The Lair

After that initial impetus to get off my lazy rear end and do something, I’ve fallen into a bit of a trap. The major hump had been climbed, the main obstacle surmounted, hosting and a domain were now mine. But blogging software doesn’t really install itself, does it ? Well, it might in the future, but certainly not in 2005. So, I needed to find some time to actually hack something together. The usual war between my inner perfectionist and pragmatic selves ensued. A kickass template ? Umm. No. It sorta does the job. Did I actually finish those dark and mysterious plugins that promised to revolutionize my blogging experience ? Did I hell. The source code is lying forlornly abandoned, consigned to the graveyard of “I just can’t be bothered right now“. Lots of shipwrecked or becalmed projects in that graveyard. But anyway… moving right along.

So Blair got himself elected again. By the skin of his teeth, it seemed… Well, considering that he practically owned parliament in the last election, anything less than a landslide could be (and was) portrayed as a set back. Why do the politics of a faraway country concern me ? Why, they don’t, really. But some interesting observations were there for the picking…

Exit polls in this country are remarkably accurate. Goddamn. If only weather forecasts had such accuracy here, we’d be all set. A mere hour after the election finished, the exit polls predicted the result, the number of seats to within a single digit difference. No one in this country actually fought or killed each other over the election. In fact, most people seemed to care so little that there were campaigns mounted to get people out of their houses to vote. I’ve seen this happen before, actually. The BBC went to town with their coverage. Graphs, a Swing-O-Meter (despite it’s vaguely raunchy sounding name, this actually plots the shift of votes), people spray painting a whiteboard map of the UK with the colour of the party which claimed a particular electoral district… in fact, lots of fun. But no one really cared.

Fortunately, the Greeks take their elections seriously, so the Don organized an election get together at his place. It gets better, folks. He remembered that I had made a rash (possibly drunken ?) promise to cook some Sri Lankan food for him and he called me on it. Dammit. Ok. So a small digression. I can cook. People don’t require medical treatment after sampling my culinary efforts; there is no need for fire extinguishers or smoke alarms (well, most of the time)… but I only cook for myself. I have (some accuse me of this) remarkably low standards for what constitutes edible fare. I also have a remarkable indifference for the fad concept known as healthy eating.

Grease ? We love it. Deep fried stuff ? We can’t live without it. Lots of spices and chutneys and so on, swimmiing in butter ? Why, that’s culinary heaven. And don’t forget to include lots of meat. Now, it seems shocking, but lots of people don’t eat like this. I can’t imagine why this is the case, but oh well. No accounting for tastes, is there ? So, I wasn’t exactly anxious to expose random foreigners to my cooking and have them extrapolate the general state of Sri Lankan cuisine from it. I’m funny like that. So I cooked. No persons died as a result and as far as I know, if anyone had to be hospitalized or have their stomach pumped, they kept quiet about it. Their arteries probably got another coating of plaque as a result, but oh well.. rough with the smooth. And I got to try a few Greek delicacies as well. Greek yoghurt is made from goat’s milk. Tasted no different from any other yoghurt to me, but then, I am slightly uncultured. A dish pronunced like zest – sticky mixes fresh grated cucumber with the yoghurt and is used as a dip. And a few other things along those lines. And a good time was had by all.