Peter, Paul & Mary

Just stumbled on these guys, purely by accident. Nice sixties music. Just try:

Early In the Morning

If I had a Hammer

The Marvelous Toy


I had heard a couple of the songs before but never knew who sang them.

A Martian view

Just imagine that a friendly Martian landed on these shores. Imagine also that the Martian, finding himself on a populated land, decides to find out about the inhabitants through their own media, the Lonely Planet not quite reaching Mars.

He would quickly discover that the state media are the sole arbiters of the truth and, not wanting to be misled, concentrates entirely on them. He finds out that there is a war in progress and eagerly scans the press for details. Martian's being a warlike people are quite familiar with war, but this war baffles him.

It is the most beautiful war.

A war with no reversals.

A war with no casualties.

A war of territory but not of people

A war where no innocents die.

A war with no cost.


A war that would make the Martian equivalent of Charles Dodgson proud.

Cannibalism

It was only to be expected. The Great White Hope of the stockbrokers and punters has turned out to have feet of clay. As predicted by yours truly after the release of the third quarter results (results to Sept '08), Dialog has made a loss for the full year 2008.

The reason?

With only a cursory glance at the results I'm guessing that there is one reason: the Dialog Blaster package. This has probably cannibalised the entire customer base. I have a pretty low regard for marketing staff and indeed for the intellect of people working within the corporate sector; most can't think straight but this takes the cake.

You launch a package that is designed to save perhaps a 100,000 customers switching from Dialog to Mobitel's Upahara, but inadvertently give a discount to 2.9m of your paying customers (I take Dialog's published subscriber numbers with a sack of salt, they say have 5m but the paying active base is probably closer to 3m I reckon).

The fun is only just beginning, because Upahara has also wrought havoc amongst the SLT base, although it may have brought some marginal benefit to Mobitel. Things are probably pretty bad there, which is why their results are late, the accountants will probably be working overtime to make the best of the bad news.

And as for the future, my personal bet on the Dialog share price is Rs.2, once the foreigners start to sell but there is no telling where a floor will emerge once that starts to happen. Keep a lookout for stockbrokers and their clients jumping out of top floor windows in the WTC.

Gods

I just realised something.

In the mind of man, there is a little space reserved for a god. I have gone into the subject of my beliefs, or lack thereof, elsewhere but something made me realise, that deep down, in this ape known as homo sapiens there lies this little space.

It need not necessarily be occupied by the gods of organised religion, there may be other worldly things or abstract beliefs that sit in that space. These need not be restricted to one particular thing, depending on the person several things may occupy that space. Its purpose seems to be to sustain the soul and perhaps to give purpose to life.

Now that I have over the years dusted out and largely banished the gods from my mind it was a shock to discover that something else had taken their place. Indeed it is the shock of discovering something that should not be there that brought about this epiphany: a space exists and if not filled with gods, there will be others things that have crept into the space.

In my case it was the awkward discovery that the space for gods now appears to be occupied by a woman. Looking more closely I found that there were more than one, in fact a handful of them seemed to be sitting on the alter, so to speak.

An what lead to that discovery? One of the Goddesses, for that is what they are, almost fell off her perch.

It has dawned on me that I seem to have idolised various women who I have befriened over the years. The ones I respect seem to have been elevated to a position of absolute devotion and to whom offering of various types are made periodically. All these women are known as good friends in the real world, but in the frail human mind they have become Goddesses.

Friendships going back a decade or sometimes two must not be treated lightly but to find them in quite such an elevated stage was rather discomforting.

Man is a social animal and as I have said elsewhere relationships are very important so perhaps this is not as unusual as I first thought.

Either way, search within, for one may be surprised by what drives and sustains one.

Liberation

The Liberation Tigers finally succeeded in living upto their name when they unwittingly liberated many thousands of Innocent taxpayers from the tyranny of the dreaded Department of Inland Revenue.

