News - odds and ends

Social Services Minister Douglas Devananda last week held a press conference to brief journalists on the situation in the north and east. He couldn’t help taking a dig at his bitter opponents in the legislature, the members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) preferring to call them Tiger Nominated Agents (TNAs).

Nightmare before ecstasy

A newly wed couple was in for quite a shock last week when they were leaving the venue of their wedding at the Galle Face Hotel.

Just as they were turning onto the main road, they were stopped by security personnel who said they had information that a couple in a car were planning to carry out a terrorist attack.

Despite their protests of innocence, they were kept waiting for nearly 45 minutes till another officer came and cleared their departure and allowed them to take off for their honeymoon.

The non-executive officers in Parliament are irked that they are no longer being served tea in their office. This came about after the Catering and House Keeping Department staff, instead of the Parliament Service Assistants who were detailed to serve tea previously, were asked to serve tea. With an apparent dispute between these two sides, the staff members have become the real losers. Now they take half an hour each morning and afternoon to have tea at the public canteen. The end result is nearly an hour lost from work time.

A scribe and a photographer had to recently visit the Motor Traffic Department driving licence and examiner branch office at Werahera. While their vehicle was turning into the premises, a slip by the driver seems to have made the senior examiner at the premises extremely angry. He walked up to the vehicle and slapped the driver twice before insulting the man in the worst kind of language. Maybe this is the same treatment the man is used to giving the poor souls who are forced to go to people like him, to do their driving tests.