Clive Simpkins

Friday morning pot pourri

Ever have that foggy mental feeling when you can't quite remember what day of the week it is? I settled on Friday only through the knowledge that I'm doing cappuccino with Mandy de Waal at 10:00 this morning. I think I need a four day week!

Had a total gross-out 'Oh my God!' moment on opening my least-favourite newspaper this morning.  Look at the picture. It tells its own terrible story. I'm left in awe that a 'civilised culture' as old as China is still caught in such a hideous time-warp of habits. Ugh!

On a contrapuntal but less ghastly foodie note, Woolworths stores have been out of my dietary staple, Tofu, for 3 months. I love the store to bits and given what I've spent on fresh food with them over the years, I should probably be an honorary director by now. But their laudable (yet sometimes over the top) obsession with freshness ticks me off big-time when it means chronic out-of-stocks. And when they change suppliers it leads to this sort of hiatus. I almost had to apply to the UN for food assistance. I can just visualise a bulbous Hercules C30 transporter aircraft opening its tailgate over Parktown North and parachuting down a bag of whey protein powder to keep my tiny brain functioning. I also have reason to believe Woolies have changed Tofu suppliers because the texture's not the same as it was last year. Crumbly - my worst. Bugger.

Switching gears, I HATE (with a passion!) advertisers who put a price on something in an ad and then put the real price in small figures below, with some niggly little condition attached. Example, Game stores and Makro in South Africa consistently advertise computers with a price - below which, in tiny letters is the real price. That real price is conditional upon something truly dumb like purchasing an mweb dial-up Internet contract. Anyone who doesn't already have 'Net access is surely not going to be tempted by a R 1 000 pseudo-discount on a computer? When I took up the same issue with the Incredible Connection Group regarding their advertising, they changed their policy to make the distinction very clear. Not so Game and Makro. Onion of the week to them both.

In ethics contrast, it was refreshing to read in this morning's media that the mobile phone networks in South Africa have voluntarily agreed to go for total transparency in their advertised mobile phone contract packages. That's responsible and appropriate marketing. 'Fast' operators (in my opinion) like Game and Makro will experience a consumer backlash at some point. The days of people tolerating the wool being pulled over their eyes are gone.

Perhaps the ultimate height of chutzpah a few months ago, was an HP computer ad - direct to the public, in so doing screwing up their small dealer sales network - featuring a desktop computer set-up. The price was printed next to it and in the tiniest letters underneath, was printed 'price excludes monitor'. But the ad showed a monitor. That's plain dishonest - made a mental note not to go HP.

Hope y'all have a beautiful weekend with some rest and recreation as part of it. Shalom.

The delicious irony of sub'n picture editors

Don't you just love it? The article headline reads: 'High-flying SA asked to help Africa with (air) safety record.' This fits rather well with my recent rationale for the SA deputy president flying on a private aircraft to the UAE. OK - forget that. Here's South Africa being touted as the 'coach' on African air safety. The sub-headline reads: 'SAA (South African Airways - our national carrier) has also been asked by international body to help continent's airlines put in place safety audits.'

The killer app? The picture: It's of a troubled SAA subsidiary aircraft, with firemen hosing it down. The craft has clearly lost a nosewheel, landing gear or it's run off the end of the runway. The tail livery and the 'ican' letters visible on the front clearly ID it as a South African Airlink aircraft. Not sure of the geographical location, but it's in close proximity to some houses.

The second item reads: 'Engine failure grounds SAA aircraft'. This snippet tells of an intended flight from Accra to Johannesburg being postoned until a new engine could be fitted. The shipping out of this engine (reported in later media the same day) seriously inconvenienced passengers scheduled to leave JHB on the aircraft that had to piggy-back the new engine to Ghana. Is there something we should know about SAA's maintenance or safety?

The true point of the posting though is that methinks sub-editors and picture editors seldom read the articles in question. Or if they do, the intention of the content is lost on them. Or they simply attended the Monty Python Flying Circus School of Journalism. Whichever, it makes for fun reading and must keep the PR 'reputation management' people on their toes!

