The abrupt removal of Daily News Editor Nihal Ratnaike from that position, we have on the authority of no less than the editor of the Observer, was a "straight news story." But that was the news, straight or otherwise, that last Sunday's Observer chose not to publish for reasons that are best known to the editor who is most adept at pronouncing on how fellow journalists outside Lake House are doing their jobs.

Last Tuesday we saw the latest example of such magisterial pronouncement when he chose to deliberately distort what we had said in our Sunday editorial. He interpreted what we had written to be an attempt at faulting the government for not making a great song and dance about its anniversary. God forbid! We are the last people to want any incumbent political establishment of whatever hue to have tamashas of any kind at taxpayer expense. In fact our SAARC boru shoke commentary last month provoked a similar outburst in the Observer with the editor inquiring in print whether we wanted the grand show to be like a pauper's wedding.

But we will let our readers judge whether we were in any way advocating a birthday bash by the PA. Although the tub thumping was not as loud as it might have been, between last Sunday and today there have been some noises including a supplement that the previous editor of the Daily News had said he had insufficient notice to produce. There had also been a birthday cake at Wednesday's cabinet meeting, we are told. We are glad that some people do have cake although the people complain that they do not have the promised bread at Rs. 3.50 a loaf.

The Observer editor produced lots of words from his extensive vocabulary to abuse those who are not his running mates. Mendacious, partisan, spite, envy and bitterness are some of those we have picked from his Tuesday offering. Phew! Thank you, Mr. Former Colleague. We do not accept your abuse and you are welcome to keep it yourself. So much for that. But we cannot let the gravamen of your charge, which referred to last Sunday's Island Capers, pass unanswered.

But first we must apologise to our readers for the fearful scrambling of what we had written. Fortunately it must have been intelligible because we know that the Observer editor had understood it better than he understood our editorial. What we said there was that the editor of the Daily News had been abruptly removed from his position, that information from Lake House was that he was going to be made the chief administrative officer of ANCL's editorial department, that he was the fourth editor of the Daily News since the PA government took office and that during this same period ANCL had six chairmen.

All of which is true, Mr. White Washer (if we may also use your name punning precedent). That rabbit you so gleefully produced from your top hat by announcing that the present editor of the Sunday Island had also been one of those four editors of the Daily News during the PA regime is hardly a secret. But even there you didn't get your facts quite right. We did not have the honour for serving the PA-administered Lake House as Daily News editor for almost two years as you say. It was a few weeks more than a year. This writer had a long tenure of over 14 years as editor of the Lake House flagship before he too suffered an abrupt removal to make way for someone who was then over 70-years old. But we must say we had two days notice unlike the last victim who seems to have had none.

We assure the Observer editor that we are not angry with Lake House as he alleges. We have the warmest feelings for that institution for which we diligently and devotedly worked for two thirds of our lifetime. It is not from that institution from which we have suffered injustice. It is puny politicians and their mandarins who have done us wrong. We say this only now because the Observer editor has raised it. And we must also say that nobody was decapitated or demoted to give us the editor's chair. Can you say as much? We filled a vacancy that arose from the resignation of an incumbent who took a job abroad.

All this the Observer editor knows. But cheap jibes seem to be his stock-in-trade and he is welcome to revel in the muck his stablemate says was thrown at a diner owned by a UNPer. Since he is in the business of assigning heroes (we were given JRJ and Anandatissa de Alwis) we will say that we will not quarrel about that as long as he does not add any of those to whom he presently genuflects to that list.