In Sri Lanka, the expert is there right next to you - on the train, in the street, everywhere in fact. But what happens when you seek one in a doctor’s waiting room?

If you are English, do you really need sex? Can you not encounter la petite mort simply upon waking up?

She was the pin-up of her times – but was it about the island’s first queen that caused so much disquiet, even now, and where might you still find her?

Sri Lanka’s gems are as perfect a thing for first nights, Dubai dinners and London cocktail parties as they are for crowns, thrones, diadems - and even my missing tiara. But should it be enough to merely murmur their magical names, or must you wear them too? It was Mr Wijeratne from the Water Board who brought the missing tiara to mind when he called on us this morning, his beaming presence foretelling progress on our fixed-line water connection. He is a generous, positive f

Sri Lanka may have lost its last king in 1815, but since Independence, its leading families have more than made up for the difference. Who are they – and what are they up to today? “Spaghetti,” barked a planter friend, describing Sri Lankan politics. “Noodles. A ball of coir, all entangled. A roll of barbed wire. “ He was on a roll himself here. “Pepper vine, “ he finally ventured, “all entangled but makes you sneeze too.” Politics was at the forefront of my mind today. The

Why is it always better to have your hair cut under frangipani trees? H.R. Managers are in their happiest pace when discussing either redundancy terms or the compensation package that will tempt you to leap across to their well-moisturised limb of corporate life, and begin, once again, the ascent up the greasy ladder. There is the salary, of course, sometimes, but not always, cut up into digestible, discussable sections, each adorned with dependencies like earnings longing to

Sri Lanka was ruled by hundreds of kings and a handful of queens for over 2,000 years. But which of them were among its six most egregious baddies – and why? The awful thing about wickedness is just how interesting it is. Kind and benevolent rulers; admirable warrior kings; even the fumbling but kindly nice ones who build hospitals and live blameless lives – they all pale into guilt-wrenching insignificance when set before a list saturated by the sinful, iniquitous, and de

Who was Chinta | And why does her death – and life – matter quite so much? Today is the saddest of days, for Chinta has died. The inexorable world will not stop its spin around the sun, nor will Sri Lanka pause to know this. Even in our little town of Galagedera, the news will affect just a few. But here on the estate, we all stop, deeply shocked, barely knowing how to react or what to do next. Chinta had been away from work for a day, complaining of being a little tired an