Both items appeared in Johannesburg news media 25th January 2006.

Re-learning from mistakes! ;-)

Fascinating. I'd just posted about the screwed up typography that results when you insert pics after text in TypePad. I decided also to replace the somewhat fuzzy pic of Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka with a better one I'd found. I tweaked the scattered-all-over text in the piece one more time (perfectionism is one of my curses in this birth!) and on saving the posting, hey presto! - 'Third time lucky' as they say and the typography now looks (almost) quite normal. The learning: maybe persist one more time beyond where you would normally have given up and you'll get the result you want. That's what Thomas Edison did with the incandescent light bulb.

Thank goodness he persisted...

Learning from mistakes

I think there's a message from the Ancestors in my previous posting on the SA deputy President's trip to Dubai. Twice I tested the appearance of the posting and twice it defaulted back to the messy typography layout you see on the blog. Which is a great metaphor for people and change. You can make all the adjustments you want, but sometimes the programming (in this case TypePad's aversion to dropping in pictures post the copy) will run according to its own script and the change won't be sustainable.You can tweak and adjust as much as you will, but the default position or thinking will always over-ride. 

Sri Sarada Devi, an Indian Saint of the 19th Century said: 'Some people are like mattresses. When you sit on them they change shape. As soon as you get up again, they take up their original shape!' Nice thought to mull this early in 2006.

Dissing the deputy's Dubai junket

Okay, so the subject of South African deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s junket with buddies to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been written about ad nauseam. It’s one of those issues which just begs the hideous polarisation of which we South Africans of all hues are so regularly capable. The racist agendas creep out from under their stones and start gnawing away – again – at the fabric of our staged unity. The rainbow nation vaunted by my ‘fave’ archbishop – ye Very Reverend, His Grace, Desmond Tutu – appears a little faded and tatty around the edges.

I hold no brief for the ANC and by and large thoroughly dislike a lot of what they continue to inflict upon the poor and disadvantaged of this country. But I was of the view (and wrote so) at the time of President Thabo Mbeki’s R 400 million jet acquisition, that it made good sense. I’m of the same opinion regarding the deputy Prez’s little

holiday to Dubai.

It’s not OK to compare the scenario with Tony Blair occasionally using scheduled BA flights to hop the Thames or the Channel - (whether whale-spotting or not), to chat with French PM Dominique de Villepin. We are, folks, talking about a private, SA Airforce maintained jet, vs. the ‘flying coffins’ as they’ve been dubbed by IATA, of certain African countries. I’m not referring to the national carriers of South Africa or Kenya, but to those of their poorly maintained cousins and the air traffic control systems which are that in name only. It’s no secret that the parlous state of African airlines and air traffic navigation services in many countries on the continent is cause for grave concern to many airlines overflying Africa.

Separate for a moment your emotions, opinions, likes and dislikes from the principle at issue. If the likes (in status terms) of a deputy UK Prime Minister, John Presott, were based in South Africa , how would you transport him? (No jokes about the weight issue now!) So, logical thinking required: Would you seriously put the woman who would have to - in constitutional (even if not in capability) terms - step into the shoes of president Thabo Mbeki in the unlikely event that he gets hit by a minibus, in the position of having to get about, across or beyond the continent using some iffy airline? Would you expect Mbeki to use scheduled flights (oxymoron) for African Union (AU) or peace brokering activities in difficult-to-remember enclaves up North? I don’t think so. The onerous security, foreign affairs protocol, let alone safety and other arrangements that would have to be made are well outweighed by the relative simplicity of a point-to-point private flight.

The nucleus of the debacle lies not in the issue of the deputy Prez being ferried in an Airforce jet to her (I believe, entitled-to) holiday break. The issue that fanned the flames was the truly crappy communication surrounding it. I guarantee that had it been announced in advance that ‘Phumzie’ as that selectively and intentionally disrespectful organ, the ‘Citizen’ tabloid - I call it the Shittyzen - inappropriately refers to her, was going on hols, there probably wouldn’t have been a murmur. Other than perhaps from the perennially opportunistic leader of the Parliamentary opposition, Moaney – oops, I mean Tony - Leon.

