The Sri Lankan flag is not an aesthetic triumph, but neither am I. I like it anyways. In this (random) graded review of flags Sri Lanka got 41/100 with demerits for weapons, bad colors, graven images and being too busy. Which I think is fair, but again, I like it anyways. It’s a flag, it’s our flag. I have one in the house in case there’s a big cricket match or something. What’s news is that a Tamil leader made news by simply holding the flag at all.

I was in a trishaw and this girl threw a flyer at me, giving me a surprisingly good shot in the nipple. For Exide batteries or whatever. The thing must cost like Rs. 10 at least, but if they just gave me a bank note with their name written on it I’d be happier. Of course, my idea of a wedding invitation is a thousand rupee note with the time and place scribbled on it, but marketing could be a bit more practical.

Colombo Fashion Week is proceeding apace right now. This is a documentary from 2009 showing how far the scene has come. The documentary is very well done. The scene it shows is out of day, but the hope the characters talk about is, I think, coming to fruition.

I was just writing about how much Sri Lanka is changing and yeah, it’s changing more. They’re now planning a giant TV tower in the shape of a lotus on the Beira Lake (via [a]rchitectonics). I’ve embedded the intro YouTube video above, which is somewhat oddly translated into English. I like the Lotus Performing Arts Center well enough, but this looks a bit… pink and phallic.

Firstly, the Indian government has released a cache of police and crime statistics, for which they should be commended. This is an infographic detailing complaints against the police and what happens to them. Basically, most are rejected, more are processed internally, and a fraction make it to court. Of those that make it, only a sliver ever make it out.

I was looking thru the latest statistics, and Sri Lanka has about 1 million more women than men. Women are the head of 23% of households, meaning there’s a lot of single or working mums. Made this infographic with available data. It’s more of an info layout really, but you get the point. Sri Lanka’s sex ratio is about 0.9, meaning that there are around 897 men for every 1,000 women.

Kottu’s been going through a lot of ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. Janith has rebuilt everything from scratch and I’ve been scratching at the surface. Every post now has chilis next to it, like a menu, so you can tell how spicy it is. By spicy we mean popular (clicks, tweets, likes). Anyways, where was I, oh yeah. Kottu needs a logo.

My landlord often gazes wistfully out of his gate and tells me that this all used to be cadjan huts, selling for Rs. 500 a perch. Not anymore. The neighborhood outside our garden is all tight concrete houses, now piling on top of each other. This isn’t a shanty, but it’s how most people in Colombo live. Our neighbors, at any opportunity, live in the street.

Sri Lanka has long been in the jungi business, either making them for the west or washing them for the Middle East. Now people are moving upstream, to designing lingerie. Charini Suriyage has just launched her own designs at London Fashion Week. The Sri Lanka Design Festival is on in November and even on the street level, people are becoming more fashion conscious.

Fast Company is saying that renewable energy is leap-frogging fossil fuels in the developing world. I think they overestimate the goodness of our hearts and underestimate our poverty. Places like Sri Lanka and India rely predominantly on hydro (water) power because we can’t afford fuel imports. It’s actually not an ideal situation and we could do with a bit of coal.