A loud explosion was reportedly heard and a fire had broken out in the building. Helpful bystanders and jubilant citizens have reportedly gathered to form a bucket chain from the nearby petrol shed to add as much fuel as possible to the flames.

The petrol shed was reportedly issuing the fuel at a discount and citizens from all walks of life, both sexes and many different races were seen piling into the melee in a spirit of cameraderie not seen since the London Blitz...

The essence of a relationship

There are three factors on which a lasting relationship may be built.

1. Respect
2. Trust
3. Communication

Respect is necessary because people rarely change. Over time they do change, as they age, but such change takes a very long time and is never predictable. Some are more amenable to change, others less so and in certain fundamental ways people never change.

What is therefore necessary is acceptance. We must be prepared to accept them for what they are and acceptance without respect is impossible except in the short-term. People have good and bad qualities, likable and annoying traits, in order to suffer the worst aspects of our fellow human beings we need to be sustained by their better qualities.

Respect is key, lose respect and the relationship is over.

Trust is necessary because every relationship involves exchange. Where there is no trust one can only have a transaction, where each party is looking to ensure that they get at least as much as they give. A series of transactions do not make a relationship. A relationship involves giving unconditionally in the expectation that that this will someday be repaid in kind. In all sustaining relationships it is.

This is trust at a fundamental level. The petty matters like women who check their boyfriends email and men who dig into their girlfriends mobile phones and such distressing behaviour involves trust, but at a more mundane level. It matters in that to any reasonable person a lack of respect for personal privacy will bring about feelings of intense irritation and will doom a relationship well before any serious stresses are placed on it.

Communication is necessary because relationships will invariably have its problems. When faced with a problem the people involved need to talk it over and resolve the matter if the relationship is to prosper.

These principles are true of any relationship, be it personal or business.

Man is a social animal. It is through cooperation that individual tribes and eventually mankind as a whole triumphed over much more powerful beings in the animal kingdom and these are the elements of cooperation.

It does not surprise me that many marriages end in divorce, so much so that I am told that wedding photographers in Sri Lanka ask for full payment in advance, fearing that the marriage may end before the photographs are delivered.

A good many people that I know seem to be incredibly naive about the whole thing. I have met women who seem to view marriage as an extension of playing 'house'. Marriage is much much else besides and I'm fond of quoting Jared Diamond on this (and he quotes from Tolstoy): “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Diamond explains that by that sentence, Tolstoy meant that, in order to be happy, a marriage must succeed in many different respects: sexual attraction, agreement about money, child discipline, religion, in-laws, and other vital issues. Failure in any one of those essential respects can doom a marriage even if it has all the other ingredients needed for happiness.

It is also about the sharing of personal space as anyone who has been on an extended holiday with a friend can testify. Sharing room with someone who is more messy or does things differently can be incredibly trying: wet sheets on the bed, sand on the floor, toothpaste squeezed the wrong way, to sleep with a fan or without one, with a mosquito net or without; seemingly mundane, unimportant things that have ruined friendships and I'm sure a marriage or two. Too small to talk over and agree upon, too difficult to ignore.

This is where background comes into play. There is term, for it but it escapes me now, I thought it was endrogyny, the seeking of similar traits. Presumably people with similar backgrounds will share similar values, tastes and expectations. There is an automatic, unconscious trait that supposedly draws people to others like themselves and which is where an arranged marriage can be of some use.

I think the English got it right with the presentation ceremony though, whereby suitable boys and girls are allowed to mingle at a series of parties, with mothers and aunts furiously taking note of potentials to be invited to the next party. As one of the elderly ladies at one of these parties is said to have remarked, it doesn't matter if your daughter runs off with someone, as long as she runs off with the right kind of fellow.

Kalpitiya

Trying something that I have not done before, adding a few pictures. These were taken off my camera phone, turned out better than I expected. They are no great works of art, but by my clumsy standards, fairly good pictures.