The second silly blups was putting out an ‘explanation’, revising it and then going back to version one again. This was un-prayed-for Manna from heaven for the nay-sayers. The third glitch was putting the redoubtable Murphy Morobe, Presidency spokesperson, in the position of having to pour oil (not inappropriately given the UAE destination!) on sorely troubled waters. He did so surprisingly ineptly. I know him to be a suave, highly intelligent, charming communicator. I guess that’s the downside when you become the spin doctor for politicians who won’t let you do it your way. But who do ask you to come in with a poop-scoop when they’ve truly botched it. Simpatico Murphy, but you have to learn to say ‘Nyet!’ a little more forcefully, or pass the buck to Joel Netshitenze of GCIS fame, who has so frequently ‘defended’ the indefensible that nobody remembers what he says anyhow.

I don’t believe the deputy Prez’s holiday is an abuse of tax-payers money. Our notoriously incompetent minister of health, Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is responsible for huge HIV and AIDS treatment budget underspends –with lethal consequences. That’s real abuse of all involved so let’s give it a lot of ink space and air time instead. It also really doesn’t matter how many other bums were in the seats of that aircraft. The fractional effect on fuel consumption - if any - should have encouraged Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka to take a bunch of AIDS orphan kids who’d never flown before, along with her. That might have got some positive press coverage.

If South Africa is indeed the economic engine room of the continent then maybe we should start acting like we are. And quit these churlish tirades when our head of state or his deputy fly in safety and security to fulfil their functions or recreation on the continent or beyond. I can’t recall ever having read of it being an issue when the Nats were in power in SA. Why should it be now? The international community must think we need a national course in emotional intelligence.

The crux of the human condition

Killing our young…

Hmm. Funny feeling that. First you can’t type – the Carpal Tunnel surgery saw to it. Then you just don’t feel like it – although your brain is teeming with a million ideas and opinions. Does it matter to anyone else what you think or care about? You wonder whether it’s just you that gets worked up about so many issues. Like the young Xhosa initiates dying in numbers yet again because they’re dragooned into illegal, incompetent and unsanitary circumcision schools. The outcome: devastated parents, young men dead or in intensive care in public hospitals, in many cases losing part or all of their penises in desperate surgical interventions to save their lives. Septicaemia, pain, humiliation and ruined prospects. Unsterilised 'instruments' and the HIV-transmission implications don't even bear thinking about. And yet this was December 2005 - in South Africa - yet again. It's become a twice-a-year slaughter.

All cultures need to at some stage let go of aspects of their traditions in order to join the march into civilisation, enlightenment, modernity, the future – call it what you will. For what must be the very first time, the South African legal authorities have charged some of the initiation school ‘leaders’ with murder. Now let’s go one step further and actually see some of them get prison life sentences – and this annual carnage, wreaked on young men desperate to march the Xhosa rite of passage into manhood, will stop.

It’s for the birds…

Is it just me who watches the geese, ducks and chickens that have been the pets or food supply of Asian or Turkish people, getting stuffed, live into garbage bags – in their thousands? Does avian flu and the possibility of the virus (almost inevitably) performing a species-hopping mutation, absolve us of the obligation to euthanase with compassion? Or is being carried upside down, by your neck or bunched together like grapes and being stuffed into bags in which you will be have limbs broken and your body crushed by the weight of those that follow you even before you do suffocate, simply the price of a ‘human’ being having dominion over you? What do these things say about us?

My overwhelming ‘take’ on 2005 and the beginning of 2006 (already!) is that although we may be (so we think) at our most technologically advanced as a species, we’re in very poor shape from a spiritual, compassion, dignity, selflessness and ‘human’ perspective. I wonder if in fact, we’re not plumbing an all-time ‘low’? A sad thought.