almost cries in the process). I spent the last half hour of the show entering all the holidays into my phone calender so that I can quickly plan my long weekends. Yes it took half an hour. Happily this year almost all the holidays fall on Tuesdays or Thursdays. This is great news bc it makes it a long weekend by default. People don’t kid themselves anymore and just call it a long weekend. This morning I get a call from Commerce asking me when I’m free for a meeting next week. Now Tuesday is a day off (hooray) and they assumed everyone will be out of town on Monday and asked which of the other days is best - great. As I was entering the holidays I was distraught to find that Avurudu and Nonagathay fall on a Saturday and Sunday. But fear not. The 11th and 18th of April (both fridays) have been declared holidays in lieu of us being deprived of the due days off. Two more long weekends, brilliant. Vesak and “Day after Vesak” (which surely must be the best excuse for a holiday - ever) fall on a thursday and friday, which mean another long weekend. A long time ago I wrote some patriotic nonsense about why I want to live in SL. I lied. I’m here for the poya days.

Back to ego massaging, it seems to be something us Ceylonese love. Anyone with the remotest degree of authority is entitled to a massage. Today for instance there were 4 ministers who risked our lives (and ensured everyone gets thoroughly felt up by the guards - and I mean thoroughly) to show up at the public massage - and everytime someone spoke they had to get avasara from each of these Johnnies and of course avasara from about 17 other ppl. On average it took 3 minutes for a speaker to get permission to speak. There were also a couple of priests who had come to give divine blessings to the massage (but ended up making pseudo-political sermons, mentioning the Buddha only in footnotes or within parentheses). One of them gave a fascinating description of ozone depletion as if he had discovered it in his backyard last week. It was great - he went into wonderful detail about the sun’s heat and how scientists have discovered this natural protective layer that exists over the earth but how today there are holes forming in this protective layer due to the experiments being conducted by the British and the Americans. Yes, experiments, the bastards. (Actually since the biggest holes in the ozone layer are over Australia and one of the Poles it’s probably the Aussies and the Eskimos conducting the experiments - that is much more believable. No wonder the Eskimos discovered how to turn their bears white and the Aussies figured out how to make geriatrics into annoyingly good cricketers). After 6 minutes of describing this new discovery I saw chaps towards the front nodding in earnest. It’s called global warming. This was followed by a UNP (D) Minister giving a discourse on why we as a country need to be self sufficient - that it’s a disgrace that we are importing things like oil, milk powder and wheat, wasting money. All this in what was supposedly a gathering of economists. Superb.

It would be a violation of all things decent to wind up without mentioning the amusing Maldivians on Ravana’s blog. The Maldivians I’ve known have been thoroughly laid back and great fun. Two quick stories.

Maldivian friend is spying on his sister doing the dirty deed with a chap. Friend gets somewhat excited and ends up toppling something off the shelf he was peering through. Sister gets up and looks around,

Sister: “Oy! who’s there?”
Maldivian Friend: “Not me!”

…and runs away. What a man.

One time (at band camp) no, at school, we were being asked by the teacher where we see our selves in 10 years time. Everyone talks the talk and when my Maldivian friend’s turn comes along he says in all seriousness, “On a boat.” Who said Maldivians don’t have a sense of humour? They’re fabulous, and they’re fellow islanders. And islanders and the best landers.

I’ve had enough for today, and for this week for that matter. Unfortunately tomorrow is not a holiday - but at least I won’t be going to any glorified massage parlours. From Saturday to Tuesday I’ll be attempting to get myself a scuba license so that I can have a decent shot at getting the bends, claiming insanity and retiring in peace. Before I go I must recommend something that made my evening a lot better. (I suggest the work on Hayden and well everything else for that matter.)

Enjoy and happy holidays! (Yes we say that right through the year bc we are cool like that.)