Category Archives: unusual people

March 6, 2022 · 7:44 pm

The Ceylon Cricket Teams in 1947 and 1948: Two Iconic Photographs

The CEYLON TEAM in 1947 

I require aid in identifying all those presented here but begin by naming FC de Saram and M. Sathasivam as the two seated with their pads on.

 

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March 6, 2022 · 5:08 pm

Shane Warne’s Magnanimity

Quintus de Zylva

Shane Warne reached the magical figure of 700 wickets before he retired from cricket. Murali went past him and then retired. Shane always acknowledged the fact that Murali took more wickets . They were close friends.

 

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March 4, 2022 · 11:01 pm

Whale of a Time

Sent to THUPPAHI by Christopher Duff-Tytler of  Sri Lanka and Adelaide 

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March 3, 2022 · 8:37 pm

Germany Transformed: Steps Out as an European Powerhouse

Ed Turner,  using this title “Germany’s €100-billion army fund: a remarkable change in post-war policy in response to the Ukraine crisis” 2 March 2022, …………………………………………………….. ……….. https://theconversation.com/germanys-100-billion-army-fund-a-remarkable-change-in-post-war-policy-in-response-to-the-ukraine-crisis-178202?

If you’d asked experts just a fortnight ago what the key features of Germany’s approach to foreign and defence policy were, there would have been several strands. Alignment with the west, and of course membership of the EU and Nato would have been a feature. Striving for strong transatlantic links would be another, not least because the country was bruised by its regular, public and bellicose criticism from former president Donald Trump.

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March 2, 2022 · 10:02 pm

For Ukraine: Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam

Jane Russell, in an essay dedicated to Shirlene de Silva who introduced her to the Mandelstam’s writings …. an essay writen on 1 March 2022 with the title “Ukraine and its place in 20th century Russian literature: Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam”

 Osip Emilievich Mandelstam, the genius Russian-Jewish poet murdered by Stalin, met his Jewish wife, Nadezhda Yakovlevna, in a nightclub in Kyiv when both were in their twenties. It was 1919, the second year of the Soviet revolution, which was finally getting going after the 1st World War.

Osip Emilievich Mandelstam

 Nadezhda Mandelstam  

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March 2, 2022 · 2:29 pm

Lankan Cricketers in the Eye of A Terrorist Storm: Pictorials

The Islamic terrorist attack of March 2009 near Gaddafi Stadium at Lahore was a traumatic event which endangered the Sri Lankan cricket team as well as a mini-bus bearing cricketing officials. The team were extremely fortunate to survive withonly aa few minor injuries. Photogaphs can only provide a smidgeon of the impact.

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March 1, 2022 · 10:27 pm

The Terrorist Assault on Cricketers in March 2009: Pictorial Reminders

As News Items displayed pictures and stroies of beeming Aussie cricketers arriving in Pakistan for cricket, we need to cast our mind back to that fateful day on the 3rd March 2009 when the entourage bearing the Sri Lankan team and the officiating personnel were subject to an assault by some Pakistani “terrorists.” The most effective manner of reminding readers of the horrendous events that unfolded in and around the last roundabout before Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore is to present some of the photographs taken immediately afterwards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That only a few Pakistani policemen and the driver of the minibus bearing the team officials lost their lives was due to Allah’s grace and the presence of mind shown by Khallil, the driver of the coach and Tuan Tillekeratne Dilshan as the bus sped away from botched efforts to (a) block it and (b) hit it with a shoulder-fired rocket.

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February 28, 2022 · 1:02 pm

Ken Balendra’s Visionary Leadership at John Keells

Sanjeewa Jayaweera, in Island, 27 February 2022, with this title “Ken Balendra’s Impact on John Keells”

Much information is available in the public domain about Deshamanya Ken Balendra (KB), the visionary Chairman of the John Keells Holdings Group (JKH) from 1990 to 2000, who recently celebrated his 81st birthday. For quite some time, I have wanted to pen a tribute to the great man but hesitated to do so as I felt many others ranging from his close friends from school days to those who worked closely with him, are more qualified than I to write about him.

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February 25, 2022 · 11:59 pm

Remembering Mervyn De Silva and His Reach

Bradman Weerakoon, writng in the year 2000  …

When Mervyn de Silva passed away, many tributes were paid to his contribution to critical writing, to journalism, to literature and the arts, to his scholarly weekly radio commentaries on world affairs, his lone editorship of the Lanka Guardian and the stimulation he provided to popular discussion by his constant and thoughtful, intellectual engagement with whatever was current in the public debate.

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February 25, 2022 · 5:40 pm

Robert Knox’s Journeys: Producing His Book …. Two

Thiru Arumugam, in The Ceylankan, Vol 25/1, Feb. 2022, where the title reads “A Three Hundred and Forty-Year Book-about-Ceylon”

Captain Robert Knox (1642-1720) of the East India Company
*oil on canvas
*126 x 102.8 cm
*1711
*inscribed b.l.: AEtat: 66
*inscribed b.l.: P: Trampon : Pinx (on the chair)
*inscribed c.r.: R: Knox: (on the quadrant)
*inscribed c.r.: Memoires of my owne Life: 1708 (on the notebook)

 

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