Clive Simpkins

Flame Pam Whyte for her pseudo 'science'

I'm so bloody mad, I'm hyperventilating. Go to the Jo'Blog URL on http://www.joblog.co.za/2006/11/the-dog-whisperer and then please click through to Pam Whyte's website and send her your opinion on what she's just done. She's responsible for the gratuitous murder of a beautiful dog. This is the woman who wrote a book years back, entitled, 'Living with an Alien' (the canine). She said that your dog 'gets depressed' if you pat or stroke it gently. She also said (from memory) that you should never permit the animal to turn its back on you. So all of my back-scratch-loving dogs over the years have needed her pseudo interventions. Thank God they never got near her. Please tell as many people as you can about this crap. People like this shouldn't be allowed anywhere near animals - other than hungry carnivores.

Nestle Waters fixes the fault

Both the MD and GM of Nestle Waters swung into immediate action in response to my impending drought. Between the lines I suspect there will in future be some form of improved liaison between accounts, customer service and the actual client. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciated.

Nestle Waters needs customer relationship coaching

Nestle Waters needs help. It's abundantly clear that in order to get a job in their accounts department you must score zero on emotional intelligence and if possible, even lower on a customer relationship-marketing index.

My little business paid over R 1 000 in advance for Nestle bottled water. Because I've been out of commission following surgery, I probably didn't notice that I'd been billed some R 300 for the annual rental of their water cooler. They didn't pick up the phone to tell me that. They just discontinued the service - 'put the account on hold' is their sad euphemism for the same action. Whichever way you explain it, they cut off the water delivery. Yet, overall, I'm still in credit with them.

I queried the absence of deliveries with their customer service people. The guy put me through to their accounts department where one Vanashree told me our service had been put on hold due to non-payment. I told her to have her superior call me.

He did. He's an arrogant man named Francois Roos. He shouldn't be allowed to talk to customers because he doesn't know how to. Having told me to keep quiet while he explained 'their system' (remarkably I managed to) he then proceeded to butt-in non-stop when I attempted to point out that the semantic nonsense of 'account on hold' still means cessation of service. When I told him that halfway-decent business professionalism decrees phoning a client before messing with the relationship and their service, he said, 'We're too busy to phone 6 000 people.' Interesting. When Nestle Waters one day start losing market share, as they surely will with this sort of gauche behaviour, he will have been a significant contributor to the fall-off. He actually had the gall to laugh at me when I threatened to escalate the issue within Nestle and said, 'You do what you want.'

Having worked as an Ogilvy advertising executive on Nestle's brand business many years ago, I was of the impression that they once were gentlemen. The Nestle water experience I've just had leaves no doubt that those days are gone.

I've put in two calls this afternoon for someone at Nestle Head Office to call me back. Nuthin' - they're probably too busy cutting off water deliveries on the instruction of the anal customer-toxic accounts department.

Fortunately for Nestle I prefer the taste of their bottled water over most others. Otherwise I'd tell 'em to come collect their water cooler. Nasty people to do business with.

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The Mbeki/Botha funereal 'toenadering'

Political Editor of The Weekender, Vukani Mde, is in accord with my sentiments on the Mbeki/Botha 'toenadering'. So is almost every black person I've spoken to about it. Says sumthin', dunnit?

A reconciliation bridge too far

I believe it’s time for black South Africans and their leadership to stop rolling over and playing possum. I believe it was an inappropriate ‘reconciliation’ gesture for President Thabo Mbeki to attend the funeral of tyrannical former South African State President P W Botha. In many countries around the world, Botha would have been eligible for indictment in a Hague Tribunal for war crimes. The fact that he was allowed to live out his miserable, unrepentant life and die peacefully, albeit embittered, was his undeserved blessing.

I understand that there are protocol issues involved. I also understand that following Nelson Mandela’s lead on embracing and forgiving the former enemy, Mbeki chooses to tread the same path. But this is a little like Palestinian leadership attending the funeral of Ariel Sharon when he dies. Sometimes, people need the ethical and moral fibre to take and make a stand. And by staying away from Botha’s funeral, a telling statement would have been made. Botha didn’t voluntarily start any significant reformation process. His hand was forced by enlightened businesspeople engaging with the ANC in exile and an ungovernable country on his doorstep. Unctuous political magnanimity when a despot dies is not only misguided but plain dishonest. This man also remained an obdurate lightning-rod for people determined not to embrace democracy. The planet is well rid of him.

