Mud Ghecko

all about the bad side to Cricket Wait a minute! There is one? Yup, Im afraid there is – just as much as there is a bad side to anything and I actually went deep into thought on the subject last Saturday night. Have you noticed there is nothing like electricity cut to get one really philosophical? It’s the sudden withdrawal of constant media overload , that abrupt silencing of soap, sausage and posh car adverts and the compulsory return to nature which drags us protesting back to the stone age*, where hairy cavemen sat huddled around wood firelight worrying about what might be lurking beyond it - last Saturday this was excellently simulated in Kolonnawa and the resident mozzies found poor Al sitting in pitch darkness at 3 am in the morning in heavy humid torpor listening in horror to the distant rat a tat of something that just could not have been crackers (duh, we were losing according to sonny boy, whom I consulted for updates from his squeaky portable pocket radio from Pettah) . Alo...

so Where exactly were these bombs? well, according to the testimoney of local Wellampitiya ear witness Kusumawathi* "ayyo madam honda welaawata api beruney. Light niwwe nisa unta tena hoyaganna barry vela , apey geval pitipasse wela ta vatilane bomba tika." Losely translated – thank goodness we alive madam lights off so tigers not finding oil corporation and dropping boms on canal behind our house and we scared (to death ?) * http://aljuharawrites.blogspot.com/2006/10/domestic-bliss-kusumawathie-files.html

Is the very move - relocating elephants in the national parks - aimed at protecting these majestic animals killing them? Kumudini Hettiarachchi reports on a visit to the Lunugamvehera National Park where elephants appear to be dying of starvation. Are elephants starving to death? Not outside but in the very place they have been driven to in the name of protection and safety - the Lunugamvehera National Park. Several of the elephants, about 250 herded into the Lunugamvehera Park, under two phases of an elephant drive that began in 2005, may have died for lack of food, resulting in malnourishment and disease, The Sunday Times learns, after a visit to the area this week. What will be the fate of the remaining elephants, considering that the dry season is just starting? "I saw three elephants dead in the park," says T.A. Ajith Kumara, 18, who lives just outside the boundary, explaining that their carcasses were by the bund of the Lunugamvehera tank, in the jungle. Giving a time ...

A while back I happened to change channels and stumble an episode of a foreign TV reality show as they are called, and what do you know, these otherwise brilliant and beautiful young people were agreeing to the most disgusting kinds of torture in order to win a prize. Some of them had to eat sausages made of living , squealing beetles which sprouted bitter liquid when they were touched, or munch and swallow clumps of furry caterpillars, or huge chunks of four day old rotten fish with the maggots crawling in it. All this to pass through stages of this game which meant higher levels of loathsome torture and a possible grand prize of so many USD -With the amount of retching, vomiting and sheer suffering going on I ended up wondering if I should SMS Amnesty International (-not to mention PETA: after all- how do you think the poor darned caterpillars felt being chewed to death on Candid Camera ? ), and would I do this sort of thing even if someone obviously really sick offered me a million...

Al’s Diary 2006 April 10th I confess the idea of a New Year in April has always vaguely befuddled me and no matter how old I grow I somehow seem to live in general ambivalence towards the idea. It doesn’t actually register as a New Year, no matter how much it should. Sure, there’s the heat, the tedious spring cleaning involved, the pilgrimages to visit hoards of obscure relations Down South (although they are lovely people , its tiring and this is supposed to be a holiday). And there’s that horrible raucous bird ….but New Year? Well,ok, I’m not really breathlessly looking forward to New Year much; let me be totally honest with you. Its one of those times of the year where my inadequacy as a housewife really shines through, where my non conformity actually embarrasses me and the happy complacent spiders in my mahagedaera loom larger and hairer in their misplaced confidence that I find their intricate traceries of web-design actually esthetic. This is not the case, I don’t. It’s just t...

Last week I got an anonymous SMS, which went as follows: I AM MARRIED AND HAVING FAMILY PROBLEMS .I AM LOOKING FOR A LADY TO FULL MY LONELY LIFE TO A COMPLETE SUCCES. EVEN I HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, LIFE IS BORING. Well, I know what youre thinking 1) if that were my husband I would use a large pineapple on him, and 2)rotten grammar! either way it sure got me wondering …what is complete success? Well, Im a great one for self help books. From “ Men are From Mars ” to the “ Seven Secrets of Success” and the Unofficial Guide to Corporate Success, you name it, its sitting in my bookshelf gathering dust and acting as a refugee camp for egg carrying ants during the rainy season (and what is it with ants and old books, TV remotes and CD wallets? You turn around for a few weeks and suddenly the little beggars are hauling in a large collection of messy white larvae, and if you disturb them they collectively project a truly self effacing aura of surprise & damp apology and start running around...