Spend the last weekend there, the fifth holiday in as many weeks. I really need a break now:)

Migration

My cousin will be migrating to Australia. Not something very new, a lot of people are migrating so one more joining the bandwagon is hardly something to be remarked upon.

From the point of view of the family however it is more significant, there will be almost no one from the younger generation left. My family; Anglicised, Christianised and thoroughly debased in its outlook belongs to a section of the community that is fast disappearing.

The usual method by which such families disappear is by drinking. I've lost a fair share of my Uncle's to alcohol, on both sides of my family. While some of these uncles were married, many (not surprisingly) were not, thus cleaning up the future gene pool. Invariably the drunkards were also gamblers, so what they did not lose drinking they gambled away, thus leaving the families broke as well as neutered.

Now it seems that the few remaining sober members of the family are migrating. The trend started in the 1960's and has continued ever since. I have no immediate family left on my fathers side, and of the 15 first cousins on my mothers side I will be left with just one, after the latest one leaves. Well, perhaps not quite, one other is only 'temporarily' away, her husband has a job in India, but I have a feeling that this will eventually translate to another permanent migrant.

Once out, they never come back. Indeed the one cousin I have left is the only one who ever returned and one is never sure when he will decide to move on.

Perhaps this is how it was meant to be. The colonials left shortly after independence and now their agents, the Brown Sahibs (my maternal grandfather fancied himself as an English country gentleman, with his passion for shooting and fishing and his fascination with the Empire) have all but left, abandoning the land to the native populace.

Anger

Was thinking about this and then I saw DC's post.

Was a little upset earlier this week with someone. Hurt, by what I thought as lack of trust. That lead to some resentment. After all the trouble I took, they still can't trust. Felt used.

Resolved to keep away for a while.

Resentment, hurt, anger, irritation, feeling that seem to merge one into the other, were running around my system. Was trying to pin the exact emotions down but it was difficult.

Turned to music, even blogged about music; it helped, but did not draw all the sting.

Never was someone who could remain angry for long, so emotions began to die down a bit after a day. I then decided, to look at the bigger picture. This was only a small matter in the much larger universe. In anycase how deep was this relationship? Why not just sit back, enjoy the company and figure out the issues later?

After all it may have been just a misunderstanding, they did'nt really mean anything

Once one gets on this mode of rationalising and explaining away the problem, the emotions disappear pretty fast. After a while one wonders why anger even arose in the first place.

I have found that if one thinks positively, does not dwell on the issue and above all do not try to investigate further to verify facts, things will ease.

If one tries to deal with the problem by thinking of the issue, to try to understand why, to investigate, to dig deeper the anger will grow and eventually consume oneself.

Anger brings distress, unhappiness. Let it go.

There is no point in seeking the truth, better to forget the problem, rationalise it away.

Sticking my head in the sand? Maybe. Not facing the truth? Possibly? Taken for a sucker ? Maybe.

But who cares? Happiness is more important than the truth and anger is the enemy of happiness. If nothing else this attitude probably makes me easier to get on with and maybe, just maybe, it will reduce my chances of spending the after life in hell....

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

This post is about a strange addiction to classical or serious music. I was hooked on it through my uncle, who used to keep records playing in his house all the time. We used to hate it when we were children, but repeated, passive listening (we could not help but hear it when passing) over many years lead to a gradual understanding.

My uncle himself had stumbled upon it in a rather strange way, and that too as an adult. He visited a friend one day and heard something playing on the gramophone and liked it. He would then ask for that particular record to be played whenever he visited.

Once of the pieces that held him spellbound was the Leclair Sonata No. 3, played by David Oistrakh. I am listening to that same piece (played by Szerying) and I realise what must have captured my Uncle's imagination so long ago.

It has been quite a while since I listened to classical music, chiefly because I have limited access to it now and perhaps my new found wonder in what I previously thought was a fairly nice piece may have something to do with a period of absence.

