Odds and Ends

In a recently concluded case against a former ambassador to Britain, the ex-envoy was ordered by court to pay, with costs, a sum that was nearly double the £10,000 loan he took from a well-known, well-heeled Sri Lankan back in the early ’90s. It is understood that the former diplomat used the money to make a down-payment for a UK property that is now supposed to be worth over £300,000. In his defence, the former envoy said the money was officially remitted from Colombo to be used to pay the fees for his daughter’s education in the UK, and that this money was sent some three years before the alleged loan was made. Commenting on the case, another ex-diplomat (now back in Colombo) said: “We cannot lie in a court of justice, especially in a country known for justice and fair play.”

Black flags were spotted along the Negombo road last Thursday, when Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe returned to the island after his recent European tour. When a journalist asked about the flags, at a media conference held at UNP headquarters, Mr. Wickremesinghe laughed: “What black flags? We didn’t see any. But Basil Rajapaksa was returning that day from a trip to Singapore. The flags may have been a government protest against Basil!” In case the journalists were nervous about repeating his quip, Mr Wickremasinghe suggested they wrote that the black flags might have had something to do with the fuel price hike. “As for me,” Mr. Wickremesinghe explained, “I took a different route that day because I had to attend to another matter, so I didn’t encounter any black flags.”

When President Mahinda Rajapaksa met with a group of newspapermen recently, the hot topic of fuel-saving inevitably surfaced in the course of conversation. It was generally agreed that cutting down on the use of vehicles was an essential measure in coping with escalating fuel prices.

One newspaperman said it was cheaper to use the Information Highway, and proposed teleconferencing as an alternative to travelling by car to office and to meetings. He cited President Rajapakse, who recently addressed voters in the East using teleconferencing technology. The scribe correctly pointed out that if the president had physically travelled to the East, he would have been accompanied by at least 200 fuel-guzzling vehicles. To which the President answered: “Two hundred? Nonsense! The number would have been much, much more, what with all the hangers-on who follow me around just to make their presence felt!”