Pri's blog

Whatever the New York Times has to say  about the British Olympic Spirit (see also this typically British video) there is an excitement in the city about what Gold TV ads dub "that sporting event"! You can feel it in your fingers, you can feel it in your toes, the Olympics is all around you and so the feeling grows.  Unashamedly here to capture some of that 'feeling' (not being able to 'see' anything because I was too unlucky on the draws, and too cheap to buy the expensive seats), our Ethiopian friends and we added our own spice and colour to the crowd greeting the torch  when it went through Edmonton on Wednesday.    From hijab to dreadlocks, sarees to miniskirts, bindis and holy ash to tatoos, multi-ethnic London turned out to wave the torch on (a disappointingly elongated cornetto of fire not ice) with union jacks and balloons and loud cheers... tried to reflect some of the atmosphere on camera - so if you got the time, check out my street photos

The title of my first television interview.  The fact that my sister was almost complimentary suggests it didn't go too badly, except for the cat that is.   And CEPA got the airing it deserved.  So given that it is a landmark in my virtual existence, and it is now out there, I thought I might as well share it on this blog

The Lion Flag @ Galle Face in May 2010 The Lion Flag @ Galle Face today, July 15, 2012 With apologies for a rather lousy photo this morning, and for a wind that was blowing the Flag in a different direction  here are two photos taken almost at the same spot, almost at the same time of a morning.  Spoke with the Abans guy who sweeps that stretch of the road and he told me that the Palmyrah trees were cut down and that they have been told that the coconut trees might be cut down as well.... There could be several explanations for this:  my favourite one is that the UDA/CMC have bought a chainsaw that they have to show they have used to the optimium, so they are maximising the number of trees they are cutting down; a less generous explanation is that picture one above, looked too much like it could be in the North and was not palatable to the chauvinists among the powers that be.   Readers guesses are also welcome! PS Didn't see anything about the Wijeram...

 Colombo residents will remember these three trees near the All Ceylon Buddhist Women's Association beneath which people sold compost and soil.  The area was then taken over for a car park for school vans, and  it is now the site for the new Russian Embassy.   A fence came up, around the trees, and for a while I thought these would be saved from the chainsaw.  But no such luck.  Today I saw the first of these being sawn away... and I guess by the end of the week you will only have these photos (taken in 2007)  left.

This blog title - "kolombata kiri, apata kekiri" was a slogan used by the JVP  to highlight the the differences in governmenet support to Colombo and the rest of the country. I was reminded of this because at a time when the media is telling us that there are thousands of people suffering from a drought that threatens to destroy 150,000 acres of  paddy lands, and  reservoirs are running dry, we seem to be using gallons of the precious liquid to take the dust off our city roads. Wijerama Mawatha, Colombo 7,  Saturday morning