Newsletter aus Sri Lanka von Royston Ellis

[Premasiri]

TROPICAL TOPICS, Sunday 15 April 2012.
A change in the weather and in the year as Sri Lanka celebrated the National New Year on 13 April, so it’s New Year Greetings from this wonderful island of serendipity.
Tsunami Alert

We had a tsunami alert on Wednesday, 11 April. Within 20 minutes of a massive earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, I had a call from my driver about the possibility of a tsunami alert, and then came sms confirmation from a dynamic friend in Colombo. Next was a call from the British High Commission so I could pass on the tsunami warning to British residents in the south of Sri Lanka, since I am the BHC’s warden for that area.

I quickly stuffed a backpack with passport, credit cards, cash and laptop, and went to join villagers gathering at the highest viewpoint in my garden to watch the sea. The authorities predicted that – if there were to be a tsunami – it would hit our beach at about 4.15pm.
Traffic on the coast road was diverted inland by police, and soldiers patrolled to prevent possible looting as people abandoned their homes to move to higher ground. Even this iguana in the garden decided to seek safety high in a palm tree.

Mercifully, by 4.30pm nothing had happened and soon afterwards the alert was cancelled. I was most impressed by the efficiency of the system of informal and official networking that resulted in everyone being warned promptly of the possibility of a tsunami. It was a good exercise for us all.


Cannon Ball Run

In keeping with its reputation as the best (if slightly barmy) place to stay in Colombo to capture a sense of the past, The Galle Face Hotel (GFH) on 5 April celebrated its annual Cannon Ball Run. This commemorates the occasion in 1845 when a cannon ball was misfired during a practice session by the British army on Galle Face Green. The ball crashed through the roof of the boarding house that was the predecessor of the GFH, and rolled under a chair in the drawing room.

The mishap is used as a fine excuse for a charming event in which two invited notables race each other along the promenade to the hotel, with the first to touch the cannon ball being declared the winner. Noel Coward’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen played, the hotel’s standard was lowered as the sun set, and a local bagpipe band marched up and down.

This year the competitors were Their Excellencies John Rankin and Bruce Levy, High Commissioners to Sri Lanka for the UK and Canada respectively. So eager were they to compete they set off at a cracking pace before the race was formerly flagged off by Lord Naseby, former Deputy Speaker of the British House of Commons, who was on a visit to Colombo.

I was fortunate in being able to join my old friends Lord & Lady Naseby and Sanjeev Gardiner, the Chairman of the GFH, in the starter’s box.

The event was organised and skilfully commanded by Eshan Gunasekara on a visit from his home in England, who ordered Their Excellencies to stop running and do it again because of the false start. In jolly good spirit they did!
The first to tap the cannonball was HE John Rankin although HE Bruce Levy was the favourite of the noisy Canadian contingent. I noticed he sported one white sock and one red sock as Canada’s colours for the run.

The combined talents of all the hotel’s staff under Vice President Chandra Mohotti, created a wonderful evening, enlivened by the hotel’s signature cocktail of a delicious version of Pimms with cinnamon. As always at the hotel’s special functions, the food was a delectable variety of international and local cuisine, prepared under the direction of Executive Chef Rasika De Soyza, whose cooking I have previously enjoyed at Colombo’s Galadari Hotel and at Velessaru Island in the Maldives.

This appropriate piece of ice sculpture especially fascinated guests. The great appeal of the GFH is that every evening is serendipitous, even if one is just sitting on the chequerboard terrace watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean, as guests have done for 148 years.

Guided

In 2009 I received a letter from Michael Jenn commenting on my book on Sri Lanka published by Bradt in the UK and Globe Pequot in the USA. It said, in part, “(your book) is by far the best available. I know because I auditioned all the others and none has your depth of personal knowledge and experience between its covers…It is much more than a guide. It is a companion for the imaginative traveller who wants to discover not just the cheapest guest house but also the soul of this beautiful country…”

Well, praise like that was inspiring. So when Michael Jenn (whom I had never met) telephoned me last week during his latest visit to Sri Lanka, I invited him to the cottage for sundowners so I could thank him for his comments. Only then did I think of Googling his name to see whom I had invited.

Michael Jenn, I discovered, is an actor who has appeared in the film Unleashed with Bob Hoskins and Jet Li and, more recently, Sherlock Holmes starring Jude Law and Robert Downey. When he returns to London next week he will be performing at the National Theatre; later this year he goes to Australia to direct a play. It was a thrill to meet this modest and very talented actor and stage director who now visits Sri Lanka twice a year as a volunteer, teaching English to children in an orphanage near Kurunegala.



As he learns more about Sri Lanka, Michael still enthuses about my guide, the latest edition of which is available direct from: http://www.bradtguides.com/Book/552/Sri-Lanka.html
Beat regards
Royston Ellis.

auch von mir die besten Grüsse Premasiri

 

[Premasiri]

TROPICAL TOPICS, Sunday 22 April 2012.
Welcome to this week’s newsletter with its mixed bag of contents, mostly related to Sri Lanka.
Cupcake!
The 21[SUP]st[/SUP] century American craze for cupcakes has reached Sri Lanka and, thanks to a gift from expat resident Jane Fletcher, arrived at Horizon Cottage on Monday.

I didn’t know what a cupcake was since these small, individual cakes would be called muffins here or fairy cakes in Britain. Apparently they have been around since first baked in 1796. These delicious-looking mini-cakes securely packed in a box are made in Beruwala, a coastal town about 12km north of where I live. They even have their own website, www.beruwalacupcakes.com from which I learn that they cost from SLRs40 (2 pence; 32 US cents) each for a minimum order of 12.

Diary Date
Thursday, 3 May 2012 is a date for your diary if you live in or near London. That evening, Shevanthie Goonesekera is to present a paper to the Friends of Sri Lanka at the Sri Lanka High Commission in London on “A Revolutionary Route. The artistic journey of the Russian Émigré painter Alexander Dimitrievich Sofronoff.”
Why should that be of interest to friends (and fans) of Sri Lanka? Because Sofronoff lived in the then Ceylon from 1936 painting, and consequently influencing many local artists. Shevanthie, who has traced over 100 of Sofronoff’s distinctive paintings, will also talk about his life in Ceylon, his employment as décor artiste at the Galle Face Hotel, the successful exhibitions held at the hotel, and his close connection to the British community in Ceylon.

It was because of this connection that I heard about Sofronoff from a visiting British couple, as the lady was born in Ceylon when her parents lived here and they bought some Sofronoff paintings, which she inherited and has at her home in England. This example I found described in an auction catalogue as “Ceylon Coastal Scene” (c1960) which is rather mysterious since Sofronoff died -- and is buried -- in Sri Lanka in 1948. It sold for £620 (SLRs124,000; US$1,033), twice its estimate.

New Year
The Sinhalese & Tamil (Buddhist & Hindu) National New Year was officially commemorated on 12 & 13 April although celebrations continued into the following week. It’s the time when Sri Lankans return to their home villages to join in religious observances as well as fun and games with their families. Thus it’s the time when everything slows down.

