I received an email today in a response to an idea I’d sent someone. It was one of those “let’s put something together here that we all benefit from” ideas that I was quite excited by. The response read simply:
“I like the idea in principle.”
That was it. Except for a signature line that read: “Due to email overload, I subscribe to this policy: http://five.sentenc.es/” Intrigued I clicked on the URL and found a single page website that expounded on the “five sentences” policy:
About ten years ago I sat in a icy mobile SAfm radio studio in Grahamstown during the Festival. I was “driving the desk” for a recording that was taking place. Behind the microphone was Monica Fairall, and her guest was a holistic healer of some sort who specialised a swinging crystal pendulum that was meant to realign something or other to make you better. It was vaguely interesting but, honestly, I was more anxious about when I would get to have my next cigarette. The interview ended, I bolted outside onto the pavement and lit up. The guest left, trailing a cloud of incense and clutching her crystals (I swear I saw a lentil fall out of her skirtfolds). Monica joined me on the pavement. “Come on Monica,” I said “Seriously?” Monica just smiled at me – her twinkling, understanding smile, neither patronising nor preachy. I can’t remember her exact words and it is tempting to make them up to give the full effect. But I don’t need to – her words weren’t important. Her demeanour was. Monica was intrigued in the world of health and gave lentil lady as much time to express her views as she did nicotine-soaked me. It was just one moment out of the time I knew Monica that stands out.
I’m a relative newcomer to the Twitstream. Usually a rapid adopter of new technologies, I’m not sure why it took me so long to get my head around the value of Tweets. I half-heartedly opened an account a few months back, but it has only been in the last week or two that I’ve become a more committed Tweeter.
Now that I’m part of the TsuTweetie (my word – feel free to spread it) I’m intrigued at how rapidly it has gained momentum, in much the same way Google and Facebook did in their early years. Determined not to miss the boat, the purveyors of Old Media are rushing to embrace it. Sky has a fully fledged “Twitter Correspondent” in the form of Ruth Barnett (bizarrely pictured here in front of, um, YouTube. Hey Social Media all looks the same, doesn’t it?)
I type this from the back of a taxi barreling its way to Cape Town airport. I’m not entirely sure why we’re barreling, though, because I’m going to miss my plane and there seems to be little point risking life and limb to shorten the four hour wait until the next flight. It’s still going to cost me over a thousand bucks and a lost day’s work.
But that’s okay because the warm smile and grovelling apology I got from Cabs on Call made it all alright. Not. More like a reprimand from the call centre. It’s my fault, apparantly, for being dumb enough to book a cab during rush hour, even though I’ve flown the same flight and booked a taxi for the same time at least monthly over the last year. Then there was the not even vaguely apologetic surly backwards glance from the driver when I got in.
Apart from the rush hour – which apparantly is such a new phenomenon it took everyone, including professional drivers, by surprise – I was also sarcastically reminded that my driver doesn’t have a helicopter. Nice. And they did, in fairness, send me an SMS round about the time I should have been getting into the taxi to say it would be 10 minutes late, That would have been ok, had it been 10 minutes, 30 minutes is in fact how late they were, which now means I’ll miss the plane.
Here’s the rant: if you puport to offer a service in a highly competitive market, then for God’s sake offer the frigging service. And do it well. And realise that customers will choose you when you take them by surprise by over-delivering, not leaving them anxious that you will deliver at all. Air travel is stressful enough without having to worry that some wheel clutching miserable sarcastic posse is going to pile extra stress on. I’m not trying to put the cab drivers out of business – my experience is that they are usually a friendly, affable, hard-working lot. But when some mouse jockey double books them or doesn’t give them enough time to get from A to B they need to quit the company and work for another one.
So next time you want to be grossly inconvenienced and made to feel like it was all your fault in the first place, use Cabs on Call in Cape Town. It’s exactly what you need.
PS I made the flight. But only because the SAA lady was so nice and my smile so charming. Then the flight was delayed. Then I was offered a free ticket if I agreed to be bumped to a later flight. Having prepared myself mentally to miss the flight anyway, I accepted and so now have a three hour wait. It’s that kind of day.
Staff at the SABC continued to stage a sit-in outside Acting CEO Gab Mampone’s office yesterday, despite loud hammering and drilling from the inside of the office which seems to indicate that Mampone is intent on tunnelling out.
Mampone has been barricaded in his office since last week, with access being provided only to replace the batteries on his DSTV remote.
“It took five hours for it to dawn on him that he had been barricaded in,” a protest leader who cannot be named in the media despite the fact that he is a prominent media personality said. “He only realised it when he tried to leave his office to go to the Executive kitchen to microwave his lunch.”
Johannesburg — ANC Spokesperson Jesse Duarte has spoken out against the swine flu virus, saying that it is yet more evidence of a media conspiracy against President-elect Jacob Zuma.