If I were a parent of one of the many thousands of children who died over the years under the jackboot of Botha’s police and other forces, I would be insulted and angry. Justice Malala wrote a superb article on the topic of Botha’s monstrous behaviour in the Sunday Times of 5^th November 2006. Yesterday both Eleanor Sisulu and I, among many others, called into Xolani Gwala’s morning radio show on SAFM to express our outrage at the absurdity of this so-called ‘reconciliation gesture’.

Apartheid police general Gideon Nieuwoudt murdered among many other people, COSAS activist Siphiwo Mtimkhulu. In a nauseating attempt at ‘TV contrition’, Nieuwoudt begged forgiveness of Mtimkhulu’s parents. Sikhumbuzo Mtimkhulu, then 15, the victim’s son, was so enraged, he struck Nieuwoudt on the head with a vase, fracturing his skull. As Mtimkhulu’s senior said, ‘Mr. Nieuwoudt, you have come too late.’ Vlok-like foot-washing and other trite publicity efforts do little to assuage the grief and pain of thousands of parents who to this day still don’t know what happened to their children.

There are many young people today who were not born at the time of these atrocities. We have a social and moral obligation to ensure they don’t get victimised by revisionist history in an over-zealous and inappropriate quest for reconciliation.

I believe our South African political leadership needs to think more carefully before they toady in this manner again. Listening to the rabid white halfwits who called into yesterday’s radio program to defend Botha’s purported leadership and pseudo ‘legacy’ left no doubt that for some people, there is no such thing as reconciliation. They will carry their hatred and sense of ‘separateness’ to the grave – just like Botha did. Shame on them – and him.

Rest, recreation and repair

It's been an 'interesting' (as in the Chinese curse) coupla months. My sinus problem went from bad to worse to chronic to almost no voice. Which is not fun in the speaking and communications business. My then Ear Nose and Throat specialist (been seeing him for way too long) 'assumed' he knew what the problem was. In sheer desperation, after doing some radio and TV interviews in which I sounded like the microphone was up my nostril :-) I sought a second opinion with ENT surgeon Dr. Raymond Friedman at the Sandton Clinic. Good move. A CT scan showed some serious problems in the sinus which we got swiftly sorted with some (pretty eina) surgery. I'm no ninny when it comes to post-operative pain, but this felt like someone had removed my face, sandpapered the interior and replaced it again. The burning was the worst part. Guess the number of nerve-endings in the region is a tad hectic.

My thoughtful, sweet website mistress, Denise Rundle, www.celestine-ventures.co.za very kindly decided after a few days of decidedly non-restful attempts at recuperation, that I needed to get away. She played fairy god-mother with the gift of a few days away at Pleasant Places atop the Lion's River Valley in the KwaZulu Natal Midlands Meander. It's like a little piece of heaven. She booked me a chalet with a view that goes on forever. There's nobody nearby and the two German Shepherds and the resident cat 'adopted' me on arrival and have spent most of their time on my little private patio. The owners, John and Linda Hall, understand the concept of needing to 'catch your breath' - one of their phrases. They're like the little men dressed in black in Japanese Kabuki Theatre. There - but invisible unless you need them.

Chronic sinusitis, coupled with otitis media (infection/inflammation of the middle ear) conspires to make you feel very, very unwell. It's like your brain is functioning in a fog. I can already feel a 'clearing of the mists' a bit more than a week after the surgery and am optimistic this will lead to a full recovery. The unwellness had affected my desire/ability to write as well. So today's a little come-back milestone.

This morning I hope to mosy down the hill from Pleasant Places and buy my godmum a new set of (deep-voiced) chimes for her little Durban cottage. That will be the sum total of my 'commitments' for the day - which makes for an incredibly refreshing change! Tomorrow I head back to the City of Madness - a.k.a. Johannesburg. Thanks again Denise - this was needed and deeply appreciated.