One one things

The Daily Mirror has been superb in being the first to attempt real time news delivery to the internet loving Ceylonese. But the real value of this has not been timely access to news - it’s the comedic value of the comments. In the past we were confined to that small batallion of retired chaps who engaged in skirmishes in the letters to the editor of the respective dailys. Grappling weighty topics such as “Buddhism and meat eating: a response in 16 parts”, “The menace of stray dogs in Dehiwala”, “The deteriorating relationship between youth and crocodiles in Ratnapura” ad nauseum. Fair enough too, retired chaps need to let of steam somewhere. But now with online commenting, a whole new can of worms has been opened. Chaps don’t have to retire till they can air their most profound statements, this can be done in a matter of clicks while sipping that tea with 14 spoons of sugar. Para bellum.

So today I was running through the DM looking to see if we’re winning the war, when a couple of stories down there’s a rather sad passage about a chap who has fallen into a well in Kirulopane and passed away before the fire department could save him. Bad form. But what was intriguing was the 14 comments about this story - so much sympathy, so little time? curiosity got the better of me and I clicked. I really didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Our buggers one thing.

Here are a few excerpts.

“While feeling sorry for the person, must say that our opposition has fallen into a much deeper well. How can we bring them up?”

“Shame on you fire brigade, Indian FB rescued a child from a much deeper and a narrow well, Good reason to create some scholarships to India for the FB guys!!!!”

“The people should have called FD and informed them Dr.(Mervin) Silva is in the well and not just the FD but even the PSD will come to rescue him in no time.” - it’s superb how in the past 4 months there has not been one story on the DM that has not had a comment referring to our favourite parliamentarian.

“Our people are finding an AXE to cut thing that you can remove with the finger nail. There was a small boy who rescued his mother who fell in the well without any fire brigade. Hope our country people open their brain and do sensible things in general.” - good policies for a better ceylon.

“Fire brigade happy new year”

“”Well” done!”

Oh dear. (oh well, even).