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| Sunday, 16 April 2006 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Politics Unpacked
Who was walking around the Peace Secretariat building with a cellular phone in hand? It was the figure-cutting Bogollagama R. May be he had to do that extra strut around, to lay bare the press speculation that he is being kept out of the peace team. He was there allright, hand-phone swagger and all good intent.
What was this mad race in the Sri Lankan media to predict in which city the next round of LTTE-Sri Lankan government talks would be held? Talks were scheduled to be held in some place close to Geneva, and did it really matter an arm or a leg exactly where it was? In any event, Geneva, quipped one worthy, was not the greatest place for the LTTE to boast going to. It was not entirely a European capital - it was an everyman's city, a location dubbed "the birthplace of conferences."
Why does the international press parrot the line "60,000 have been killed in separatist fighting between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan forces,'' at the end of every news item on the conflict? So asked a sharp (but new) practitioner of peacemaking on the state side. It's just the regular done thing, somebody said by way of rejoinder. Then, why don't they include a similar rider for any comment or news story on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, asked the peacemaker - to be greeted by general silence. Similarity test
Anyway, the best jibe aimed at the English team was this vitriolic gem: "There is a striking similarity between French Wine and the England cricketers. Both don't travel well, and both spoil under heat." Being debatable for any
The other is that the man was not being entirely fair by everyone, and what was perceived as "wit" was a gauche attempt at camouflaging his mishandling of the Com Bank affairs that transpired at the EGM. Witty? We do not know about that - but we can only say certain voters were not laughing all the way to the bank. |
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Tell me 'not-out' 
Location the issue 
Drag and drop paragraph! 
When the England cricketers lost their recent matches to India some
comments were made in the British press that displayed the extent of the
acerbic British wit. The press certainly wasn't trying to be politically
correct - and that's a good lesson for some who say that the Sri Lankan
press can be a bit too hard on the local team, when they come up losers. 
A certain newspaper reported recently that Mahendara Amarasuriya, a
leading light of the Com Bank made certain "witty' remarks from the head
table, when he conducted affairs of a stormy EGM. But that' one version of
the story. 
