I wrote a couple of weeks back about ‘nasty personal attacks on the UN leadership in Sri Lanka during the conflict’ and noted that long ago I had ‘suggested that we should highlight the positive input of senior UN officials and question the UN as to why their reports had been ignored’. This was prompted by a report by a ...

I was up early on the 31st of October, for I was not sure how complicated the journey would be to get to San Marino. My main reason for going there was that it was yet another country, and the only small one in Europe which I had not as yet visited. It is the fifth smallest country in the ...

In October I went on a wild life safari, for the first time if one excludes the wonderful times I had had, generally with my aunt Ena, in Yala and elsewhere in Sri Lanka. I still had a slight puritanical streak about such indulgence, and felt that, if travelling vast distances, there should also be some cultural input. So it ...

Today’s pictures are from Egypt, from a trip I made to Luxor in 2009. I had been before to Cairo and to Alexandria but in days I did not take pictures. But I more than made up for that on this journey, capturing the grand temple at Karnak and the Valleys of the Kings and Queens, and then going on ...

I move now to one of the greatest changes John Keleher and I achieved while we were at the Council, namely the revitalization of English courses at Sri Lankan universities. It was a slow and depressing process, and I think only took off properly after I joined the university system again under the patronage of Arjuna Aluwihare. But the efforts ...

Back after six weeks to the roof garden, where the roses have not been in quite such fine fettle as they were at the beginning of the year. But they were still satisfying, though it was more a matter of single blossoms than the profusion I have shown recently. The exception was the pot on the north east corner which ...

With the advent of the New Year in 2012 I began meetings at Divisional Secretariats, though I also in January covered the Districts I had not had individual meetings in previously. But in this post I have included pictures of the countryside, because I have no doubt that it was also because of the sheer beauty of the scenery I ...

I was pleased to be given the Mt Lavinia house, but that was nothing like the pleasure I got when I finally stayed over at the little cottage I had built by the river. I saw the New Year in there, which was bliss. Moving into my cottage The local Commonwealth Literature and Language Association had its sessions at Sabaragamuwa, ...

 I was told recently by a diplomat that, amongst the worries in connection with the appointment of Mohan Pieris as Chief Justice, was the feeling that he had been put there to subvert any judicial process that might be implemented with regard to War Crimes. This struck me as ridiculous. But it was also indicative of the deep distrust and ...

I spent Christmas of 2012 with my old Oxford friend John Pike who had in his fifties gone as a senior British volunteer to Cambodia. I had been with him before for Christmas and we had explored the remote north-eastern provinces of Cambodia. This trip, for which Vasantha Senanayake also joined us, was to Laos. We started with an astonishing ...

I continue with the long letter at the beginning of the vacation, continuing with a description of elections for the Oxford Union, which took up much of my time and attention during this period. The President I mention was Philip McDonagh who became an Irish diplomat as did his younger brother Bobby, who had a meteoric rise in the Union ...

At last pictures from out of Colombo, as I look here briefly at the other work I did with regard to the people of the North and East following the closure of the Peace Secretariat at the end of July 2009. This was productive, both the work in rehabilitation I began, in cooperation with the excellent Commissioners General of Rehabilitation ...

After an abortive effort to go to Germany on the way back from the Chalet later in that summer of 1974, I went straight to Oxford which meant that I was only away from the place for about a month over the four months of the vacation. But of course that was home for me now, and I loved it. ...

I referred briefly last week to a little granite seat, made from a large block left over from building. That was set up by the pond around the dead temple flower tree, and against the wall of the enclosure that has another little pond, though that wall proved useless to restrain Hilary. This was the tortoise that had walked in ...

From the City of Aquatint 15 This notes the two very minor plays in which I had very minor parts this term, both garden productions which were most enjoyable. And it mentions punting which was such a pleasure over the years. The pictures are of Eights Week and of punting, but from later days. 26th May Life’s been quite fascinating ...

With the new fish in place in the little pond under the eastern flower bed on the balcony, I decided to build a little vantage point, for the step from which one accessed the stair to the roof garden was too small to sit on comfortably and too high to see properly into the pool. So I had a little ...

I record here a trip without Kithsiri, which made clear how comparatively reliable he was. The pictures are all of the New Oriental Hotel, now and long ago, the courtyard with its pool and the dining room and the verandah. Done up rather well now, but alas beyond my purse unlike in the nineties when I revelled in staying there. ...

This post notes what I did to assuage matters with regard to Thiruketheeswaran, though I suspect no one cared as much about the matter after I had ceased to exercise any responsibilities. But I also mention an issue that became of increasing importance in my journeys, the safety of women and children. Though there were special desks for these, they ...

This post continues with an account of the formulation of the National Action Plan for Human Rights. That sadly is now forgotten, though a glance at it would have helped this government to solve some problems that have got worse over the years through neglect. For instance it had very clear proposals with regard to alleviating the awful situation in ...

There was much to do in the few days following my father’s death, but we had no complications, because both my mother and he had been very clear when they wrote their wills. My father had not wanted to write one, on the grounds that he had nothing in his name, but I had persuaded him that he had to ...