The Lair

A small anecdotal, possibly unscientific experiment to record the checkpoint experience, as it were.

Experimental environment: reasonably modern (unfortunately coloured) car, four occupants. One occupant (namely, moi) can speak the native lingo. Everyone can speak English, albeit some with a strong accent. For reference, a couple of the occupants look unmistakably expat/foreign.

Duration: 1.5 days (essentially, a couple of nights and a day) worth of driving around from one Colombo nightspot to another.

Number of times stopped: 31 (yes, I counted. That’s the whole point of this post, right?).
Breakdown: 8 army only, 2 navy only, 4 airforce only, 1 police only, the remainder: mixed (one policeman and army, usually). This is just based on visibility, there could have been other guys hiding in the shadows for all I could see.

Number of times I showed someone my (tattered and faded) identity card: 24 (I was waved on without so much as a check of papers 7 times, just a brief stop and a peer into the window was all it took).

Number of times anyone had to get out of the car: 0. I usually never get out of the car unless asked specifically to do so. I have no idea about checkpoint etiquette or requirements, but I’ve seen people nipping out of the car as soon as they’re stopped.

Number of times I had to show the whole nine yards (ID, license, insurance etc): 1. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the police only checkpoint, but one of the mixed checkpoints leading to Temple Trees. The experience and tone of the cop doing the checking of documents was nasty enough that it invited comment from the other occupants of the car. Maybe the dude was having a bad day. Maybe it was because he is a cop and not the military (who were unfailingly polite, each and every single time).

Other numbers: 192.6km on the odometer for the entire trip, approximately 18 hours (I should have recorded time spent in the car for a more accurate statistic, I suppose).

Completely unscientific averages: a stop approximately every 40 minutes on average, or every 6 kilometres.

More interestingly, the people travelling with me were never ever asked for their papers or anything. There were 2-3 instances where I was asked where they were from (to which i replied with their current country of residence, not their respective countries of origin). Other than that, not much more than a quick glance in their direction.

Not entirely sure if this post is going to be interpreted as a damning indictment of the security theatre that is checkpoints or not. The number of stoppages certainly seem high, given the duration (but balanced by the fact that we were usually skirting a high security area or actually in it). The lone incident with the nasty cop would have, unfortunately, been the only thing I even remembered, had I not been recording information to write this post.

So there was a partial solar eclipse going on today. Not that I really noticed – I was awake, but by the time I remembered, the celestial caravan had long since departed. This could well be the story of my life, in a sentence. I still vividly remember watching this eclipse, or at least the parts of it that were not spoilt by dark clouds. Good eclipse in spots, but patchy cloud obscures the rest. That again, could be yet another story of my life.

In a cheery mood, aren’t I? Here’s why.

For the 4th fucking time in less than a year, I have gotten into a minor fender bender with some random twat. This time where some dude actually backed into me on a main road. Yes, I wish I was making this shit up. This was right in front of a traffic cop, by the way – said cop hurrying up onto the scene and then standing around while I did the obligatory waving of arms, wagging of fingers and loudly shouting “NO U” at the other guy. Yeah, so the dent on the shiny bumper is minor, but it’s the principle of the thing goddammit.

If this continues, I may begin to suspect that the gods do not wish me to get behind the steering wheel of a car. Which works fine with me, actually – but I resent being continually mugged by three wheeler dudes for last minute tacked on additional charges to an agreed fare.

Perhaps unrelated: I have this sudden urge to consign more freshwater fish to death. Or in other words, I want to restart the aquarium hobby that I have had on and off for the last 20 years. Nothing too fancy, maybe a 20-30 litre tank. Allegedly, watching fish swim has stress relieving properties. Heaven knows I need that.

Been a while since I had this much free time to myself. And by free time, I really mean time that I should be spending putting the finishing touches to some work – but I’m choosing to do other things. First, books – and there is truly nothing nicer than being able to catch up on some of the titles that I hadn’t read over the last year. Then, in orderly fashion – new book announcements, of which there are a few.

First, to no one’s surprise (certainly not mine, at any rate) – the final Robert Jordan WoT book is now three volumes. Why do I sense another potential money spinning venture here; with volume following volume? Perhaps I’m being overly cynical about this. Next, new Discworld. Note the timing of both releases – November and October this year, respectively.

And apropos of nothing – more than one person has already asked me how I manage to keep some (most) of the character names in the WoT series sorted out in my head. And the answer is; well – at least I think the answer is – I have read the books a few times now over the last decade or so. I do re-read books. These things get remembered. As an explanation, I always thought this sounded sort of weak – until I read about the woman who has perfect recall.

Except that the article takes the sheen off a pretty remarkable achievement by setting it in a slightly creepy context -

When it comes to the 2004 election, she opts out entirely. I soon find that except for her own personal history and certain categories like television and airplane crashes, Price’s memory isn’t much better than anyone else’s

and later …

The difference is that she scans her past relentlessly. Every time we think about something, and especially how it connects to something else, we get better at remembering it—a phenomenon that psychologists call elaborative encoding

And now? you find a picture of someone who seems to spend most of her time relentlessly scanning her past. Ooerr.

And on that note, I’m off to forget most of what I still remember about characters in the WoT series.