I'm also listening, with growing amazement at the beauty of Szerying's tone. Never quite appreciated the skill of a violinist before, but this has been an eye opener.
Kreisler's Tempo di Menuetto (listen from 3.15 for this piece), which he also plays on the album that I copied which is also nice.

In fact I'm listening to music almost with new ears, yes indeed absence does make the heart grow fonder.

Wagnerian or Operatic Rock

This was the term used by a group of musicians who attempted bring in elements of opera, particularly Wagnerian opera into Rock music. They seemed to have been active in the 1980's but it apparently never had much commercial success. Rather a pity because one of the two songs released by Fire Inc. is a classic. Never heard of them? well listen to this.

The recording does not do it justice but that is the best available. Their other song is worth listening to as well.

Of course there were other musicians like Meatloaf and Queen who were influenced by opera, whether they fall into this school I do not know.

These are some of my favourites:

I'd do anything for love

Rock´N´Roll Dreams Come Through



ps. There is another oldie that is rather good, its not operatic rock but the song is good. Albert Hammond's The Free Electric Band

The demise of cricket, a game played by gentlemen

I have been offered free tickets for a cricket match by a couple of people and I refused, much to their surprise.

I do not follow cricket. In a country where everyone else does, that makes me bit of an oddity. There was a time when I did, sometimes quite passionately, but not anymore. There is something being played on the cricketing field but the game is dead.

Cricket is the quintessential English game. For better or worse it embodied the English class system with its emphasis on the amateur and good gamesmanship. There was a strict code of honour that governed conduct on the field and above all it was a game. Something to played with spirit but with no real emphasis on winning.

When professional players entered the game, the class system was enforced through separate entrances and, if I am not mistaken separate dressing rooms. To this day there are doors marked "Gentlemen" and "Players" at many an ancient cricketing arena.

The scorecard distinguished between the two by the way their names appeared. Amateurs (gentlemen) had their initials precede their surnames whereas with professionals their initials followed the surname. Thus, M.C.Cowdrey and P.B.H.May but Trueman F.S. and Statham J.B. This practice was discontinued in 1962 but not much else changed.

The English took their games with them and cricket took root in the colonies but retained the basic character of the English game. In Ceylon, as presumably everywhere else, school coaches started by emphasizing manners, before anything else was taught. The golden rules were, never show dissent, always obey the umpire, always walk, never claim a dead catch. Contrast that with what happens on the field now.

The game started to die with the introduction of money and the single biggest villain was Kerry Packer. Not unexpectedly he was brash outsider, an Australian businessmen.

He brought money into the game and with it, coloured clothing,day/night matches and much else. When he took his proposals to the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club), the body which controlled cricket at the time, the MCC were aghast and he was rightly shown the door. Packer then had the cheek to go and form his own World Series Cricket, signing on the top players of the era; the Daily Mail headline of May 9, 1977 read: "The World's Top Cricketers Turn Pirate"

World Series Cricket lasted only until 1979 but the damage was done and many of the Packer innovations were included in the game. The arrival of first the neutral umpire and then the third umpire were more steps down the slippery slope.

The last nail in the coffin was the launch of the 20/20 IPL league in India earlier this year. Complete with players auctions and dancing girls the playing arena now resembles a circus than the cricket field of old.

What is taking place on the field is not the gentleman's game but professional sport, which is in essence a part of the entertainment industry. Fittingly this takes place in India, home of Bollywood and its extension, the IPL league.

The blurring of the line between field and screen went a step further when several Sri Lankan cricketers starred in a Bollywood film.

Cricket had a pretty good innings, but I think it has now died out almost everywhere. Well, maybe not everywhere. Followers of the old game can still catch glimpses of it at the Cricket Club Cafe where old matches are sometimes aired. One can see scrawny, weedy looking Indians, gangly West Indians and slightly pot-belied Englishmen toiling away under the sun, the shaking of hands when a wicket is taken and a pat on the back when a batsman reaches a century. It all seems so quaint and old fashioned now.