It’s also the time when the Asian Koel (kovula; Eudynamys scolopacea) starts going “whoop-whoop” as it potters about the trees. It’s a difficult bird to see but impossible to ignore because of its monotonous chanting, like a cuckoo. And it’s a kind of a cuckoo too since it cuckolds crows by laying its eggs in their nests.

The games played at the New Year include pillow fights on a pole, tugs of war and, shown here, the throwing of a single dice at a board to get a high number, while villagers bet on the outcome. It’s also the time for bicycle races although in this photo from my garden it seems there are more motorbikes as escorts than racing cyclists.

For lunch on New Year’s Day we had a scrumptious Mutton (actually young goat) Biriyani cooked by Chaminda (in the red T-shirt above) accompanied by a spicy pineapple curry and boiled eggs. Wonderful!

That night, though, there was heavy rain, lightning and thunder and another tree fell across the driveway to the cottage. Even though it was raining, the tree had to be cut down and removed so my dinner guests could leave.

Monsoon Months
This is the period of pre-monsoon storms for us on the west coast. It’s when the days are swelteringly hot with scorching sunshine and then, as night rolls in, there are vivid lightning flashes followed by booming crashes of thunder, and welcome rain. Terrifying, but good for the garden.
The nightly storms herald the approaching change in the monsoon winds. From May the west coast sea churns and the days are humid, while the east coast sea becomes calm and days balmy, making it the best place to be. It’s another of the joys of Sri Lanka that visitors at any time of the year can find the weather they want.

The tracks and months of the monsoon, are plotted on this 232 year-old map that I bought while in London last month. It is by Rigobert Bonne (1727-1795) cartographer to the French royal court who brought a touch of modern clarity to his maps, eschewing the frills of 17[SUP]th[/SUP] century mapmakers. This map was printed in 1780 and uses arrows to indicate the direction of the monsoon.


Living For Kicks
Thanks to Harriet Griffey, a London-based journalist whom I don’t know and have never met, I have received a link that shows the whole of Living For Kicks, the TV documentary about young people in which I appeared in 1960.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76jBpQJYcFg
It was marvellous to see it after 52 years, especially since it’s in black and white and looks so dated. I am amazed, though, how articulate the kids sound although at times it seems like a series of comedy sketches, with a posh interviewer, a sinister nightclub owner with a pencil moustache, a shocked mum, dapper Teddy Boys, and yours truly as the token beatnik poet with scraggly beard and fake Brighton accent.

To read about those days, try the re-issue of my book The Big Beat Scene, which has a new foreword and afterword added to the text originally published in 1961. It’s available through: http://musicmentor0.tripod.com/book_big_beat_scene.html.

Beat regards
Royston Ellis

 

[Premasiri]

It’s also the time when the Asian Koel (kovula; Eudynamys scolopacea) starts going “whoop-whoop” as it potters about the trees. It’s a difficult bird to see but impossible to ignore because of its monotonous chanting, like a cuckoo. And it’s a kind of a cuckoo too since it cuckolds crows by laying its eggs in their nests.

Genau wenn ich diesen Vogel höre bin ich in meiner zweiten Heimat angekommen. Durch Royston weis ich jetzt wie der Vogel heisst....

LG Premasiri

 

[Premasiri]

TROPICAL TOPICS, Sunday 29 April 2012.
Greetings from my favourite country rain or shine: Sri Lanka.
Made in Sri Lanka
Regular readers will know of my penchant for cocktails and canapés and unusual products made in Sri Lanka. So you’ll understand how delighted I was to discover in my local supermarket, cans of Chicken Spread in chilli or curry flavour. Although it doesn’t look particularly attractive, it has a smooth consistency that makes it ideal for a dip, and a full taste when served with raw, juicy bright orange carrots (from Sri Lanka’s hill country) as a nibble with a vodka martini.

The ingredients of the chilli spread shown here are listed as Crysbro chicken, mayonnaise, corn flour, vinegar, bell pepper, carrot, salt, permitted flavour enhancer (E621), onions, dry chilli, pepper, garlic. It seems to have mixed parentage, being manufactured by Apollo Foods (Pvt) Ltd for Farm’s Pride (Pvt) Ltd and distributed by C W Mackie plc, all Sri Lankan companies.

It’s Halal Certified and carries an ISO Food Safety Management System. A tin of net weight 155g costs SLRs180 (80p; US$1.38). Same again?
Hopeful Village

The Village of Hopes and Dreams was officially opened last week by HE John Rankin, British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka. This is run by the Manacare Foundation, a charity started in Britain in 1994 by Mrs Joy Butler Markham.
The Village is Joy’s response to the damage to lives and livelihood caused by the 2004 tsunami. She realised that while NGOs were helping with re-housing projects, there was a need to help people re-build their lives.

The Village, built on jungle land cleared and developed by volunteers, consists of several buildings and sections. There is some accommodation for the disabled as well as a physiotherapy clinic and vocational training rooms for teaching life skills (such as a course for girls who want to work abroad as housemaids), and dance/drama classes.

In an email to me last week, Joy said: “The whole idea really is that the sustainability ideas at the back, i.e. the soaps, candles, jewellery, coir, carpentry, sewing ... can start to make a small profit and thus pay for the teachers, doctors, physiotherapists, carers, cleaners, etc ... thus making it totally sustainable ... problem thus far is that I have built the houses which interfere with any profits ... my fault entirely.”

Jewellery, work clothes and over 100 types of soft toys and useful household items (seen here) are produced at the village.

Tiny bars of soap using natural oils, perfect for guest rooms, are also produced there. Soap sales are currently 12,000 bars a month, helping to create industry and income for villagers as well as generating some income towards costs. Donations, of course, are always needed (see the Wish List on http://www.manacare.org/srilanka)

To see and understand this amazing enterprise (Manacare Foundation, Godagama, Telewatta, Hikkaduwa) just drive along the Galle Road and turn inland up the lane opposite the 93km marker. Drive over the railway line and into the interior for about five minutes to reach the entrance to the village.

Visitors are welcomed on weekdays between 8am-5pm, but best to check first with Raja on 0772 063552.

Architecture
The architecture of Sri Lanka since the 1950s is beautifully represented in a massive tome, a publication of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects, called Identity: The Sri Lankan Architect (ISBN 978 955 0508 003). The book impresses from its sheer size, let alone content. It weighs 3.6kg, is 6cm thick, contains 536 pages and features notes on, and photographs of, the creations of 124 architects and 19 Architectural Practices. The concept, design and production of this book was by BT Options; it costs Rs4,000 (£ 17.77; US$ 30.76).

I suspect it might have been inspired by the desire to show the world that there are other notable architects in Sri Lanka besides the vaunted Geoffrey Bawa. However, judging by the photographs of their work, many Sri Lankan architects seem unable to shake off Bawa’s influence.

While touring Sri Lanka, I have enjoyed the fun of modern buildings such as The Tangalle Bay Hotel and The Tea Factory Hotel – both featured in the book -- and the Chaaya Blu and Chaaya Tranz hotels, too new to appear. But I have also been disturbed by the ugliness of covered space created by exposed concrete pillars that conjure up the grim ambience of an underground car park, instead of the charm, grace and essence of Sri Lanka.


