Odds and ends, Waltzing Matilda

 Waltzing Matilda

https://youtu.be/FqtttbbYfSM

Memorable quotes

‘Life is nothing but a bank of happy memories’

‘In India they love learning but don’t like thinking’

OBE – Other Buggers’ Efforts

"Demodara" on YouTube

https://youtu.be/3DFZn6MTCyY

Trauma of being Asian-American

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-to-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-asian-community-during-the-pandemic/ar-BB19YXJU

Odds and ends, Bridge over the river Kwai,

 Bridge over the river Kwai

https://youtu.be/cayfWrlWgII?list=TLPQMTEwOTIwMjA-qOH84aLANA

Life in British India

https://qr.ae/pNuuLw

Dehena Ella - waterfall, Rathnapura, Sri Lanka

http://imagessrilanka.blogspot.com/2011/09/dehena-ella-waterfall-is-about-20km.html#links

What are the fundamental differences between the three schools of Buddhism?

Extracted from 'Quora'

Good question! Simplest answer may be geographical. As the boat of BuddhaDharma docked at various ports, it mixed with the native culture.

        Theravada refers to teachings in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, etc.

        Mahāyāna refers to teachings in China, Korea, Japan, etc

        Vajrayāna refers to teachings in Mongolia, Tibet, etc

        For centuries, these traditions evolved within the borders of nationality 

Some distinctive elemental characteristics :

    Theravada emphasizes the historical Buddha, his teachings as recorded in Pali, and the original community of followers; in this tradition is found also emphasis on mindfulness, and detailed analysis of psychological states and transformation.

    Mahāyāna is more innovative, such as in seeing the Buddha as historical, and also transcendent (humans who become saints, deities who embody cosmic principals such as wisdom and compassion, etc). In terms of practice, there's a shift in initial intention, aspiring towards the trans-human (bodhisattvahood).

    Vajrayāna combines rigorous analytical discernment with devotional heart; particular practices include mantra, visualization.

 

Odds and ends Sayonara

 Sayonara

https://youtu.be/CziVmYd3TJE?list=TLPQMTEwOTIwMjA-qOH84aLANA

Campaign against the Spanish flu- 1918

https://www.history.com/news/1918-pandemic-public-health-campaigns?li_source=LI&li_medium=m2m-rcw-history

 

Portuguese names of people in Sri Lanka

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwJZJdDrGVGLgFpJsvkSMmSPFTh

 

Nine Arch Bridge Travel with Dilruk

http://www.youtube.com/shorts/R4dn22mGkUM

Obituary, Dr.H.S.R. Wijemanne

 Please click on the web-link below :-

https://medicalbatchcolombo1960.blogspot.com/2020/10/obituary-dr-wmh-wijemanne.html

Odds and ends, Al Di La

Al di la

 https://youtu.be/gwq461GHZGs

Add to your bucket list in SL

https://ta.quora.com/%E0%AE%87%E0%AE%B2%E0%AE%99%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%88%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B2%E0%AF%8D-%E0%AE%89%E0%AE%B3%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%B3-%E0%AE%85%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D

 

Song of Ceylon – Movie

https://youtu.be/6hZirvnj0kk

 Mosquitos

https://www.thoughtco.com/ways-to-guarantee-youll-get-mosquito-bites-1968301?utm_campaign=wilat&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cn_nl&utm_content=21766045&utm_term=

Odds and ends, Mull of Kintyre

 

Mull of KIntyre

https://youtu.be/bipC8jvgLtw

What is the coolest line in history?

In 1949, Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin were not on particularly good terms with one another.

Tito, the Yugoslav communist revolutionary, had been trying to free Yugoslavia from Soviet influence, which had caused a rift between the two leaders. Infuriated, Stalin sent a team of trained assassins to try to capture and kill Tito to stop what he considered to be a rebellion against the Soviet Union.

Luckily for Tito, he was able to successfully intercept and evade all of the assassins that Stalin had sent. But simply avoiding Stalin’s assassins just wasn’t enough for Tito. In fact, he decided to go one step further and explicitly assert superiority over him, so he sent a message to Moscow which was basically the verbal equivalent of laughing in Stalin’s face:

    “Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle. [...] If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second.”[1]

Tito lived until 1980 before dying of natural causes at the age of 87, and neither Stalin nor anyone else ever tried to get him killed again.

Wellawaththe – 1950 to 1960

https://roar.media/english/life/history/wellawatte-in-the-olden-days-life-in-the-sandy-garden-of-the-fifties-sixties-and-seventies

 

Ceylon 100 years ago

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/329536897718515499/

The 'Vespa' scooter

 

The beloved Vespa scooter

By Mahendra Gonsalkorale

 It is impossible to trace the history of the Vespa scooter without some reference to World War 2. Most of our batch colleagues were conceived during this period but most fortunately, in relative terms, Sri Lanka or Ceylon as it was then called, escaped the terrible hardships of War. It is sobering to reflect that estimated thirty six and a half million Europeans died between 1939 and 1945 from war related causes (equivalent to the total population of France at the outbreak of the war). No other conflict in recorded history killed so many people in so short a time. Something we tend to forget is that of these European casualties of war, at least 19 million (approximately half) were non-combatants. The non-combatant deaths outnumbered the military losses in all European countries with the exception of UK and Germany.

