Thoughts from London

The B family and our B team
I don't believe it. I just don't believe a word of it. Well some of it at least.
There was this email awaiting me in what those better acquainted with computer argot calls the "inbox".

It had to do with Minister of whatever it is Rohitha Bogollagama's early departure for the talks in Geneva on which his cabinet colleague and media spokesman Anura Priyadarshana Yapa seems to think that the less said about the Geneva confab the better. But to that later.

Now this email - and I don't know who authored it or what the news source is - said that the minister was later arriving for the flight and had kept other passengers awaiting.

If that is true, he must well have picked it up from former president Chandrika Kumaratunga who kept everybody waiting when she was in office and now keeps SriLankan Airlines waiting when she is out of it.
A diplomat mentioned in my ear the other day that Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera in introducing the government's batting side to some Colombo-based diplomats said that Bogollagama had served five executive presidents.

If that was meant to be a boast, it sure was a hollow one. If this is Bogollagama's track record for making an appearance at the Geneva talks, Samaraweera might have thought of some other qualification - if there is one. Surely the diplomatic corps is aware as does the Sri Lankan public that Bogollagama was able to serve some of these executive presidents because he had made political long jumping a fine art, nuanced to the minute. So what he had learned under the tutelage of Chandrika Kumaratunga is probably now surfacing, if what the email said is true.
But that is only for starters. More startling stuff came as the main course.
According to the email the minister's wife was the worst for liquor and stumbled on entering the aircraft and had to be helped by a member of the cabin crew.

Now this is why I don't buy the story. I don't even know whether Mrs. B (oops terribly sorry for that bloomer as Mrs. B was what most people called that dear venerated lady Sirima Bandaranaike) would take that foul stuff to her lips.

As they said of Lady MacBeth, not all the perfumes of Arabia would hide such calumny. Now if I was Mrs. B (well let's call her Mrs. Bogols to avoid confusion) I would take a knife to whoever started this story and perform some much-needed surgery on the chap as they did to poor old Julius - I mean Caesar, of course.

I really cannot understand the mentality of the chappie who wrote such horrible stuff about the spouse of one of the government's intellectual heavyweights who was setting forth to save the country from the ultimate ignominy of being cut into one-third of what it is by a ragtag band of terrorists in business suits.

Imagine what a fashion designer such as Mangala Samaraweera would have said when he saw the suits hanging loosely on the bodies of the lead guerillas, who seem to have adopted the Cassius look - lean and hungry - for the occasion, hoping perhaps the European Union would take pity and open its frontiers so the Wanni wallahs could enjoy a Danish smorgesbord and a few funny cartoons from the Danish press as much needed nourishment for both body and soul. Well, as I was about to say before being diverted by the Brooks Brothers attire of the Wanni nayakes that had languished in some Kilinochchi closet for well over two years, some chappie is trying to undermine our team even before they set foot in the land of cuckoo clocks and chocolates. Personally I would have reported the writer (if he or she could be traced) to the ICC now that our captain, the resilient Nimal Siripala de Silva had already introduced cricketing parlance to the Geneva con fab - well confab - by saying it was no one-day match.

Well our cricketers now playing the game (as the Royalists are said to do) in Bangladesh might disagree but let Nimal Siripala have his day. After all it was some years ago that the Tigers almost got him in Jaffna. So don't be misled by that winsome smile he offered Herr Hora Doktor Anton Balasingham who kept a healthy distance when they had to shake hands. Every dog has its day, Nimal S seemed to say.

Talking of handshakes that Priyadharshana Yapa chap is an absolute scream. At a media briefing on Thursday the man who is said to be the government spokesman said the two sides shock (well I really heard it as such unless Yapa speaks Japanese and intended to say shokku) hands and "that is a good sign".

Is this the credibility level to which this government has descended? Of course, if shaking hands is seen as the only good sign the government could produce as a symbol of success, then perhaps the Cabraal College for Smart Alecs should invite a couple of more of those Harvard types to teach some elementary lessons in good manners.

Maybe Yapa should have been put on the delegation as spokesman instead of Mr. Bogols and sent to a Swiss finishing school while Bogols wandered off (with wife and family in tow) to look for some investors among the alpine snows. Shaking hands for heaven sake! Has this chap Yapa ever seen a boxing match.

I remember seeing Mohamad Ali and more recently in London Amir Khan shake hands and then clobber their opponents to the canvass in the first few minutes of the first round.

It was a good sign for the victorious. Alas not so for the two chaps who could hardly pick themselves off the floor.If as the emailed story claimed Mr Bogols was late for the flight, he certainly was not late in getting to the Swiss chateau on time. Actually, well ahead of time.

If one might take capitaine Nimal S's metaphor a step further, Mr Bogols got there early to inspect the pitch and the playing conditions. I don't know whether his wife and family know much about cricket - well neither do the Swiss so what - but they were at least at hand to fetch him a quick schnapps to keep the body temperature high if not the spirits. Personally I don't see why Mrs. Bogols should come sozzled to the flight as the email unjustly claimed. I mean when ministers take wing the Business Class cabin staff are oh so eager to help. And as that writer should have known drinks are free unlike in the early days of flying when you had to pay for them.

Talking of paying who pays for the Family B's Geneva sojourn? If newspaper reports are to be believed Mr. B has a habit of carting his family around and sending bills to state institutions. Now I don't know whether that is true. But if it is, this Mahinda Chintanaya thing is surely beginning to attract some tarnish.

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