Would you flysaa.com?

So it is just after 06h00 in the morning and I am at the airport - again. I was on the 21h00 to Cape Town from Johannesburg last night. I was in the queue at 19h50. The queue was probably about 100 people long as the 3 (THREE) attendants allocated to check in economy passengers tried to cope. At 20h30 the SAA team manager anounced that the flight had been overbooked by about 50 people and they would have to put us on the flight this morning.

Firstly: I understand the computer booking system overbooks based on probability that people will not turn up. DID no one realise that there is a rugby test in Cape Town this weekend, it is a long weekend and there was not one ticket available on ANY flight to Cape Town from about Wednesday? It should also have been a clue that they might have a problem as during the day more and more overbooked passengers were bumped to the next flight.

Secondly: Could SAA not have organised one of there smaller SA Airlink planes for the extra passengers - there were enough, or arrange a bigger plane for the last flight - seeing as it was the last flight of the day availability of a plane should not have been a problem.

Thirdly: these things happen, but handle it better. I was once on a flight to London on BA once, the BA staff saw the mounting overbooking problem and offered people in the queue a 200 pound cheque to travel the next day, thus opening up seats.

Fourthly: Manage the resultant process better. No announcement was made to all 50 overbooked passengers, resulting in everybody crowding up to the counter and delaying the follow on process of issuing us with vouchers for hotels and a complimentary flight. I eventually got to my hotel at 23h00.

The SAA team manager was very nice given a very difficult situation. Other staff were not fantastic however - some downright rude. It does not endear SAA staff to customers when they demand a double inflation increase and then you have these types of experiences.



At 22h00 last night, after more than 2 hours in the queue, those of us still waiting to be booked on this morning's flight

Is Roland superhuman?

Wow! Another Gold in the prestige race of the World Championships - the 50m free style. Winning the equivilent of the 100m in athletics allows Roland Schoeman to now title himself the fastest swimmer in the world.

Schoeman, who boasts the quickest reaction time off the blocks, led from the start to clock 21.69sec — the second-fastest time in the world.

It beat Alexander Popov’s 21.92 championship record, but not the Russian’s world mark of 21.64.

Ryk Neethling again featured well, winning bronze.

Schoeman appears to have matured since his Olympic outburst (relating to the pay of SA swimmers) and is now playing a mentoring role amongst the SA team. His has been training with backstroker Gerhard Zandberg, who missed the 2005 World Championships because of poor form at the national trials earlier this year. But Schoeman rates him as one of our top prospects.

Schoeman agrees with the decision not to enter a relay team due to the lack of form swimmers to make up the two positions behind Ryk Neethling and himself.

Given our small size and resources, isn't it fantastic to have two of the top swimmers in the world. Hopefully we can gain ground (or should that be water?) on Australia in the pool - a country that dominates far beyond what should be the case given its 18 million population.

Well done boys!!!

Who is Magnini?

He's the Italian that swam down Roland Shoeman and Ryk Neethling to win the 100m free style in 48,12s. Schoeman again turned in better than world record pace but seemed to have put in too much and Magnini came from thrid to just touch ahead of Schoeman (48,28s) and Neethling (48,34s).

Well done guys. You continue to make us proud.

Between the two of them, Schoeman and Neethling have brought in one gold, one silver and two bronzes. Awesome!!

How do you clean a Ceran stove top?

Yep this is me setting the record for the most diverse ranging blog in the world and a personal record for number of posts in a week.

But if by chance you are the one other person in the world like me (you're in business - or out of it at the moment as the case may be, you're a rugby nut, you're interested in Linux and technology, you're fighting off recent rejection, you're sexually confused - a whole other blog) then you're struggling to keep your fancy new glass-topped stove clean.

Believe me, trying to clean it with anything, even that Bang-Off stuff doesn't work and scratching that beautiful surface is easy. So I found the following:

From www.schott.com

Cleaning CERAN:

1. First remove any burnt-on deposits or spilled food from your CERAN cooking surface with a suitable metal razor scraper (similar to scraping paint off of your windowpanes in your home - it will not damage the decorated cooking surface). Hold the scraper at approximately a 30° angle to the cooktop. For your safety, please wear a mitt potholder while using the metal scraper.
2. When the cooking surface has cooled down apply a few dabs (about the size of a dime) of an approved cleaner in each burner area and work the cleaning cream over the cooktop surface with a damp paper towel as if you were cleaning a window.
3. As a final step, clean with clear water and wipe the cooktop surface with a clean, dry paper towel.

Tips:
If by mistake any plastic item, kitchen foil, sugar and/or sugary food should melt onto the hot CERAN cooktop panel, immediately remove it from the hot heating zone with a cleaning scraper. In this way, you will avoid the risk of damage to the surface.

Before cooking food with a high sugar content (e.g. jam), always treat the cooktop panel with a suitable conditioner such as Cera-Fix (Johnson Wax).