 The post war period was devastating with massive material destruction and shortages of everything. The migration problems we see now are minute compared to the massive movement of people that happened in the post war period. Europe became much more homogenised as a result. The word “ethnic cleansing” was first used around this time. It is the hope of all civilised people that we will never ever witness such a human catastrophe.

 The need for mobility is basic and in the early post war years, most people relied on public transport where available. Travelling for leisure was restricted to the small number of economically well off people. The motor car was invented many centuries ago but the first mass produced, conveyor belt production car, was the American Ford Model –T produced in 1908. Other early pioneers were Karl Benz in Germany and Nicholas Cugnot in France who is credited with the first powered road vehicle. The development of the motor car which began earlier in the century was interrupted during the war but by the early 1950s, had been revived by the production of small cars with small engines capable of delivering more miles per scarce gallons of petrol. The Citroen CV2 in Italy, the Renault 4 in France, the Morris and Austin early models in UK, the VW Beetle in Germany were typical examples. But in the post-war transport revolution in Europe, the supply of cars could not keep up with demand. This encouraged the growth of bikes, motor cycles and the new brand of motor scooters. The first National motor scooter rally was held in Rome on November 13th 1949 and was followed by a massive growth in the market for these reasonably priced and convenient means of transport which were symbols of urban freedom and mobility.

 

 Under such circumstance was the Vespa born.

 

The word Vespa means Wasp in both Italian and Latin. Up to 138 different versions of the Vespa have been built since production began. When Vespa celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1996, more than 15 million of the scooters had been sold worldwide, making it the most successful scooter of all time.

 

This picture shows the early M6 model with a central section. This was replaced by the more familiar one without the central bar with room for placing the feet behind the shield (wings) housing the handgrip  controls.

 

Vespa is an Italian brand of scooter manufactured by Piaggio. Piaggio was founded in1884 in Genoa by 20 year old Rinaldo Piaggio as a luxury ship building company that expanded into producing rail carriages, automobiles, marine craft and later aeronautics.    Enrico Piaggio and his brother Armando inherited the family engineering business on their father’s death in 1938. Enrico decided to move the business from aircraft to scooter production after the end of the war as there was a need for low cost transport.

 

Upon seeing the first Vespa (MP6) for the first time, Enrico Piaggio exclaimed: "Sembraunavespa!" ("It resembles a wasp!"). Piaggio effectively named his new scooter on the spot. If he was a Sri Lankan, he would have uttered the immortal words “YakomekaBambarek wage!” and Vespa would have been known as “Bambara”.

 

The move to scooter production proved to be a prudent one as the company would eventually become one of the biggest manufacturers of two-wheeled vehicles in the world and in fact the Piaggio group is now Europe’s largest manufacturer of two-wheeled vehicles and the world’s fourth largest motorcycle manufacturer by unit sales. The group own 7 companies. Piaggio, Aprilia, Moto Guzzi, Derbi, Vespa, Gilera and Ligier

 

From their inception, Vespa scooters have been known for their painted, pressed steel unibody which combines a complete cowling for the engine (enclosing the engine mechanism and concealing dirt or grease), a flat floorboard (providing foot protection), and a prominent front fairing (providing wind protection) into a structural unit.

 

In 1950 Piaggio opened a factory in Germany and a year later in the UK (Douglas of Bristol). The Vespa was soon manufactured in 13 countries and sold in 114.

 

As a result of the MOD subculture that developed in the 1960s, the United Kingdom became Vespa’s second largest global market.

 

When Vespa celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1996, more than 15 million of the scooters had been sold worldwide

 

Sadly, in its country of birth Italy, Vespa popularity is declining. According to data published by ANCMA, moped sales in Italy have declined from a peak of 600,000 in 1980 to 26,727 in 2014 - a vertiginous fall of 97 percent. Economic crisis, demographic shifts, and the changing habits of the younger generation are all conspiring to end the moped culture widely associated with Italian life since World War II."The younger generation is just not as interested in mopeds as it used to be," Claudio Deviti, head of the motorcycle unit of ANCMA, the National Association of Motorcycle, Bicycle and Accessories, told Al Jazeera.

 

The great rival for the scooter owning fraternity in the Medical Faculty was the Lambretta, made in Milan by Innocenti, but that is another story.

 

I would like to refer readers to a previous post by Lucky,"Two Wheelers" of the Batch,  25th November 2015. In this post, he named some of our Vespa owners. I hope readers would add to this list.  Those who owned the newer Vespa models (the handle in particular was different) were: SanathLamabadusuriya (I think it had registration number 4 Sri 955), MahendraCollure and the late LGDK Herath. Douglas Mulgirigama owned an older model Vespa. Rajan (Patas) Ratnesar was the other who used an older model of Vespa.

Lucky, and the comments, cover the Vespa. Lambretta, BSA.MotorGuzzi and Honda.

Does anybody know a lady Medico who owned a Vespa? I would have thought it was very suitable for a lady who would like to avoid straddling for reasons best known to her!

 

Posted by Lucky Abey at 7:36 AM 13 comments: 

Labels: Literary, Miscellaneous