| The Rajpal Abeynayake Column By Rajpal Abeynayake | ||||||
| The
soft sands episode and other breakfast stories Now for the absolute tyro or the blissfully uninitiated, this Nut Case column, or so Mr Breakfast its creator thinks, is a spinoff on the clever A'pura diaries that were written when The Island was launched by the late Upali Wijewardene. Well, the Nut Case column will become A'pura diaries the day its creator becomes a journalist and not a loose cannon political loser -- or the day hell freezes over, whichever comes first. Aren't we all vaguely reminded of all the Shakespeare impersonators, the Shakes Pereras in Sri Lanka -- we had one in college. He goes around with a tome in his hand and says with incredible gravitas 'hey -Shakespeare wrote Merchant of Venice, I wrote Macbuth, the Rice Merchant.' If Shakespeare writes comedies, this guy is a walking talking joke. Ditto Mr Breakfast and his Nut Case column. pparently Upali Wijewardane himself wrote A'pura diaries, and his use of pun and literary allusion was exquisite. "The Lord and Master' 'the keeper of the cupboard' these were all his tongue firmly in the cheek inventions. Then comes the imitation -- the sublime to the ridiculous defined - and we have Gee Ell, we have Ra-kneel, we have Soo-nil, one wonders why he can't just call them by their first names and be done with it. ('Earlier that day Ra-kneel bumped into Soo-nil' "Ra-kneel celebrated his birthday party as we predicted.') This guy is a transparency addict -- so transparent are his ‘puns’, that even if Ranil reads this stuff he may be convinced that this heck of a hack is his most valuable asset. What more do you need when the most a hack can come up by way of a pun on your name is Ra-kneel! Very Fa-knee very very Fa-knee indeed, so Fa-knee that I almost choked on my Break-Faast laa-feeing. Ha! Ha! Shame shame! Ichabod. Hmm..Tch! Tch! So there! (As for me I'll just settle for HOOOOO! Okay?) We all have had that feeling. Tune into a Hindi movie to laugh at it - read Mr Breakfast's newspaper to laugh at it silly (….and if you are an early getter upper who knows you might be able to wake up splitting your sides laughing too with your Break-Faast) So while laughing at the Nut Case column, Ra-kneel makes his award winning appearance in it again recently. The Nut Case signs off by saying ha ha. That fig leaf ha ha. Its like Mr Breakfast saying in the advertisements: look look I am a great journalist , look look I am the greatest journalist, look look, I'm am the greatest journalist of all time. Bad wine always needs plenty plenty bush…… They bend over backwards trying to make you laugh, while also kneeling in front of the Prime Minister, they might just be contortionists. Nut Case the column certainly takes the World Cup for servility. Ra-kneel is a good way of putting it after all - they are kneeling in their praise for him, laughing solicitously at his said to be joke with a 'wild ass'' at a press gathering last week. Ranil is supposed to have said 'the only person I'm in touch with in your newspaper is your editor, so is he in my pocket? ' Actually Ranil was checking his pocket to see whether Mr Breakfast has fallen off it, and was grovelling somewhere there in the soft Mt Lavinia sands. But, Mr Breakfast was always in that pocket as usual, that's why he misheard that whole Ranil incident , and reported it wrong, what with the mush and we won't tell you what elseness in those regions of Ranil. Ok a journalist (stupid pun number 1000 in Nut Case diaries says 'Timely journalist') told Ranil he has a 'journalist secreted away in every newspaper organisation.' Ranil said 'let's ask your Editor.' The journalist then says 'why ask him -- we have already chased some moles from out there' Ranil then says 'for free media you need independence of the judiciary.' 'Really why didn't you impeach the Chief Justice, after all you tried to when in opposition?' says the journalist. ' One nonplussed Ranil, who seemed to look at his pocket for some sustenance. Note: Nobody walked upto Ranil. Ranil walked upto the scribe, not the other way about. Mr Breakfast wouldn't know that feeling at all. His experience is of the seals at a zoo. They go for feeding to their keepers at appointed times. Mr Breakfast goes for his feeding in the afternoons to his keepers, the politicians. Come morning, he vomits it all out in that decidedly un-gruff and pedestrian voice of his on 'Breakfast with Bozo.' Journalism? Sweet laggerbub journalism. |
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