Attic Archives
After last week’s video clip of me in Brighton in 1960, another blast from the past has emerged, this time a magazine called Today The New John Bull, published in London on 15 July 1961. It’s an unintentionally hilarious account of a visit I made to Moscow and met a Russian girl who had been my pen pal when I was 16 and we went for a walk to a park where people were dancing.

…“This is a very popular new Russian waltz,” Svetlana told me as we danced to the strains of ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ “I hope you like it!”

The next dance was a faster one. I took Svetlana into the arena and tried a few rock ‘n’ roll steps with her. She was horrified.
“No,” she said, “you must not do that. Rock ‘n’ roll is very bad.”
I put my arm round her, whispering a phrase I had memorised for the occasion: “Ya lubloo tibaya (I love you).”
She smiled and fumbled in her handbag for the phrase book. In the faint light she pointed to a sentence. I peered at the book excitedly.
“Do you always have fogs in England,” it said.
I leaned forward to kiss her. My lips brushed on to her cheek.
“For Peace and Friendship,” she murmured passionately as she slipped away into the night…





To read about the dawn of the Swinging Sixties, try the re-issue of my book The Big Beat Scene, which has a new foreword and afterword added to the text originally published in 1961. It’s available through: http://musicmentor0.tripod.com/book_big_beat_scene.html.

Beat regards
Royston Ellis

Wünsche allen einen schönen Sonntag

Premasiri

 

[Premasiri]

TROPICAL TOPICS, Sunday 6 May 2012.
Greetings to readers around the world. I’m spending this weekend in one of my favourite haunts, Haputale, at 1,429m (4,689ft) above sea level in the hill country of Sri Lanka, instead of being at home by the sea.
Made In Sri Lanka

No, this is not doll’s house furniture but attractive tissue box covers made in Sri Lanka – at the Manacare Village of Hopes and Dreams, about which I wrote in last week’s newsletter. This is a charity designed to create income and livelihood for Sri Lankans who have suffered loss, whether through the 2004 tsunami or other tragedies. It is located inland from the 93km post on the A2 (Galle Road).
All sorts of fascinating products are handmade there, with the special delight being guest-room size bars of natural oils soap shown in last week’s newsletter. Of course, I couldn’t resist buying a cat bed for Ollie, whose unexpected birth will be remembered by original readers of this newsletter (see Nos 6 & 10).

Another Dip Tip
This doesn’t come from a tin like last week’s tipped dip. I made it myself. I have always liked chickpeas since I had them as garbanzos when I lived in Las Palmas, Canary Islands, 50 years ago.
I don’t know where the chickpeas (kadala) we buy in Sri Lanka come from, probably Pakistan. The local method of preparation is to serve them boiled so they are soft with a sprinkling of dried chilli pieces as a snack during a drinking session.
My recipe for Chickpea Dip (or spread if you want a healthy substitute for peanut butter) begins the night before you make it. Remember this is not Hummus from the Middle East, a smooth blending of chickpeas, olive oil, lemon and garlic, but my own crunchier version. It’s great with bell pepper fingers and a glass of Laphroaig.

Begin by putting a cupful of chickpeas to soak over night in a bowl of mineral water. (You need to have water that is free of chemicals and potable.) The amount of water should be at least an inch above the upper layer of the peas. In the morning, the peas would have swelled and possibly absorbed all the water. What's not absorbed, discard.
Put the chickpeas in a saucepan full of mineral water and set to boil. To this add lots of peeled and squashed cloves of garlic and a large onion cut thinly. Sprinkle in a generous measure of freshly ground pepper (but no salt) and some turmeric powder for colour. Put in some mustard seed too.
Now cover the saucepan and let it boil fiercely. After 30 minutes, take off the cover. If the liquid is drying up, add more. Let it boil and boil and boil without the cover until the chickpeas are tender. If they are not tender add more mineral water and keep boiling until they are, and the liquid has evaporated.
When it's done, leave it to cool. There is no need to remove the skins from the chickpeas as this adds valuable roughage to the paste. Put the chickpeas and all the mush of garlic and onion into a blender. Now here’s the secret: add a dessert spoonful of sesame oil and a cup of freshly-made vegetable stock for flavour, plus a hearty dash of white wine. Blend. If the paste is too thick, dribble in more wine.
Serve cold with crackers or veggies.

Attic Archives
This week’s rummage through my attic archives yielded not an article, but a photograph.

It shows a village street in southern France. I found it in an envelope that also contained a certificate saying that this photograph was successful in winning the BBC Children’s Hour Competition on 17 August 1954. If I had won four such certificates I would have been entitled to claim a “Presentation Pencil.” I suppose I could also have claimed to be “an award-winning child photographer”!



Books On Line
My review last week of Identity: The Sri Lanka Architect attracted this enquiry from Pete Brand in the USA: “Any suggestions as to how I might get a copy of this coffee table book for my son, the architect with the same name? Just a thought. I tried Amazon and Barnes & Noble but didn't do too well on those attempts.”
I thought about this for a while, especially as the book contains neither website nor address informing where it can be bought, and it is a Sri Lankan production that international on-line booksellers probably don’t stock.
Then I remembered that we have an on-line bookshop in Sri Lanka at www.vijithayapa.com. I tried the website myself and, while it took me a fair amount of time to conquer the technicalities of registering, eventually I managed to order and pay for a book called A Survey of Social Change in an Imperial Regime to be posted to me. (I shall review it in a subsequent newsletter.)
I checked about the book Pete Brand requires and it is available and can be posted to addresses worldwide, payment by Paypal or credit card. Readers in Sri Lanka could also order my book, Sri Lanka – The Bradt Guide, on line and have it posted to them in Sri Lanka; for readers elsewhere it would be better to order direct from http://www.bradtguides.com/Book/552/Sri-Lanka.html


Beat regards.
Royston Ellis

wünsche allen einen schönen Sonntag

Premasiri

 

[Biggi]

Danke Premasiri. Es lohnt sich immer wieder, hier nachzulesen! Royston schreibt so herrlich natürlich.
Ich bin gerade auch nebenbei nochmal über die Tissuebox gestolpert und such gerade, wo man die genau erwerben kann.
Kannste helfen?

L.G., Biggi

 

[Premasiri]

Hallo Biggi

im Newsletter vom 29.04.2012 habe ich das gefunden:

Jewellery, work clothes and over 100 types of soft toys and useful household items (seen here) are produced at the village.

Tiny bars of soap using natural oils, perfect for guest rooms, are also produced there. Soap sales are currently 12,000 bars a month, helping to create industry and income for villagers as well as generating some income towards costs. Donations, of course, are always needed (see the Wish List on http://www.manacare.org/srilanka

To see and understand this amazing enterprise (Manacare Foundation, Godagama, Telewatta, Hikkaduwa) just drive along the Galle Road and turn inland up the lane opposite the 93km marker. Drive over the railway line and into the interior for about five minutes to reach the entrance to the village.

Visitors are welcomed on weekdays between 8am-5pm, but best to check first with Raja on 0772 063552.

Hoffentlich hilft Dir das weiter.

LG Premasiri

 

[Papagallo]

die Tissueboxen sind wirklich süss!

 

[Biggi]

Hallo Premasiri,

Danke. Das sollte die richtige Addresse sein.