Wisdom of a Trishaw driver

Had to ride in to work in a trishaw since my Dream Machine has been sent in for a bit of a makeover.

As we turned out of our lane the driver we ran into a long line of traffic and the driver exclaimed (in English) "Oh My God". Now I have heard a lot of things from trishaw drivers but never that particular phrase, which was amusing because its seemed so incongruous.

Later on in the drive, whilst dodging more jams he remarked (in Sinhala) on catching sight of the latest election posters: "Yuddhaya hondata Vikunanawa Ne", meaning the war is being well sold. Again not something that I expected to hear.

What if Tamils were given an opportunity?

An opportunity to change their name. Quietly and painlessly to another name of their choice, be it a burgher name, a Muslim name or a Sinhalese name.

Imagine that this would be done with seamless efficiency and all documents, birth, marriage, licenses, ID cards and passports would be quickly issued in the new name. Imagine also that this would enable the Tamils to reclassify themselves as Sinhalese, Burgher or any other race of their choice.

How many would take this up?

I'm just curious to know and this is a serious question, please leave a comment with your views, thanks.

Problems in Russia

The Russian solution to the Chechen problem seems to have left a long shadow over the country. Read this for a perspective on the post war developments.

On courtesy

After my tongue-in-cheek suggestion for a CFA amongst the Kottu bloggers, I wondered if perhaps I should draft an agreement and put it up for signature. That however lead me to ponder on the root of the problem, courtesy.

Pissu Perera has blogged on the goodwill that common courtesy can generate, while some other, less fortunate bloggers have been a bit pit out by the lack of it.

According tho this "the essence of good manners is consideration for other people, a concern for the comfort and convenience of others. This, though, implies a diminution of the importance of self. This is the principal reason good manners are important; not only do we all benefit from other people's good manners, our lives are enhanced by the necessary reduction in self-importance that our consideration for other people inevitably entails. To observe bad manners in someone is, unfailingly, to see the very essence of them. The same is true of good manners."

So perhaps instead of formal CFA or even a code of ethics what is needed is a return to old fashioned courtesy. We may disagree with people, that is what debate and democracy are about, but let us not be disagreeable when going about it.

Polarisation II

I have blogged about this before, but I think another post is due, only because the problem seems to be growing.

Nothing illustrates this better than the local Blogosphere. Look at some of the older posts from 2005. Is it even possible to imagine Indi and Sittingnut having an intelligent conversation?

Well, in 2005 it seemed possible. Just look at these posts and the comments below:

Why I support Ranil

United Lanka, United Party

LTTE Disenfranchises Tamils

I miss the old days, I really do.

Obama's inauguration

Some people seem to have been quite excited by this and even spent some time watching it on television. The appeal was a bit of a mystery to me, until my mother spoke to me about it this morning.

It was very impressive she said. Just like a coronation.

Was that what it really was, or at least the closest thing possible in a republic?

Either way I thought it rather funny.

Dead men writing editorials

I have been getting into a bit of an argument with a couple of friends. They seem to think that the editorial in the Sunday Leader was brilliant and prophetic.

I, ever the skeptic, beg to differ.

To me, the editorial seems to be written well after the event, which means Lasantha Wickramatunga could not possibly have written it.

The passages that look inconsistent are:

"For this I - and my family - have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am - and have always been - ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when."

I am of course, open to correction - will someone in the know clarify the position? If indeed he wrote it, it would be truly prophetic and a fitting tribute to the man, otherwise it looks like a piece creative writing, a piece of theatre, something that defined that newspaper.

Odds and ends

I have been gathering my scattered thoughts and catching up with a little bit of reading over the holidays.

I had begun to regard global warming as a problem - but one that will make its effects felt in the very long term, maybe 30 to 50 years at least. What I did not realise was the extent of the impact of global warming on the sea. This article made me sit up and take notice.

