Category Archives: the imaginary and the real

March 24, 2022 · 5:24 pm

Encountering Killer Aussies in 1975: Sri Lanka’s Experiences – Tilak’s Gatherings

 ONE: Tilak’s Recollections

This article is written based on the book “Australian Cricket Anecdotes” by Gideon Haigh, I hope the readers will bear with the strong words used at times which is typical of the Aussies.

The book states as follows, “More gruesome fun was had at the expense of the Sri Lankans, whom Australia met in their next World Cup match in 1975. When Anura Tennakoon’s team showed unexpected resistance, Chappell gave Jeff Thomson carte blanche to retard their progress.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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March 24, 2022 · 12:27 pm

Mearsheimer’s Incisive Analysis on the Causes of the Ukraine Imbroglio

John Mearsheimer’s You-Tube presentation today in late March 2022 = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6mw9U62ZJU

 NATO’s expansion into Ukraine from 2006 seen as an existential threat to Russia  — in the Russian Perspective

This video contains only the highlights of John Mearsheimer’s Ukraine-Russia War 2022 Analysis.
Disclaimer: For educational purposes only. All credits go to John Mearsheimer. We thank him very much for giving such valuable insights in these difficult times!
Keywords #JohnMearsheimerUkraine, #JohnMearsheimerUkraine2022, #JohnMearsheimerRussia, #JohnMearsheimerRussia2022, #Uchicago, #Ukraine, #Russia, #Mearsheimer, #UkraineWar, #RussiaWar, #UkraineRussiaWar, #RussiaUkraineWar Part I –

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March 24, 2022 · 12:42 am

Brookes’ Book on Sri Lankan Cricket

Nicholas Brookes

From Sathasivam to Sangakkara, Murali to Malinga, Sri Lanka can lay claim to some of the world’s most remarkable cricketers – larger-than-life characters, who thumbed convention and played the game their own way. More so than anywhere else in the world, Sri Lankan cricket has an identity.

 

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March 23, 2022 · 9:34 am

Jeff Thomson emphasising his KILLER Image

Jon Hotten, in The Guardian, 20 June 2013, where the title is “Reminiscing with Jeff Thomson, who tells a story the way you want to hear it”

It was a few hours after David Warner had taken a swing at Joe Root in a Birmingham bar, and Jeff Thomson was standing in a marquee full of people with a microphone in his hand. We were there to play six-a-side cricket, but the rain was coming down and the buffet was excellent, so Thommo had a full house.

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March 22, 2022 · 12:20 pm

Lest We Forget: That Day at Lahore on 3rd March 2009 When Cricket was Assailed

Michael Roberts

“Test cricket returned to Lahore on Monday for the first time since a horrific attack in 2009 saw the venue … shunned by nations …,” says Peter Lalor in his article on the Lahore Test Match in today’s (22 March 2022) AUSTRALIAN newspaper. Lalor, perhaps deliberately (?,) avoids reference to the team that underwent this terrorist attack on 3rd March 2009: Sri Lanka.

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March 21, 2022 · 8:03 pm

The Stalinist Reading of Sri Lanka’s Place in the Indian Firmament

Cafe Spectator’s Thoughts in Sunday Times, 20 March 2022

Considering the current Ukraine crisis, a historical anecdote on Sri Lanka–then Ceylon–between former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and former Indian Ambassador to Russia Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who later became India’s second President, is making the rounds in diplomatic circles these days.

 

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March 21, 2022 · 6:59 pm

Blood on Putin’s Hands from Way Back

Michael Patrick O’Leary …. The PADRAIG, in Ceylon Today, …. whose chosen title = “Putin’s Bloody Past” …. Part One”

 

 

 

 

From 2007 to 2013, Catherine Belton was the Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times. She currently works as an investigative correspondent for Reuters, based in London. In her book Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West, she gives a good insight into the character of Putin as he rose to power.

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March 20, 2022 · 11:26 am

Mervyn Pereira’s Account of the Kennington Oval Encounter

Mervyn Pereira, in Daily News, 14 June 1975, with this title “Sri Lanka’s gallant performance at the Kensington Oval on Wednesday is the talking point in the press.”

Duleep Mendis felled by Thomson, 14 June 1975

Sri Lanka’s gallant performance at the Kensington Oval on Wednesday is the talking point in all the newspapers here. They carried pictures in the front page of Sunil Wettimuny and Duleep Mendis being hit and laid low by Jeff Thomson’s fast bowling. Pictures were also carried in the front pages of the demonstrations at the Oval by a group of people professing to speak for the Tamils.

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March 11, 2022 · 11:36 pm

Dissecting Sri Lankan History & Politics through Book Reviews

Sophie Roel in conversation with Razeen Sally on “The best books on Sri Lanka recommended by Razeen Sally”

Many visitors to Sri Lanka have been beguiled by its charms, from its hill towns to its beaches, its ancient temples to its friendly people. And yet, for a quarter of a century until 2009, it was torn apart by a brutal civil war. Here, Sri Lanka-born political economist Razeen Sally, author of Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Land, recommends the best books to get a better understanding of Sri Lanka and the complexities that make the country so fascinating to visit and read about.

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March 11, 2022 · 8:05 pm

The “Endurance” discovered in Antarctica by Underwater Robots

Tom Metcalfe, in Scientific American, 9 March 2022, …. 

The wreck of the steam-yacht Endurance, which famously sank in 1915 during an Antarctic expedition by the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, has been rediscovered by searchers using autonomous underwater vehicles.

 The discovery of the wreck is “a milestone in polar history,” says the director of the search for it

 

 

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