Manacare Foundation, Godagama, Telewatta, Hikkaduwa) just drive along the Galle Road and turn inland up the lane opposite the 93km marker. Drive over the railway line and into the interior for about five minutes to reach the entrance to the village.

L.G., Biggi

 

[Premasiri]

TROPICAL TOPICS, Sunday 13 May 2012

Greetings once again from amazing Sri Lanka.
Made in Sri Lanka
One of the (American) gourmet e-Newsletters I receive had a recipe for a cocktail made with Lapsong Souchong tea and rye whiskey. This gave me the idea for a less esoteric cocktail made with tea, whisky, and ginger cordial all from Sri Lanka. I used single estate, unblended, BOP (that’s broken orange pekoe) tea from the Glenanore Estate (500g cost Rs450; £ 2.19; US$ 3.60). However, any supermarket loose leaf tea would do as long as the packet claims it is Pure Ceylon Tea.
The ginger cordial comes from the Adisham Monastery shop. I used one of the several whiskies produced in Sri Lanka although it seemed to be more neutral spirit with caramel colouring and whisky flavouring than actual Scotch. However, any cheap whisky is great as the mix mellows the taste.

Here goes. To a generous spoonful of BOP tea in a cup (or tea pot) add boiling mineral water (has to be pure). Cover and let the tea leaves steep for at least five minutes. Strain the liquid into a glass, cool, and then put it in the fridge to chill.
Put lots of ice into a cocktail shaker, pour in a measure of whisky, and then add an equal measure of neat ginger cordial and an equal measure of the chilled tea. Squeeze in the juice from a lime wedge. Shake vigorously. Serve in a martini glass… and slowly sip a tea-lightful taste of Sri Lanka.
Vesak

From Emil Van Der Poorten, the proprietor of the ancestral bungalow Halgolla which he has turned into a plantation guest house (www.halgollaplantationhome.com) I received a copy of his May eNewsletter with its reference to Vesak, celebrated in Sri Lanka on 5 & 6 May.

“May is the month of greatest religious significance to a country which contains the reputedly most pristine form of Theravada Buddhism. The Vesak Full Moon Poya festival commemorates the birth, enlightenment and demise of Gautama Buddha. It is a veritable festival of light with huge “pandals” constructed in most of the population centres and temples. Homes are festooned with multi-hued lanterns and oil lamps. Needless to say, this is a time of religious observances in every little town and hamlet, as well as the larger population centres. If you want to see Sri Lanka in its finest after-sunset garb, this is the time to visit!”


Paying guests are welcome at Halgolla for an introduction to genuine Sri Lanka hospitality (and cooking!) in natural surroundings, and with a sense of history. This intriguing portrait, which hangs in the parlour, is of A J Van Der Poorten, the original owner of the bungalow.

Symbols of Sri Lanka

On my trip to Haputale last week, I was lucky enough to encounter two symbols typical of Sri Lanka: elephants and a tea factory. We had just stopped the van at the no longer used (“silent” in planter’s parlance) tea factory of Glenanore. I was getting ready to photograph the GOLDEN HILL tea kiosk that has recently opened on the ground floor of the factory when, to my amazement, two elephants and their mahouts passed happily on a truck on their way further up the hills.

Cottage Extravaganza
When so many of Sri Lanka’s guest houses are raising prices while doing nothing to train staff and raise their salaries to ensure service commiserate with their ambitious room rates, Mount Field Cottages on the road to Haputale is concentrating on providing a pleasant holiday experience without problems.





Mews-like cottages have huge bathrooms, granite walls and splendid panoramic views of the hills stretching into the southern distance. There are more guest rooms on lower levels, including a suite of smaller rooms beside the swimming pool. This is shaded with blue and has a faux trompe l’oeil painting of a beach scene at one end. It’s hard to believe one is in the hills of Halpe and not in a beach resort.

The open-sided restaurant is at the opposite end of the swimming pool, with an open kitchen and a help yourself lunch counter where a superb spread of chicken and fish curries, two kinds of rice, and five vegetable curries, plus dessert, costs SLRs600 (£ 2.85; US$ 4.80). Vegetables are organic and home grown.
The stewards, in black and white polo shirts, seem to be everywhere, serving with a smile and happy to chat about the menu, the sights in the area, and proud to discuss the resort’s attractions.
The A la carte menu includes the Mount Field Cottage speciality of seafood dishes and a platter of batter-fried mushrooms, onions and garlic, as well as succulent devilled dishes including mutton, served here by hotel school trainee, Dulanjaya. Mixed fried rice starts at Rs300 and a Club Sandwich is Rs460. A service charge of 10 percent is added to all prices and, for once, the obliging service seems worth it.





Mount Field Cottages, www.mountfieldcottage.com 166km post, Haputale Road, Halpe; tel: 057 3575336. Rooms from Rs4,500 (£ 21.42; US$ 36) plus 10% service charge.

Attic Archives
“I guess you’d call the boy in the picture a weirdie. And you’d be right. He’s strictly, as they say in Beatnik language, from Weirdsville.”
So begins the article by Sally Vincent in the Daily Mirror of 26 November 1959 that I found in my attic archives.

It goes on to say: “His name is Royston Ellis. He’s eighteen and he’s a great guy… Royston chummed up with Cliff Richard (the-most-popular-boy-in Britain) and the result was ‘ROCKETRY’ – Royston’s POETRY read aloud against a background of ROCK music.”
Ah, happy, innocent days! Read all about it in my book The Big Beat Scene, which has a new foreword and afterword added to the text originally published in 1961. It’s available through: http://musicmentor0.tripod.com/book_big_beat_scene.html.

Beat regards
Royston Ellis

wünsche allen Müttern noch das Beste zum Muttertag

Premasiri

 

[Premasiri]

TROPICAL TOPICS, Sunday 20 May 2012.
Welcome to readers around the world to this week’s tropical topics report from Sri Lanka.

First Lesson
There is an admirable custom in Sri Lanka of a child’s first lesson being commemorated as a special occasion. A respected elder is invited to give the first lesson to the child at an auspicious time. Thus it was that Neel was invited to teach Kumara’s son, Sasindu, the reading of the alphabet and the drawing of letters on a slate -- at 6.48am one morning last week.

The boy seemed as surprised as all of us to be awake and partying at that hour and he wasn’t very keen on learning anything, but we had a rousing breakfast of chicken curry and string hoppers to mark the occasion. He will be three next month.

Lepidoptery



The amazing amount of butterflies in Sri Lanka is another unknown facet of this fascinating country. There are said to be some 248 species resident in --and found throughout -- the island. While the study of butterflies is an enchanting hobby, my own observation of these delightful insects is limited to those that visit my garden from time to time. Then I rush for a book to try to identify them.
For enthusiasts a 3km hike uphill from Haputale, in the southern central part of Sri Lanka, brings the lepidopterist (and simple nature lovers) to the Tangamale Sanctuary at about 5,000ft above sea level.

A notice at the entrance depicts 14 species of butterfly to be seen within the sanctuary. These are: Ceylon Tiger, Blue Oak Leaf, Red Helen, Red Admiral, Palmfly, Common Leopard, Tree Nymph, Blue Mormon, Ceylon Blue Grassy, Dutch Blue Cross, Cinnamon Rose, White Four-Ring, Common Bush Brown and Tawny Coaster.