If any sugar or food containing sugar (preserves, ketchup, tomato sauce, etc.), a plastic item or kitchen foil accidentally melts on the hot surface of your smoothtop, remove the molten material IMMEDIATELY with a metal razor scraper while the cooking surface is still hot to avoid the risk of damage to the CERAN surface.

Do not use abrasive sponges or scouring pads of any type. Corrosive cleaners such as oven sprays, cleaners containing chlorine or ammonia and stain removers should not be used.

When the party is over, spilled food or liquids are easily removed. Just wipe them off with a damp cloth or paper towel.

Scratches resulting from daily use are quite harmless and only impair the visual effect.

Please make sure that all deposits are removed before the cooking surface will be used again.

List of approved cleaners:

ELCO/Weimann CookTop Cleaning Creme (www.weimann.com)

Golden Ventures Cerama Bryte (www.ceramabryte.com)

Whirlpool Cooktop Cleaner (www.whirlpool.com/accessories)

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Alrighty then, a whole other use for those razor blades and some cleaners I'll probably have to import.

How do you educate a striker?

I have a big problem with the SAA and Pick 'n Pay strikes. Mainly because they are affecting me as a taxpayer (SAA - government owned), consumer (SAA and Pick 'n Pay) and citizen (effect on the overall economy).

Economics predicts that these types of strikes will happen. In a downward inflation trend, salary expectations lag the decreases in inflation. This is fundamentally based on the psychology of employees evaluating their pay rise in the context of previous years' raises rather than based on their cost of living.

Economic and agency theory also predict that unions will encourage strikes despite the relatively well-off positions of their members. Without argument, the benefit of unions comes into question. Thus, while an initial offer by an employer may be generous, the union must disagree to justify its role.

The effects of this are felt by consumers and shareholders. Consumers see higher than exepected prices. If the market is competitive and consumers are able to apply pressure, the shareholder has to absorb the effect of higher costs against static revenues. This results in lower profits, which should (all else being equal) result in a decline in share prices.

Consumers are not blind to this. There is a mounting backlash as evidenced by Joe Soap letters to the press.

As a taxpayer I am a shareholder in SAA. How do lower profits affect you and me? Capital costs money. The billions invested in SAA must be funded either through debt or our taxes. Profits must be used to pay interest on this debt and a return on our taxes. No profit equals funds that could have been used to build houses being sucked into SAA.

The unbelieveably greedy SAA strikers saw the first SAA profit in a while as theirs and demanded an increase of almost three times the inflation rate.

A further fly in the ointment is that new CEOs like SAA's, tend to play accounting games to write off everything in sight in their first year and allow them to achieve profits thereafter. SAA might have showed a profit, but I'll bet there is a squeeze coming - the strikers demands will make that worse.

As for Pick 'n Pay - these workers are some of the most well-off in the retail industry. They want an increase of four times inflation! They were offered an increase of two and a half times inflation which they rejected! I hope they lose their jobs. We live in a country with 40% plus unemployment and I know there are people who would do anything for a job.

God knows there are a few executives who get away with murder and get paid hansomely for their efforts. This often forms the strikers' principle complaint. In my world however, my clients require us to hold our price increases to inflation. Our only option to increase profits is to raise performance. And thereby our pay.

Maybe it is time some of the strikers experienced that world.

Will we be one and two?

Roeland Schoeman and Ryk Neethling just finished one and two in their 100m freestyle semi-final, posting the two fastest times this year: 48,45s and 48,54s respectively.

Further, Schoeman's first split was comfortably under world record time before he slowed noticeably.

This places the South African duo in pole positions for the final as their times rank 1st and 2nd overall.

Go boys, go!

What motivates someone to show their dick on TV?!?

Good grief!

Just flipped over and caught Sex Etc on MNet. It seems to be about tattoos and piercings and their role in sex.

Now, never mind why someone would actually be motivated to have their body covered in tattoos or have a Prince Albert ring, why on earth would they show their face on a national TV show and then drop their pants to show you their wares?!

There are guys who have beads inserted under the skin of their penis. Now I can see their logic, but man, ribbed condoms dude!

Who's the man?!

HOT OFF THE PRESS!

Well done Roeland Schoeman! You are the man! Winner of the World Championship 50m butterfly in a new world record - beating the world record he set in the heats earlier today!

I'll post more and a more appropriate picture when it becomes available.

Now why didn't I think of Akkerliefies?

Damn!

What a brilliant idea. Good looking girls online are always going to get a ton of hits (over 400 a day - site is now in top 10 SA sites as rated by SA Top Sites).

BUT, more importantly, the guys behind this get to approach girls and ask to photograph them - WHOA!

Basically the idea is a site profiling the pretty girls of Stllenbosch.

As for the meeting girls idea, not since my varsity days have I heard such a good plan. That specific plan was from a guy lucky enough to live in a guesthouse on his parent's estate in Bishopscourt, Cape Town. He came up with the brilliant idea of advertising for digs mates in modelling agencies. Man, there's a brilliant idea.

Maybe I should rent my study out...

Is it the end of the world?

If the sky looked like this above my home I might think so...

(Looks like something out of a movie doesn't it?)