Did you know that a meltwater lake on the Greenland ice sheet covering six square kilometres drained away in 24 hours in 2006? That sound pretty dangerous to me.

The most serious impact, the higher levels of carbon dioxide affect the salinity of the seas surface making life difficult, if not impossible, for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate shells or skeletons. This means that larger fish, which feed on these smaller organisms may in turn cease to exist in a fairly short period, which means no seafood for you and me.

There is a lot more, so read and heed.

Moving onto something else, got a new phone which has a music player installed. Have copied some playlists onto it so hopefully will have something to soothe my nerves in the office. I have not listened to much music over the last three years or so, chiefly because I had no access to it, except on the computer and that too at home because the office ones don't have speakers.

This brings me to the lesser known works of popular composers, Bruch for instance. He has written a rather nice piano trio (op.5) which is (as it so happens) coupled with equally rare and quite delightful trio music by Widor (he of the Organ Symphonies) and Hiller. This is the recording that I pinched, recommended to anyone looking for unfamiliar music in that genre.

Continuing on the subject of Bruch's other works (he is known mainly for the G Minor violin concerto and the Scotch Fantasy), the second and third violin concerti are well worth a hearing, I've heard this recording, which is good.

The real gem in Bruch's oeuvre is the double piano concerto. It is even more immediately attractive than the first violin concerto but is unfortunately a real rarity. It had a strange history, the original score did not come to light until quite recently, which is one reason why it remains largely unknown.

There is a recording by the Labèque sisters, which is not supposed to be very good (I never cared much for their playing anyway) and there are some other unknowns also listed on Amazon. The world premier recording by Martin Berkofsky & David Hagen with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lutz Herbig is the one I've heard and it is quite outstanding (just found it on Amazon look here). It was on recorded in the 1980's on the Turnabout label (the former Vox Turnabout) which I think is now defunct. It was remastered on CD in the 1990's, in a terrible transfer that robbed the sound of its bloom, the CD version sounds thin and narrow, like an old mono recording. If you can find the original recording somewhere, give it a go, otherwise try one of the others. There was a lousy recording on Youtube so leave that well alone.

There is also a fairly nice concerto for Clarinet and Viola by Bruch as well and some interesting prices for basset Horn and Clarinet by Mendelssohn. Have a look here.

As I said before, I have also been trying to catch up on some reading and about 300 ages into the book, Nehru has at last started to say something of interest in his autobiography. It is not that the man cannot write, he has an elegant turn of phrase, but it is that he very little to say. For the most part of the first 300 pages he comes across as idealistic and out of touch. This is a lot better than Gandhi, who looks to me like an out and out nutcase - sleeping naked with teenage girls must count for rather odd behaviour especially by a supposed living saint.

The only reason I got the book (I did not buy it but I did hint to someone that I was interested in it and I received it as a present) was because Lee Kuan Yew mentioned in his autobiography that Nehru was the man they looked to for ideas and intellectual leadership. This was not apparent in the first half of the book and I would have been very disappointed had I actually paid money for it, but it seems to have picked up a bit now. Need to look around for some of his later writing. I was an ardent fan of Lee Kuan Yew, ever since I read his well written Story of Singapore. I noticed when glancing through some of the chapters in volume 2 (From the Third World to the First) that my views on the press differ from his more markedly now. Perhaps it is the experience of living under tight censorship that makes me appreciate the need for a freer press but I think I need to revisit that book again.

In the meantime just started the Undercover Economist by Tim Harford which (halfway through the first chapter) looks very exciting. This shall be my bedtime reading for a while, shall return to the re-reading of Sophie's World when I finish (that, to my small mind is a rather profound book), need to take it in little bits to digest it properly.

Anyway, having fun playing around with odd ideas, mental masturbation if you like, good night out there, whatever you are.