They have such exotic names, they could be heroines from a James Bond movie. I love to see them at home but, unfortunately, so does Ollie, the cat, who dances after them in a playful attempt to catch them. Most escape, but some don’t and so far I have mounted three of her victims.

Jubilee Parties

Sri Lanka is determined not to be left out of the celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. I know of two subscription dinner parties on 26 May – one at the Dutch House in Galle and one at the Continental Hotel in Colombo.

The most sought-after invitation, however, is to the party being given by the British High Commissioner, John Rankin, at his residence in Colombo.
I realise it’s bad form even to discuss with friends invitations received in case they haven’t been invited too, but from Lanka Business Online (www.lbo.lk), one of those eNewsletters I receive regularly, I learn that: “Sri Lankans are being invited to write their way to win a chance to attend Britain’s Queen Elizabeth’s jubilee party in Colombo.
“Local fans of the British Royal family have to visit the High Commission’s Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/bhccolombo) and write 60 words on its wall or send a message on the topic What does the Commonwealth mean to you?
“The deadline for submission is Thursday, 24 May, 2012. Participants can be of any nationality belonging to the Commonwealth. There is no age limit for entrants. The best compilation will receive an invitation from the British High Commissioner to attend.” Britannia, it seems, waives the rules.


Historical Sale



Rare postcards, maps, stamps, paintings by George Keyt and furniture of 19[SUP]th[/SUP] Century Sri Lanka will be on sale at an auction celebrating the 120[SUP]th[/SUP] anniversary of the founding of Schokman & Samerawickreme next Sunday, 27 May at BMICH.

Included will be over 350 historical postcards of Sri Lanka in 15 different albums, one having a set of rare tea cards, others with postcards over 100 years-old of the Galle Face, Grand Oriental, Queens and Mount Lavinia Hotels.

One album contains many items of postal history while another album of photographic postcards of people, has this old photograph of a Rodiya woman.

More details on: http://www.sandslanka.com/Furn&Effect27may12.cfm


Oops
I must have had too much fun sampling last week’s cocktail when I wrote: “to ensure service commiserate with their ambitious room rates” instead of “commensurate with.” My apologies and thanks to those who pointed out this “senior moment.”
Attic Archives



In 1961, age 20, I found myself in Moscow where I met Russia’s equivalent of a western rock star, a dashing 27 year old poet, Yevgeni Yevtushenko. He was feted throughout Russia and even adored in the West for his dramatic performances of his politically not correct poetry. I was fortunate in being able to share the stage with him at one performance at Moscow University and was astonished at being mobbed afterwards by ecstatic students bearing flowers.
According to a clipping in my Attic Archives from the Varsity newspaper (Cambridge) dated 12 May 1962, I met Yevtushenko again at a cocktail party in London that month.

‘“Who is that man with a red beard?” asked someone tactlessly nearby,’ the article states.
‘“I’m here with a man from the Sunday Pictorial,” announced Royston Ellis defiantly.
‘“If we didn’t have squirrels, we wouldn’t have trees,” asserted an anonymous voice categorically.
‘“I wonder if he will recognise me,” murmured Royston Ellis. Across the room he did, and to their obvious mutual pleasure they chattered animatedly for some time. “After the party, we drink!” said Yevgeni.’
I was reminded of all this when someone sent me a link of Yevtushenko, still in obvious ebullience, recently reading a poem in Russian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZjjXSLlsR0&list=UUUz3F-nUM__KvTXWHcen7DQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Beat
For my own poetry from that era, my eBook Beat: The Collected Poems can be downloaded for just £ 2.99 from www.roystonellis.com/shop.

Beat regards
Royston Ellis.

LG Premasiri

 

[Premasiri]

Sunday 27 May, 2012.

A warm welcome to readers from around the world to this week’s newsletter about amazing Sri Lanka.

Made in Sri Lanka
I have written before about products from St Benedict’s Monastery at Adisham, Haputale, made by the Benedictine Fathers. As well as the farm shop at the monastery, there is a shop beside the road from Haputale to Bandarawela that stocks them all.

There is a comforting range of products made from fruit grown in the monastery gardens, including chunky strawberry jam, with no added artificial or natural flavors, at SLRs350 (£ 1.75 $ 2.80) for 450g jar, wood apple jam (SLRs200), orange marmalade, ginger and soursop cordials, mango chutney and even homemade tomato sauce.

Haputale revisited

A small church (perhaps I should call it a ‘wee kirk’ since so many Scots pioneers who opened up the hill country are buried there) stands on a small hill overlooking Haputale, 181km from Colombo at about 1,429m above sea level.

Its graveyard is beautifully kept and it’s an inspiring place to spend a few hours reading the inscriptions on the headstones of those hardy men, women and their children, who carved out tea gardens in the forest. One, James Andrew of Sherwood Estate (where the bungalow can be rented for holidays, see Newsletter No. 97), buried in 1875, is reported to have died when his horse backed down a steep bank when he was riding from Haputale to Sherwood.

Inside the church, which is open to visitors, are plaques to the memory of planters, many of who seem to have died on their way back to Britain. Not all were 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century Scotsman. There is a plaque in memory of a “distinguished citizen of Ceylon” born in Flushing in 1892 who died in 1954, and was not only a member of parliament but also recognised as “a protector of elephants.”

Haputale still has the air of a pioneering plantation town with the railway line from Colombo and Kandy to Badulla running right through it. It’s a real market town where everyone seems busy minding their own business and tourists are not pestered, although three-wheeler and minibus taxis are available for hire for visiting the sights.

For me part of charm of Haputale is that it has not been gentrified for tourists but remains true to the soul of upcountry Sri Lanka. It’s not a pretty town but the views are breathtaking and the High Cliffe bar and guest house is a most convivial place to sample local life. However, Haputale could perhaps benefit with a café like those in nearby Ella (see Newsletter No.75.)

Vintage Cars
I was going to headline this story “old crocks” but didn’t want readers to think I was writing about my rock ‘n’ roll friends/years again. This refers instead to a plan to hold a Vintage Car Rally in Colombo on Sunday 3 June commencing at the Art Gallery at 9am and concluding at the Nelum Pokuna stadium.



It is hoped that 60 cars with A-Z series registration, and five vintage motorcycles, will take part in the event.
Even as little as 25 years ago, what are now classic Morris Minors were the regular taxis of Sri Lanka’s country towns. The difference in a vintage and a classic car in Sri Lanka is defined by the registration plate. The island’s earliest registration numbers had a letter of the alphabet – from A to Z – as well as a number.

The letter indicated where in the country the car was registered, with C being Colombo while the letters X and Y indicated all-island registration. They are today’s Vintage Cars.
The system was changed in the 1930s for registration that used a pair of letters from the country’s former name of Ceylon, in the order CE CL CN EY EL and finally EN. These are the cars usually regarded as Classics.
The Vintage Car Owners Club (VCOC) in association with the Automobile Association of Ceylon is holding the rally. The VCOC, formed in 1987, is the only club catering to Veteran, Edwardian, Vintage and Post-Vintage Thoroughbred vehicles in Sri Lanka, including Cars, Motor Cycles, Lorries, Buses and Steam Driven Vehicles. There are 180 members owning over 200 vehicles, some of which have been meticulously restored or are in a restorable state. (www.vintagecarownersclub.lk).
The rally promises to be a fun day out in the city with some grand old crocks on display, as well as some great cars!


