Politics Unpacked

Head Honcho of local advertising or not?

The instant lottery concept was launched, strategised and sold to the public by the smart Ad man whose company bears the name of something that rose from the ashes.

Now with many feathers in his headband including a tie-up with Ogilvy, we find him conspicuously absent from the office bearing 4 A's or even the locally based international advert Association.

Is this a lull before a full-fledged launch into the political hurly-burly, with the aim of ending up being duly elected to the legislature? Curiously when Milinda walked into the Presidential palace to be sworn in as a Cabinet Minister then, unlike the others, Milinda was not accompanied by his spouse. It was the Ad man who walked in with him.

As one wag put it to this scribbler, does the Ad man distance himself now from the four As since four As possibly stands for 'four Ars_s'?

Teacher, teacher

Time was when Damu invited a VVIP. That was back in those days. Damu had custom made pandals (thoranas) for all occasions, and custom-made dance sequences to boot. So, when the VVIP drove up for the event, he was greeted garlanded and generally pampered.

Then came the dancers. They looked....well, big. Their assets were, to put it modestly, oversize large buttocks, and gaping cleavage Finally, curiosity got the better of the guest, and he asked Damu why the dancers looked...well quite more packed than usual.

Damu shot back; Ah, I got the teachers to dance. Apparently, Damu had got the lady dance teachers to perform, as the students went into shivers performing for powerful panjandrums at these sombre events....

At least he cannot be faulted for getting the job done...

TV dodgers

So, what do some of the new fangled television stations do to get over the Tax issue? They take a movie, and show it as a multi episode teleldrama and think they could manage to get off with a one off tax!! Improvise, when you have to improvise!

Good to see you

The new American ambassador owns a PhD in Sanskrit. Also, Indian foreign office types teach Sinhalese. The Chinese diplomats here - well they always speak Sinhalese.

At this rate, guffawed a VIP, we wouldn't be able to exchange a few spoken secrets.

Well, it's not too bad, somebody reminded our VIP.

There was this occasion in the 60s, when a well known journalist who used to work for one of those English language dailies, was invited for a diplomatic party. When it was time for goodbyes, our man sauntered past the receiving line of Chinese diplomats.

The cheery Chinese ambassador bellowed a very clear and resonant "Ayubowan." And what did our celebrated scribbler manage? "So pleased to meet you," he mumbled, and disappeared before his very Sinhala name was discovered.

Companero

Fidel Castro celebrated 53 years of his revolution this week, and who was raising flags? Tissa Vitharana and Alavi Moulana, the old faithful. In those revolutionary days, Castro's talkathon goes on sometimes for four hours to his fellow Cubanos, including the Estefans and the Secadas, and he always begins with the salutation "Companeros".

Not to be outdone yankee Dickie the Mahanayake of capitalism as he was dubbed by some , as opposed to Castro 'the Commie' made his own opener "Mithravaruni", something J.R.J learnt from the Castro salutation....

C. B. K. too after the politically tiring of J. R. J. resorted to "Mithravaruni" as her opening word. Anyhow, we recall, J. R. J. and Dr. Fidel had a healthy Bonhomie where the best of hard rolled Cubano Louis Roig Cigars were rolled out at "Braemar" down Ward Place way.

What did C. B. K. roll out kind courtesy of Dr. Fidel. Any guesses! Do keep us posted.

A leg up

Certain anti-government media entities are now engaged in an effort to prop up the images of certain government MPs, which tactic is to portray them as some sort of 'dissidents.'' It's a rather basic undermining gambit. But, the President has let word out that he has legitimate reasons not to be perturbed at all.

Who can argue with that, because his reasoning seems to be rock solid on this one. Says he; when I was not our party's number one, they propped me up in these same ragsheets. But then, when it so happened that I was the candidate, they had to demolish me.

Who believed them, after they had said such good things about me for years?? In the end, some bankruptcy was displayed, and it was certainly not on his side but on the side these sudden-death demolishers, who had woken up from a life of praising Mahinda Rajapaksa, but with ulterior motives.