If nothing else we will be well and truly 'hatted,' if you will permit a Ceylonism. That is a more felicitous way of saying it than calling it a Lankanism which might appeal to the JHU and some jingoists but does not sound particularly nice to the ear.

I would not have known that we were to be literally and metaphorically 'hatted' until I read this news item which was quite appropriately (consciously or otherwise) called "Top Story." Where, after all, would you wear a hat except on the top of your head!

We Sri Lankans having made every other thing I could think of, particularly a bloody mess of ourselves, it appears that we are going to 'hat' the rest of the world.  

We are told that the Australians - some group called Mountcastle or something - are going to set up a headgear manufacturing facility in Wattala that will produce for export hats and other things to wear on your head.

A company named Statesman Hats (Private) Limited is shortly going to hat us all, or rather those who wear this kind of thing, with some of the best of them known to mankind. Well womankind too since they wear the most weird things on their heads that look like a tasteless imitation of a cock's comb.

The "season"

If you don't believe me, take a ride to Nuwara Eliya during what the local socialites (there being no socialists now to roam the cocktail circuit in the evenings while yelling down with the danapathi next morning) call the "season."

That is when the flowers bloom in Nuwara Eliya and the young danapathi girls at international schools bloom in Colombo.

That actually is April, our silly season if ever there was one, beating by several furlongs the Diyawanna Oya clots at budget time.

So when the fillies - I mean the four-legged ones - run at Nuwara Eliya Race Course on a particular day, our budding and very much budded socialities including our dear friends Wendy van Rinderpest and Nancy Manasgathe, pillars of the Paradise Club, our favourite watering hole down Duplication Road, are out there. They in their faded fur coats and the men in their woollens from their distant student days in the UK, pretending it was Ascot.

Who cares if the temperature was 30 degrees Celsius and global warming is in the air.

There in Newr Eliyaar in that crispy air

Such comical hats on their heads they bear.

How they must wish that Statesman Hats (Private) Limited would produce hats for the local market so that they too could be a la mode with Helen Kaminski and Gieves & Hawkes wear on their heads though some of those heads might be put to better use as hat stands.

Local market

Alas, Statesman Hats are for the export market and for designer names such as Polo, Helen Kaminski, Gieves & Hawkes and such other famous names and not to be sold at Appadorai & Sons, Mustaphas and Haramanis Unlimited.

But who knows. By and by some could end up in the local market for even export manufacturers in the free trade zones are allowed to put out for sale a small percentage of their export manufactures.

There is the other possibility of course. The dear mums who accompany their children for interviews to foreign universities or to admit them could well return with a hat or two or even three to make it a real hat trick as it were.

Sri Lanka-produced hats will be everywhere. Well certainly in Europe, US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. That is practically everywhere, everywhere that matters. Who really cares if Hugo Chavez does not wear one of our hats. His head is probably well oiled anyway and would only spoil the inside of a hat.

As for Osama bin Laden he has his own kind of hat or cap, probably made of sheepskin or camel hair.

But fret not nor shed those copious tears. There is still some hope for us, what with the rupee ascending the currency ladder and Gordon Brown's sterling pound being continuously pounded in the currency market while Barack's notes are climbing high.

In that Top Story it is said that besides hats, caps, headwear and head dresses they will also manufacture academic regalia. Now this might be only for customers of Polo and others.

Academic regalia

But hang on! Surely if somebody like Labour Minister Mervyn Silva wants to have some academic regalia with which to ensure universal recognition for his doctorate instead by a handful of those who awarded it from an institution that seems to lack distinction, then Statesman Hats is not going to turn a deaf ear or a blind eye or whichever part of the anatomy that might seem most vulnerable to Silva's entreaties.

After all he is a labour minister and for the pains he has taken to improve labour relations, I and my fellow habitu‚s of Paradise Club strongly feel that Mervyn Silva deserves to be provided with the best academic regalia such as a gown and mortarboard so that even if he has to appear in a court of law he could go there in cap and gown.

He of the quizzical mind is quite capable of asking, why only a judge should be so attired and the ordinary people of this country appear in plain clothes, so to say.

I mean how many of those in our rather large Cabinet boast of a doctorate? Keheliya Rambukwella is also called doctor though we at Paradise Club have not yet ascertained from where it came like manna from heaven.

Now take Prof. G.L. Peiris whose doctorate was acquired through extensive academic study. So what did Mervyn Silva get it for? The martial arts you might say though sceptics would say that while his approach might be martial there is no art in it. Rather it is artifice.

An appeal

We at Paradise Club met in conclave and decided to send an appeal to the Australian company that is due to set up shop here under an agreement with the Board of Investment.

As an investment in goodwill and healthy labour relations we intend to ask the Australians to invite Mervyn Silva for the grand opening of their enterprise and he then be presented with a cap and gown.

They should be large enough to hide his face and the rest of his anatomy for the good of the nation.

Just a bit of advice however. Please don't invite television crews to cover the opening. He has an aversion for unnecessary publicity. They are likely to lose their balance not to mention a few tools of their trade.

The Australians should keep that in mind. Otherwise it will be thoppi for us all.