Attic Archive
Love Seats… Regular readers will know of my passion for love seats. A padded one comes up for sale today at the 120[SUP]th[/SUP] Anniversary Auction of antiques, paintings by George Keyts, old maps and postcards, being held at the BMICH, Colombo, by the famous auction house of Schokman & Samerawickreme. The love seat looks formidable, more suitable, perhaps, for a room with a log fire than for the veranda of my beachside cottage. So I won't be bidding.
In my Attic Archive I found this photograph taken 23 years ago in 1989 when I was on a visit to Ooty, the hill station in India reached, then, by a rake of wooden railway carriages hauled with frequent pauses up a rack and pinion track by an ancient steam locomotive.

This wonderful love seat I encountered in a colonial hotel there invites speculation about the various triangular love affairs that might have been conducted in it. However, I suspect this threesome piece was designed so a girl’s chaperone could be seated with a courting couple to keep her eye on things.



Beat regards
Royston Ellis

von mir sonnige Pfingstgrüsse an alle User

Premasiri

 

[Claudia]

Auf dem Friedhof bin ich auch schon gewesen. Die Aussicht dort ist wirklich grandios

 

[Premasiri]

Greetings from sunny Sri Lanka to readers around the world.
Fruit carving


My diary during the past couple of weeks has been filled with weddings and homecomings. I didn’t go to them all, even though I sent a present. A homecoming, by the way, is the local celebration of the day when the newly wed couple arrive at the home of the groom’s parents where the bride would traditionally reside after the marriage. However, sometimes both the wedding and the homecoming are celebrated in hotels.
At one village wedding I attended, the ceremony itself and the wedding lunch were held in the house and garden of the bride’s parents. Lahiru, a friend of Kumara on leave from his job as a pastry chef at a branch in Abu Dhabi of the famous Australian chain, Jones The Grocers, made this stunning carving for the buffet counter out of a melon, with flowers from beetroots.

Bites



The word bites in Sri Lanka does not always mean nasty attention from a mosquito or dog. It also means a small snack; probably derived from the phrase bite-sized meaning “small enough to be eaten in one mouthful.”

That’s what we enjoyed in the garden at the wedding house with drinks while the bride and groom circulated. In the photo above is a plate of kadela (chick peas) with fried hot chilli, the fried heads – tentacles -- of baby cuttlefish, and deep fried garlic. The happy couple, Nishantha & Dasintha, however, declined to join us for a bite.

Rustic Retreat

“Well bathing” is listed as the main attraction under “Entertainment” on the website of Cinnamon Village (www.cinnamonvillage.com). It gives the flavour of this unique – and almost unknown – resort, within one hour’s drive from Colombo near the inland town of Horana, that I discovered last week.
Arosha Jayasundera bought four acres of bare land there a dozen years ago to the surprise of her family and friends who wondered why she should choose a place in the wilds. But Arosha had resolved to create an opportunity for what she calls “earth living.”
Recognising that while modernisation centres around comfort, speed, noise, images and fast moving items, for peace of mind people need to experience a slow moving, healthy, green, sustainable and renewable environment. So she worked hard to turn the bare land into a forest of cinnamon and rubber with a pineapple grove, rolling lawns and water gardens, and rooms for couples and groups.

While the accommodation is basic it is also comfortable, clean and bright. A cottage (Cinnamon Eco Lodge) has two bedrooms each with a double bed on a cement base, a modern bathroom and a whole wall of cupboards, and a veranda overlooking the lawns and ponds. (FB rate is Rs5,000 [£ 25; $40] per person). It adjoins a long pavilion complete with a kitchen for self-catering and a bathroom, a reading lounge at one end and a dainty Italian dining table at the other.

Two other cottages have bunk beds (Rs2,500 pp FB) and there is a communal well (entertainment?) and a lecture hall converted from a mushroom shed.

In the garden a thatched kiosk draped around a large rubber tree is a great place for delicious wholesome meals of organic produce, and there is a wooden tree house too. Cinnamon Village seems the kind of place to inspire a writer or a painter, or to thrill an ornithologist or lepidopterist because of the birds and butterflies that call it home.

Pyramid

Did you know Sri Lanka has at least one pyramid? Well, it’s a mini one and is to be found in Tissamarahama, 268km to the south of Colombo. Tissa, as the town is familiarly known, was the capital of the southern kingdom of Ruhunu from 3BC. During the following century, King Kavantissa created the reservoir and built palaces, temples and dagobas. As Magama, its ancient name, it was the southern capital for 2,000 years. The reservoir is huge and teems with birdlife.

Given Tissa’s long history, the pyramid is not old. According to a plaque on its side it commemorates the short life (just nine months) of one H M Parker who died in 1883. It is on the bank of the reservoir and usually hidden by jeeps available for hire for the safari-style drive to Yala (Ruhunu) National Park in the hope of seeing wild elephants (likely) and leopards (perhaps).

Attic Archive – Cadence

Cadence (pronounced ka-dans) music is the forerunner of zouk music, the bouncy Caribbean/African beat that was popular in the 1990s. In my attic archive I found three 45 vinyl discs of cadence songs in Creole written by Pato Lewis and performed by him and his group Black Roots, and produced by … yours truly.

Cadence was developed in the 1970s by groups from Dominica (where I lived from 1966 until settling in Sri Lanka in 1980) and was the first style of music from Dominica to find international acclaim. It evolved over the years under the influence of Creole Caribbean and Latin rhythms, as well as rock and roll, soul, and funk music from the USA. According to Wikipedia among prominent bands responsible for the music’s popularity was Exile One, the Grammacks … and Black Roots.

This photo of the band, which I managed and promoted, was taken in Dominica in 1978 and shows, left to right, myself, Hugh (drums), Abraham (road manager), Pato (guitar/vocals), Howard (keyboard), Julius (bass) and Tony (percussion).
If only I could find a way to play those 45s…

The Big Beat Scene
My book, The Big Beat Scene, about Britain’s pop music in the late 1950s, with a new foreword and afterword added to the text originally published in 1961, is available now through: http://musicmentor0.tripod.com/book_big_beat_scene.html.


Beat regards
Royston Ellis

wünsche allen einen schönen Sonntag
Premasiri

 

[Claudia]

Die Melone sieht echt klasse aus!!!

 

[Biggi]

Das Cinnamonvillage gefällt mir auch. Hat zwar keine Backpackerpreise, aber immer noch verhältnismässig günstig.

