I don’t shower before entering the pool, but I do read the instructions. These were the best. ‘On observing a faecal or vomit by some accident, please leave the pool immediately’. I’d honestly never thought about it, but I guess that’s what I’d do. Also, why no pool games?

Just saw the most unintentionally funny movie trailer since ‘One Shot‘. It’s for Boodee Keerthisena’s ‘Bloodline‘. The film seems to involve four of Sri Lanka’s leading models running around Battaramulla and Mount Lavina beach in their jungies, playing with toy swords. To quote the trailer, the film involves ‘Worriers of our time, teaming up with worriers of the land before time, to save the destruction of our time.’ The movie actually looks like its about to break into pornography at any moment. Bloodline promises to be unbelievably entertaining and I eagerly await its release.

Round here they call receipts ‘advice’. When you’re using the ATM it asks if you’d like advice. I always wonder if one day the little slip of paper will say ‘Don’t spend so much. And get a haircut’. It never does. That’s all really, but I have about 200 words left to fill my template. On another banking note, I always spend everything on available on my credit card. Then they raise the limit, and I spend that amount. I hate them, yet I never turn the money down. It’s horrid. My entire life I have been making more money but remaining a constant level of broke. Whatever money I get, I spend. That is, the percentage I spend is a constant 100. Actually, more like 150% since, as a ‘responsible adult’, I get access to credit. Wish the ATM would give me some advice about that.

This actually ran in the kids section of today’s Island. That being a major newspaper, also known for it’s ‘Robbers Of Pubic Money‘ headline. This time they have fucked up on a scale I have not seen and hitherto could not imagine. This is not on the front page, but if you have a chance to get a copy off the stands today, I wholeheartedly recommend it. For the kids. This boo boo illustrates the perils of copying content from the Internet when the people doing your layouts don’t speak English. Or the proofers apparently. Or the editors. Oh my god. This is bad. And it’s in the kids section of a major national newspaper.

Was talking to my token Tamil friend. Word on the street is that the cops are out in Kottawa, asking for bank details. Looked online, and indeed tis so, CWC filed a case. This is one reason I think 1983-type riots won’t happen again. Open economy, you know? It’s all about the money now. Go upstairs, another house, another time. Sri Lankan men have this unusual desire for their own company, a substantial desire shall we say. Lean my knuckles on the table and try to contain the irrelevant cauldron within. The women are downstairs. Old School is telling me some stuff I don’t quite believe. About JVP curfews when the streets went dead. About Burgher girls, there being more of them, and the mini-skirts they used to wear. I wonder where they all went. Another place, another time, wholly among my own kind. Usual scene, usual questions about work and bullshit. Plastic chairs, no bloody booze. I honestly don’t identify with the Sinhala race much at all. I’m Sri Lankan, and I miss the Burgher girls. There are so few Tamil girls and so early curfews that I can’t even imagine that wonderland.

Was walking from Kollupitya junction to the gym at the Plaza and some guy runs into me on the street. Months ago I was walking around Galle Face and this same guy came up to me and started an uncomfortable conversation. He asked me to come to his club, and I was like, er, no. That type of invitation is sketchy anywhere, but it must be beyond the pale in Sri Lanka. Thing is that I keep running into him. I occupy a narrow channel of Galle Road, which sees to be his pimping ground. I say pimping ground because this time, the third time, he finally got to the point of his club invite. “We have good working girls.” Hahahaha, like girls with jobs? That I could use.

I’ve opened a category for all the bad ad copy I see around. I love speaking English with people here and I don’t care if they don’t – I am, after all, the odd one out. I do, however, laugh at the ads. It’s just one line, but they can mess it up so badly. In this example on a Galle Road bus it’s not the English that’s bad. The copy says “The World’s No. 1 Photocopy Paper”. Nothing out of sorts there. My concern is that the words look like dripping blood. This ad actually kinda scares me, and I’m not sure that’s the point.