“Why should we all be getting so worked up about a virus that is making pigs ill? It’s all been exaggerated by the media who would like us to believe that it is spreading from pigs to humans,” Duarte fumed at a junior journalist who had stumbled across her in the ladies’ room at the Union Buildings. “By focusing on this alleged “outbreak”, they are attempting to fill their pages with nonsense, leaving no room for coverage of our President’s inauguration,” she continued.
Conducting their interview in front of the recently shined mirrors, Duarte confirmed to the journalist that she would be taking “whatever steps are necessary” to ensure that the media focus their energies on the inauguration instead of, what she called, the “alleged pandemic”.
Steps being debated by the NEC include declaring the virus a hoax; getting the health minister to recommend fruit juice as a cure; and inviting former President Thabo Mbeki to head up a special medical commission that will investigate, and then declare non-existent, the link between the virus and people dying from it.
“Our struggle is being undermined by counter-revolutionaries in the media who just want to peddle misinformation and sell newspapers,” she said, citing radio and television stations as being the worst culprits, but failing to explain why they would want to sell newspapers.
As she stormed out the ladies’ room Duarte had time for one more comment at the now-scrubbed journalist: “We’re not taking this lying down,” she intoned. “ANC President Jacob Zuma is about to become everyone’s President and nothing can stop him. Not even sick pigs.”
Given the amount of schlock on the internet (and yes, I include much of what I write under that disparaging blanket) it’s always refreshing to come across a blog that isn’t (a) self-indulgent (ditto my caveat above) (b) an attempt at omnipotent prosthelytizing on the state of our planet/nation/backyard (ditto again, sigh) or (c) just plain annoying (oh dear).
One blog I’ve discovered recently (thanks ) is British comedy writer Jon Brown’s called “1000 Tiny Things I Hate” (thanks Bridget McNulty) – an ongoing rant about those little things that get up Brown’s nose. And they really are little things. Take a look at some recent additions to the list:
#0153. THE CONSTANT AND OVERWHELMING URGE TO LET MY ONE ASIAN FRIEND KNOW THAT I’VE FINALLY SEEN ‘SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.’
#0149. OLD MEN WHO RECKON THEY’RE REALLY GOOD WITH COMPUTERS.
#0141. USING A PIECE OF GYM EQUIPMENT IMMEDIATELY AFTER A WOMAN OR A CHILD.
The list goes on. Self-deprecating, hilarious, observational comedy at its best. It’s also wonderfully irreverent and, well, just spot on the way he captures those little things he encounters that make him see red. Well worth a visit if you have some time to kill and you want to remind yourself why the internet can be great.
My personal favourite from his list is this video – covertly recorded by Brown on a train journey. The blog entry is titled
Possibly the most famous newspaper headline blunder was made by the Chicago Tribune of 3 November 3 1948, which bannered “Dewey Defeats Truman”.
When the decision to print the paper was made, returns from the US election were coming in very slowly and time was running out before the deadline for the edition. The Tribune staff, based on the early returns, decided Dewey would be the next President. After the newspaper was delivered to the street, more returns came in and showed that Truman would be the ultimate winner and be re-elected as President. The already delivered “error” newspapers were gathered for return by staff members sent out to pick them up from newsstands and homes in the Chicago area. Not all were collected, however, and the photo of the victorious President Truman holding the paper aloft has become iconic.
While clearly no-where near as disastrous as that, I was amused this morning to find that the Weekender newspaper dated 25 April 2009 has made a similar mistake by “calling” the results of the Western Cape poll prematurely.
“DA resports to coalition for control of the Cape” says the headline, and the story goes on to say: “Intense negotiations between political parties in the Western Cape are on the cards as they try to forge coalitions of sufficient strength to take control of the province. The horse-trading will be necessary because of the Democratic Alliance’s failure to win an outright majority in the province…”
Hmmm. Ooops. With 51.33% of the vote in her handbag, Ms Zille is now to be Premier of the Western Cape, regardless of what coalition she manages to forge. Of course she may still decide to enter into an alliance with other parties, but the point is she doesn’t have to. She has won.
I’m surprised the Weekender got it so wrong. As a Cape Town resident I have been watching the results closely for the past 36 hours. And for most of them the party hasn’t dipped below 50% at all and, when it did, it was only for a short while. If they wanted to err on the side of caution they should have printed the opposite story “Majority seems likely for the DA” would have been a more accurate, safer and, as it turned out, correct headline.
Just shows the perils of Old Media who should, in an age where there is instant news all around us, capitalise on their one biggest strength – offer great insight and detailed analysis. In a rolling news environment when a story is still live when you go to print, don’t take any chances because it gives new media pundits the chance to ridicule you and tweak your nose. Tweak tweak.
This week: Mandy Rossouw on the Jacob Zuma/Nkandla scandal PLUS how it played out behind the scenes; and a new report leaked to the M&G paints a sad story of the state of education in SA. […]