 

[Premasiri]

TROPICAL TOPICS Sunday 10 June 2012. Welcome to this weekly newsletter about Sri Lanka. Made in Sri Lanka In the 1980s, when imported shoes in Sri Lanka were out-dated, mass produced fashion pieces that were outrageous in price, or nasty plastic, I was lucky to discover a branch of The Ceylon Boot Manufactory in Galle Road, Colombo. I have bought several beautifully handmade leather shoes there (and had them repaired there too) over the years. Now, alas, the Galle Road shop has closed but the main branch in Union Place is still open, even if parking near the shop is impossible. To enter the shop, and breathe in the lingering, dusty aroma of leather and crepe soles is to step back in time. So is the payment process when bills are neatly written out by hand and checked by two people before change is dished out from a desk drawer. The Ceylon Boot Manufactory was founded in 1923 and brought to prominence by the late P. A. ‘Christy’ Perera for whom, according to his obituary in 2005, “footwear manufacture was a science. His shoes were never out of step with one’s health or skin. They were comfortable and light to the feet, while being strong and durable...most presidents and prime ministers of Sri Lanka obtained the services of Christy to provide them with quality footwear.” So when I wanted a new pair of walking shoes, I went straight to The Ceylon Boot Manufactory with my old pair, beyond repair, looking for a new version. Alas, the tiny shop seems to have cut down on stock and there was nothing suitable. However, I was assured, a pair could be made especially for me in three weeks. Which is why I am now the proud own of these sturdy, handmade leather shoes, with imported composition sole, at a cost of Rs3,500 (£ 17.50; US$ 28). Butterfly effect By carelessness I have caused chaos (the butterfly effect?) among lepidopterists by misreading both my notes and the signboard at the entrance to the Tangamale Sanctuary next to Adisham (see Newsletter No. 110) and introduced some new species of Sri Lankan butterfly. What I called the Cinnamon Rose is, in fact, the Crimson Rose. And the butterfly I dubbed Dutch Blue Cross should have been, as stated on the signboard shown here, Dark Grass Blue. Reader Michael Friend in UK writes: “It (Ziizeeria karsandra) is a small butterfly (15-20mm) and is one of the 85 species of "blue" butterflies in Sri Lanka which are all small sized, delicate and often brightly coloured usually, but not always, blue and very difficult to identify. They comprise about one third of Sri Lanka's butterflies but are often overlooked on account of their small size and being over-shadowed by their larger and more showy cousins such as Sri Lanka's largest butterfly the Ceylon or Common Birdwing (Troides darsius).” He also asks: “Have you seen the Tree Nymph (Idea iasonia) in flight (at Martin's place in Sinharaja rainforest, for instance?) It is very poetic and has been described thus ‘The flight of this huge insect is a thing wondrous to behold’ and ‘these butterflies convey a sensation of great calm and are perhaps more reminiscent of a Paradise Lost, than any other animate creature.’” This drawing of the female Tree Nymph is from the 1985 book A Selection of the Butterflies of Sri Lanka by John & Judy Banks. Cocktail for Cats Ramesh, who’s in charge of the cottage garden, has been sending pictures of our wild life to the local press. That’s how the Daily Mirror (of Sri Lanka) published this photograph recently of the cottage cat, Lena, about to taste a cat cocktail garnished with a wedge of dried Maldive fish. Stately Home In the June issue of Serendib, the inflight magazine of SriLankan Airlines, I have an article about Adisham, the Benedictine Monastery whose shop I patronise for locally made jams and chutneys. A statue of St Benedictine with the admonishment “pray and work” greets visitors to the gardens and building. This granite block pile looking so out of place in the tropics is Sri Lanka’s equivalent of a British stately home. It was built in 1931 by Sri Thomas Villiers, born 1869 in Kent, who came to Ceylon as a creeper (trainee) on a tea plantation, married the daughter of a British planter and, after 18 years as a planter, became a partner in the Colombo agency house, George Steuarts. He built Adisham when he became the company’s chairman. Adisham Hall, as it was called, was Villiers’ defiant statement about his roots (a grandfather was Lord John Russell, twice prime minister of Great Britain). After he returned “home” the building was sold and in 1961 became a novitiate. Now over 500 visitors a day (open only on Saturdays, Sundays & Public Holidays) come to gaze at its carved granite walls, hipped roofs of Burma teak shingles, arched teak panelled casement windows, and its solid appearance of permanence. They wander its parlour and library awed by the heavy period furniture, tall oak bookcases, huge fireplaces and an atmosphere redolent of an Englishman’s castle in the shires of Britain. A curious sight is the boiler room where the wood-fired boiler heated water that flowed in from a mountain stream, and then released it by gravity pressure to bathrooms on the upper floor. Gaze up to see the elaborate finish of the drainpipes that even sport the Villiers’ insignia. Warm regards Royston Ellis auch von mir die besten Wünsche Premasiri ​

 

[Claudia]

Klasse, wo kann man schon ein Paar handgefertigte Schuhe um diesen Preis kaufen!!!

 

[Premasiri]

Tropical Topics, Sunday 17 June 2012.

Greetings to readers around the world with this latest newsletter from Sri Lanka.
Made in Sri Lanka
I have featured Kitul Jaggery before (see Newsletter 61). It is made by boiling and stirring the sap of the kitul palm tree (Caryota urens) (shown here) in an iron pan until it thickens into natural treacle.





The treacle is then poured into the empty half of a coconut shell as a mould and allowed to set. It is delicious, like hard fudge. This photo of jaggery being made is from my archives; I took it in 1983.





Jaggery is usually sold solid in half-coconut shapes but they can be hard to slice for a lump with tea. So I was delighted to find these Kitul Jaggery Balls in Nebula, the independent supermarket in Alutgama. Hand rolled into irregular shapes the size of new potatoes, these balls are perfect as a bite with a cup of plain tea (ie: tea served without milk or sugar). A packet of 500g costs Rs225 (£1.25; US$ 1.73).

e-Bay Orchids
e-Bay, of course, is an addiction. I’ve never managed to sell anything on eBay but I have bought a few items with a Ceylon connection, which I locate by a troll through the website when I should be doing other things, like writing for my living. My latest splurge yielded a delightful antique print that was being sold because of its interest to plant lovers, but I bought it because in the background is a view of Sri Lanka’s iconic landmark, Adam’s Peak, a mountain revered by all religions here.
There was no other bid beyond my paltry one and the cost of postage (from the Ukraine) doubled the price, but it is still a beautiful bargain. So here is 1894 CEYLON ORCHIDS TROPICAL FOREST Antique Chromolithograph Print H.Konigsbrunn. The orchids in the foreground are Saccolobium gattatum, Dendrobium nobile and Phajus wallichii.

Birthday Boy
It was the third birthday of Sasindu, son of my house manager, Kumara, and his wife, Kanchana, on 10 June. Since my report on his birthdays (Newsletter Nos. 9 & 62) appealed to some readers, here’s what happened this time: a party in the garden of the house in a village near Bentota where Kumara and Kanchana live.

It began before lunch with the male guests indulging in tentative sips of locally bottled “whisky” (not moonshine but produced and sold [at Rs1, 200; £ 6; US$ 9.6] legally), before we gathered in the shade of young coconut palm trees in the garden while Sasindu and his friends played around us and the women sat on the veranda and gossiped about our bad behaviour.

Sasindu cut the cartooned cake, made by a local bakery for Rs2,000 (£10; $ 16), while we cheered. Then the women ate while the men boozed, and when all the whisky was finished we tackled mounds of rice and curries of chicken and vegetables, before being driven home for a late siesta.

Snake? Nuts!
Seeing this trail on the driveway at home one morning last week, I immediately identified it as the body print left by a large snake slithering across the concrete. Look at the way it stretches from one side of the grass to the bushes at the other.

