Of chocolate fixes

Marguerite, my friend, was in office a little while ago, and the two of us took a few moments to visit P&S and have a delicious éclair oozing with cream and smothered with dark chocolate washed down with iced coffee before heading back to our respective offices.

I get back to my seat and guess what???? Dinesh has felt that he needed a chocolate fix as well (probably after my rapturous description of some melted Cadbury’s Turkish delight chocolate) and bought éclairs for everyone in office. Oh heaven!!

Presents

A couple of days ago a friend of mine received a parcel and experienced one of my most favourite things. PRESENTS! Don’t we all love them? I just adore delving into gifts and unexpected gifts really do make one’s day. They may come done up in plain brown paper, newspaper (one of my friends did that to me once) swathed in tissue or gift-wrapped and tied up with lots of ribbon… but they all create that feeling of pleasurable expectancy and sheer joy.

On my birthday in January this year, one of my friends, who had just returned from abroad, walked in to my office with this huge grin and a gaily wrapped package. I hastily pulled off the wrapping paper and revealed a mysterious looking pouch. I touched it, shook it, felt it ……… yes I even sniffed it!!! ……. but just couldn’t guess what it was …. (not that it stopped me from making wild guesses anyway!) I do believe my friend found my reactions and suggestions vastly amusing. Anyway, finally, having exhausted a number of possibilities I opened up the little buttons on the pouch and there nestling within layers of tissue was the most exquisite strand of pearls with matching ear studs. As you may guess, that quite made my day and I walked on a pink cloud of happiness the entire day.

Yet another friend went out and got me this lovely t-shirt in my current favourite colour which was a perfect match for a pair of jeans I had recently bought. Hooraay.

And my friend Tushara knowing my yen for nail polish got me several shades of nail polish and a half dozen colours of lipstick as well, while my little friend Melina took upon herself the enormous project of making me a birthday card.

Dance Aid- in aid of the tsunami victims

On the 26^th of February this year the Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association presented ‘Dance Aid’ in aid of the Tsunami Victims. Contrary to the misconception that there might not be a demand for tickets, my colleague Raomal was pleasantly surprised to find that he actually ran short of tickets.

Meanwhile, some of my friends who decided to see if they could get tickets at the gate were turned away disappointed. It show was a sellout!

I went along with my sister and a friend and we had a wonderful evening of entertainment. Sri Lanka does have loads of talent. We should certainly have more shows of this caliber. There were 20 dance items in all with a half hour break in between; with a mix of ballroom, Latin, eastern, street and techno dancing.

The ‘With my Feet’ troupe was absolutely WONDERFUL. The dance movements were fluid, confident, seemingly effortless and mesmerizing to say the least, while the costumes and the choreography were great. Antonio’s Dance Circle, El Latino and Dance World also participated, though With My Feet were the top of the charts for me. The hall resounded with the thunderous applause after each of their acts. Well done all around. Well done indeed!

“Service” at the Deli Market – World Trade Centre, Colombo 1

I had a luncheon date with a friend of mine today and since I work at the World Trade Centre, the most logical place to go on a working day would be to the Deli.

Having walked in, I got a friendly wave from the chef at the roast chicken counter (my current favourite stop) and steered straight to his counter, only to be stopped short by friend who said that I always seem to be having the chicken. Sigh.

O.k. so I checked out the options and decided to go along with the Chinese food. Sadly it was quite horrid and tasted a bit off or at least the chicken that I chose seemed ‘off’ anyway. There were no trays available so we had to make several trips, one to leave the food on a table, the next to collect the cutlery and finally another to get the drinks.

Having left most of the food untouched we then made our way to the dessert bar. Hmmmm prices are rising but sadly the service seems to be dropping equally steeply. A grim unsmiling girl took our orders and even walked away leaving us mid-sentence. We muse whether she gets to take the left-over ice-creams home at the end of the day, so “generous”??? are the servings at Rs.55/= per scoop.

Another trip back to the cutlery and horror of horrors…. no dessert spoons!!! No not a single, not even a table spoon in sight! Dear oh dear. Requests to the girl gained no response…. I’m serious… she could have been stone deaf. But help, the ice-cream’s melting. We finally located a manager who rescued us before we raised the bowls to our lips to sip the now melted ices. Oh dear. Quite a melting experience that turned out to be!

Oh the ridiculous prices of cinema tickets!

I was at the Savoy Cinema in Wellawatte recently and was surprised that they charge Rs.225/= per ticket for their mini cinema hall. The hall itself I felt was rather narrow and claustrophobic… plus to make me ‘love’ it more, I nearly tripped on the teeny little steps in the most unexpected places. Quaint??? I think NOT. Stangely enough, the prices for the adjoining larger hall were lower....... economies of scale?

But seriously, isn’t Rs.225/= a ridiculous price to pay? You may as well BUY the movie (a VCD) at about half the price of one ticket and watch it as many times as you wish, with as many people as you wish and even lend it out to your friends…. That’s value for money!!

OK I admit the luxury of watching it on a large screen (in this case not quite so large) is lost………. But then again, at Rs.225/= per head for my entire family…. I think I’d rather go rent or buy the movie and even have money left over to order pizza for us all!

Ira Madiyama

One of the WORST films I have seen in a very long time. It was boring and dreary and as far as I could see had no story line at all. They showed three separate potential story lines emphasizing incidents which made the viewer feel might have significance but ended up having no significance whatsoever. Take for instance the zooming in of a dog who seemed to be following the little Muslim boy wherever he went. That was it. No story or connection there. They showed the lady looking for her husband and the long weary journey she made to no avail, making the viewer, at least this particular viewer, feel as exhausted with the whole thing as she did……. and last of all, the guy who was on an eternal bus ride looking for his sister… once again no story line, no hook up whatsoever, and soooooooo darned slow moving too.

Worse still, other than the leading actress there was not a single good looking woman and certainly no good looking men. Films such as these are shown abroad giving the impression that the average Sri Lankan is ugly (after all the best MUST be the film stars and just look at them), lives (oops wrong word) drags out a boring, poverty stricken, uncouth, uncultured, miserable and utterly sad existence. Don’t throw the awards this film received at me either…….. I sometime wonder at the mystery of it all!

Perhaps this is a movie for the arty crowd who look at some paint thrown at a canvass, or even a blank canvass for that matter and see …….. I really don’t know what, not being one of these ‘privileged’ beings.

Neither am I at all surprised that the Savoy Cinema had just a handful of people watching the show, many whom were couples who were not interested in the show anyway. In the ladies room after the show, I heard some comments of other viewers, and let me tell you they were not complimentary to say the least.

If the Sri Lankan film makers are complaining that the cinema-going crowd is steadily decreasing and blaming television stations for it, they would do well to look at what crap they shoot for the discerning movie-goers. OF COURSE television is miles better.