The Samsung Solar Guru is a normal candybar phone with a working solar panel on the back. This is pretty cool and it really does charge. The only issue is that it gets like one minute of talktime for every hour in the sun. So not very practical. If you were stuck on a desert island it might be useful, but you still have to plug it into the wall. I bought one in Chennai to test it out and while it does last for a long time, it is not easy to get that much sun time. You can sorta keep it next to you on a bus or train, but it’s rather awkward. When walking you can keep it on your hand, but not for the hours required. I think the thing might work better if it came with a case or a belt-clip.

Since the war ended I’ve started going out a bit more. Plus inflation is down, so neither I nor my wallet are as likely to blow up. Been hanging out at Park Street Mews (near Hyde Park bo tree, near Arpico). They have decent, affordable food in a cosmopolitan warehouse space. Managed by Harpo, who also does Bayleaf and great pizza, all deliverable via 114.869.000. There’s also a place that delivers box-o-noodles (772.359.135). Haven’t had that. I was at ODEL today and caught a fashion show and I hear above more events coming up.

HSBC is truly the world’s local bank. They’ve picked up all the nepotistic bullshit of Sri Lanka like a sponge. First off, you can’t get an HSBC account at all without a reference. Then, once in, you cannot get an HSBC Credit Card without a cash deposit and a reference. Then, after years of dutifully paying your bills, they need one more family reference to issue a credit card with actual credit. And that family member has to have a landline, not a cell phone. I understand that Sri Lankans are pretty shoddy credit-wise, this is true. However, if HSBC had any decent customer management they should know me by now. Three years ago I sat down with my mother and gave a Rs 50,000 deposit for a credit card. So it’s basically a chequing account that I pay interest on, but whatever. I have had this card for years, and I pay my balance every month (automatically). I have built a credit record over three years with HSBC and they still want to know ‘who do you know?’ I’ve been giving them my money for 3 years and they still treat me like a stranger. If I had anywhere else to go I would tell HSBC to go fuck themselves, but I don’t. So HSBC will keep providing poor customer service because the bar is low and I as a consumer have to suck it up.

Walk into a place and nobody even smile at you. Unless you know somebody. Walk into anywhere as a generic customer and people behind the counter just ignore you. I’m in Laugfs in a sarong, trying to get some razors. Nobody there and three people at the registers, but nobody even looks up. I need to open the case but the employees just continue their conversation, forcing me to interrupt. Looking peeved, guy unlocks the case and goes back to his chat. Same thing everywhere. Service staff either follows you around like a thief or ignores you like a leper.

I went to Pettah over the weekend, looking for this particular Motorola. It was a cool day, laden with yesterdays rain. First I drove through Pettah looking for a theoretical parking spot and finding none. The streets are occupied with people, flowing around the slow moving car like ambivalent waves. No parking no parking no parking. I had originally parked next to a fetid garbage dump/housing project but decided it was too far. In my meanderings that’s exactly where I ended up, and where I parked again. Hop a three into Pettah. I remember seeing cool stuff in Pettah when I was a kid, but as far as I can tell Pettah is full of junk. No offense. Seriously though, it’s a bunch of too-tall socks, cheap cloth, knives, and electronics from 1983. It feels like Blade Runner except without any cool stuff. Maybe I’m wrong. I walk past a big kovil and get some peara (guava) in a bag. They put some chili on it, which I’m not used to. It’s pretty freaking good.

Working late so I go to KFC to get some nosh. Get two Zinger meals for myself and the boss. Looking absentmindedly at the local KFC Kottu and Biriyani when I notice the guy wrapping each of my drinks in a plastic bag and double-bagging my food. I groan inwardly, but it’s too late. The shit just stays in my car and if I take it home my mother insists on reusing it. I’m going to see this bags for the rest of my life. But whatever, I get my things and go to the car. What I notice is that the plastic is now extra thick, opaque and touchier than it used to be. And groan again. In a hackneyed effort to reduce plastic use the government has banned plastic below a certain thickness. Unfortunately, all this has done is led manufacturers to make thicker plastic. Volumes at stores don’t seem to have decreased, and the net result may actually be more plastic, and more money for plastic makers. It is like running economics backwards.

Every morning I’m late to work. For a week I thought I had to be there at 8:30, and I’d invariably arrive at 9. Then I found out it actually was at 9, and I became late again. This means no breakfast, or it would, if not for the local kade stand. I don’t even know what the thing is called, but every morning a couple knocks up in a little yellow stall and sells bites. She’s got a tupperware full of seeni sambol, slapping it on bread, and he’s handling the cash. I hand over Rs 15 and get a Malu Paan, wrapped in the some random printout from some random company. It is very good.

Sri Lankan has some cheap (Rs 27,000 with tax) flights to London. Me being the geeky nephew, I become de facto travel agent for my uncle. However, what should be a simple procedure took ten attempts, four computers, three emails, four calls to the bank, three trips to the bank, two passwords, one key token, and hours of time to complete. There are two systems at fault here, one is the Sri Lankan online booking systems – which randomly rejected 50% of the computers we tried. The other is HSBC, which imposes draconian security measures on a country of 575,000 credit card holders and 200,000 Internet users. I’m all for security, but some stuff just goes to far. I also think that the Sri Lankan Airlines online booking system is poorly designed but I’m more angry at HSBC for making Internet Banking and Shopping so ‘secure’ that no one can use them.