I wondered if this was another python similar to the one that we found in the garden last year. I called Kumara. He looked up at the coconut tree at the side of the driveway, and then at the other side of the drive where, for the first time, I saw a small coconut had come to rest. He laughed, saying it was the trail of a wet, rolling coconut, not a snake. That’s a relief.
Black Rhino
In Newsletter Number 102 I mentioned that my literary agent, Guy Rose, has written and recorded a song about the plight of the Black Rhino. Guy has made a new version of the video and this plaintively illustrates the impending tragic loss of this breed through the greed of poachers to meet a demand founded on myth, not fact. It’s on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfPeI_pek1U

Attic Archive – Indian Railways
In 1996, Hilary Bradt, for whose publishing company I had written the best-selling Bradt Guide to Mauritius, suggested that I might like to write a book about Indian Railways, since I lived so close to India and could travel there comparatively cheaply.
Funding the research for a guide book is always a problem since, with the airfare to and from the topic country, plus cost of accommodation and internal travel mounting up to a large amount, it is a long time (and a lot of copies sold) before a guide book writer can hope to recoup expenses through royalties.
I covered the research cost of the Mauritius guide by being commissioned to write three novels set there. With airfares between Sri Lanka and India being much lower than from England, and with low-cost 90-day Indiarail passes and help from the Oberoi Hotels (for whose in-house magazine I wrote articles), and the publisher’s advance, I was able to spend nearly two years researching India By Rail.
It was a thrilling experience that enabled me to travel throughout India and, as seen from this photograph that surfaced in my Attic Archives, I got to do what every schoolboy my vintage dreams of doing: drive a steam engine.

Royston Ellis drives a steam engine

Until next week,

warm regards
Royston Ellis

wünsche allen einen wunderschönen Sonntag

Premasiri

 

[Premasiri]

TROPICAL TOPICS, Sunday 24 June 2012.
Welcome to another weekly round up of tropical (and rocketry) topics from Sri Lanka.
Made In Sri Lanka



My latest discovery on the shelves of Nebula, the independent supermarket in Alutgama, is called Hathawariya Herbal Porridge made with Asparagus “Racemoses.” This turns out to be Asparagus Fern or Asparagus racemosus, known in India as Shatawari, a species of asparagus common throughout Sri Lanka, India and the Himalayas. It grows one to two metres tall and prefers to take root in gravelly, rocky soils high up in piedmont plains, at 1,300 - 1,400 metres elevation).

According to dear Wikipedia, “due to its multiple uses, the demand for Asparagus racemosus is constantly on the rise. Due to destructive harvesting, combined with habitat destruction, and deforestation, the plant is now considered 'endangered' in its natural habitat.”
Apparently Shatawari means "curer of a hundred diseases" and, if this herb lives up to the way it’s billed in Ayurvedic texts, it is good for the prevention and treatment of gastric ulcers, dyspepsia, nervous disorders, diarrhoea, dysentery, and the plant also has antioxidant, immuno-stimulant, anti-dyspepsia and anti-tussive effects, is a uterine tonic, and a galactogogue (to improve breast milk), helps with hyperacidity, and is a general health tonic as well as an aphrodisiac.

Phew! All that for Rs50 [.25p; 40c] for a 50g packet of powder that, when added to 450ml of hot water and brought to the boil, makes three cups. The contents are given as “leafy vegetable hathawariya (Asparagus racemoses [sic]), rice, soya, coconut milk powder, garlic and ginger.”
It is made in Sri Lanka by Plenty Foods, a division of Ceylon Biscuits Ltd (http://www.muncheelk.com) which originated from Sri Lanka’s first biscuit factory bought in 1939 by Simon Arthur Wickramasingha (1902-1984). It is now a multi-product, local conglomerate with an innovative product range, high quality standards and aggressive marketing strategies. Plenty Foods is the manufacturer of Sri Lanka’s most consumed cereal products and herbal porridges made from 100 per cent locally sourced raw materials.

And the porridge? Well, it has NO added sugar and the directions do suggest adding salt and pepper to taste. It certainly needed freshly ground pepper and most people would add salt too to give it a deeper flavour. I followed the packet instructions and the result was a gruel that was too thin. Thicker, it lived up to the label as herbal porridge. Even though it was an unexciting way to start the day, with all those potential benefits I’ll give it a trial.

Cat among the pigeons

Ever the optimist, young Ollie, the cottage cat, stalks the pigeons that come daily to the garden for their breakfast, not of porridge but of lentils we scatter for them every morning.
Nupe Market

I drove down south last week and in Matara, described by Tennent in 1859 as “the seat of the spice trade, and a sanitary retreat for the garrison of Galle” and now a bustling boom town whose main street is like a canyon formed by concrete block shops, banks and offices, I visited an odd remnant of the past, Nupe Market. It’s easy to miss seeing it because of the traffic swirling around the Nupe junction where a country road meets the busy A2 highway.

The origins of what the experts agree was once a market are unclear. Some Sri Lankan historians (and a notice on its fence) claim it was built around 1775 by the Dutch. However, another source http://www.culturalheritageconnections.org/wiki/Conservation_of_the_Main_Fort_and_Old_Nupe_Market_at_Matara states: “The building at Nupe is an early British building and a prominent landmark in Matara. It was constructed to be used as the market.”
Now empty but not abandoned – there is an Archaeological Department kiosk in it selling dusty booklets about ancient ruins - and undergoing maintenance to shore up one of its three roof towers that seems in danger of toppling into the road, it looks like something from medieval England, or a Robin Hood film.

The supporting wooden frame of the clay tiled roof is elaborate and edged with lavish latticework. It is 15m in height and supported by massive white stone pillars, typical of the British period when the imperial stamp was impressed on public buildings. The floor plan is in the shape of a T with the upper bars of the T facing the highway and providing the entrance. One wing would have been for the vegetable market, the other for meat and fish. The stem of the T (shown here) was probably for the sale of textile and household items.

It’s another of those fascinating, and unexpected, sights to look out for in Sri Lanka.
Jimmy Page

Steve Davies, a fellow British High Commission warden based in the hill country, kindly sent me this link which refers to a performance of poetry and rock (rocketry) I gave at the Mermaid Theatre with Jimmy Page in July 1961.

Neil Christian & The Crusaders With Jimmy Page - Jet Black
“I don't own this song. I'm not making any money from this video what so ever and I don't intend to.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From JimmyPage.com

"On this day... 21 Jul 1961
I played the Mermaid Theatre, accompanying Royston Ellis

“On this day in 1961, the poetry at The Mermaid Festival was fully underway in London, with readings by William Empson, Louis MacNiece, Sir Ralph Richardson and Dame Flora Robson.

“I appeared on electric guitar with Royston Ellis, a British beat poet/beatnik with a fusion of poetry and music and this was quite unique set amongst the other poetry readings. Royston had visited a number of Neil Christian and The Crusader's gigs and alluded to the lifestyle in the first chapter of his book The Big Beat Scene, published the same year."

A new edition of The Big Beat Scene is available through http://musicmentor0.tripod.com/book_big_beat_scene.html.

Until next week,
Beat regards
Royston Ellis

auch von mir ein wenig verspätet liebe Grüsse

Premasiri