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Only one guess
The man who had friends - or one Very Very Important Person - in high places till very recently arrived in the city from his abode in Old Blighty. This newspaper had just published a story of how he could be arrested at the airport if he did not pay his taxes on some Rs. 60 million he pocketed from a land-grab helped by this VVIP.

In the city, he was seen at the World Trade Centre talking to old friends at SriLankan Airlines, then with old friends at a shopping complex at the Town Hall, at birthday parties, cool as a cucumber.

And then, he was seen popping into Summer Flowers the well-known florist on February 14, a significant date among the thuppahi crowd. Wonder who his Valentine was. Readers are allowed only one guess.

Tight security
Since the bomb scare in Parliament earlier this month, vehicles belonging to all MPs as well as their drivers and security personnel are being checked before proceeding to drop them off at the entrance to the Parliament building.
However the MPs themselves are not required to get off the vehicle and can stay seated till the checks are completed. Earlier the MP’s vehicles were allowed to proceed directly to the Parliamentary building and drop the member and return to the car park.

Even tighter security
There were many unhappy pupil officials last Tuesday who had been invited to attend a seminar on Public ‘Enterprises: Performance, Governance and Best Practices: Strategies for Success’ organized by the Ministry of Skills Development and Public Enterprise Reforms and the Public Enterprise Reform Commission (PERC) at the BMICH. The invitees were given car passes but were told at the gate they could not take their vehicles inside so many were forced to walk from the gate to the conference hall.

The reason being the tight security ahead of the arrival of the President.

Asleep or meditating?
Jathika Hela Urumaya's Udaya Gammanpilla does not seem to know the difference.

On Friday he was a speaker at the all party meet on next week's Geneva talks between the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on the Ceasefire Agreement.

He said sections of the media had reported that delegation leader, Nimal Siripala de Silva, was occasionally asleep during the workshop meant to familiarise them on issues due to come up for discussion. The Sunday Times was one of the newspapers that made reference to it. In fact a report said how President Rajapakse advised delegation members to be alert consequent to be told about the occasion when the delegation leader was nodding off.
Of course he did so tactfully without making any direct reference.

But Mr. Gammanpilla thought otherwise. He thought this nodding off was like shutting one's eyes during meditation. As a colleague who was seated next to him remarked, during meditation, those doing so do not allow their head to drop down prompting them to wake up.

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