Flying and the Tiger flag.

Christmas travel plans for people flying on British Airways were turned upside down this morning. It seems their cabin crew staff all voted to strike over the busiest, most chaotic time of year when airfares are THE most expensive. Not a bad move for a crowd wanting to make some noise around the planet, but totally awful for travellers looking forward to Christmas and New Year with loved ones faraway.
It's all still in a maddening state of chaos as BA goes hammer and tongs at re-arranging their entire flight schedule. It took a full day of phoning travel agents, airlines, travel agent associations and tour operators to determine that nobody actually knows anything more than the bland "We don't know/can't say anything yet" statement posted up on the BA website and read out in soothing tones on a recorded voice message on their landline if your call is picked up by their computer.
It's a frustrating and worrying time for many people who have their holiday hopes pinned on Britain's national carrier.
And like most days in recent times, yet another Tiger Woods mistress emerged with a sob story about how, like the other 10 or 20 or whatever, had thought that his marriage was on the rocks and that she was the only "other woman".
Like Accenture, a couple of other companies who fly the Tiger flag distanced themselves from him and have scrapped his face from their product advertising.
His main backer Nike is standing firm in their support of the guy. I don't find this at all surprising. After all, he can hardly be accused of not living the brand of a company whose slogan is "Just do it"!

Clutching out....

Survived the second day in a row at the office today. While people are winding down and looking forward to their holidays, I have drawn the short straw in the form of two Sunday shifts in a row PLUS the December 16 public holiday. In this climate of low energy levels and not much on the news front compounded by a 6am start every morning, I may just as well shoot myself!
But I am hanging tough and being strong. Sort of. Yesterday a staircase collapsed on 70 people in church. Luckily nobody was killed or I would have felt REALLY bad about the awful office jokes about "no staircase to heaven" .
Today the juiciest story by far was the latest development in the woes of Tiger Woods who, in a single day, lost more money than I have earned in my entire life because Accenture dropped him as the face of their brand - something about feeling tetchy over the integrity issue or some such. And his growing list of skelms apparently now numbers 14 including a madam who's dishing out the goss on how much he spent on ladies of the night at her upmarket house of ill repute.
I spent ages going through an entire page of things to do over the holidays. And since I will have a couple of days off due to me after working all these grim shifts, I plan to undertake a few mom-and-daughter adventures with Little One. And there are awesome things out there: bum boarding on carpet slopes, drag racing round an indoor track, sand skiing down mine dumps. I am so stoked.
And then on top, I found Jozi's very own Boksburg-by-the-sea - the Wild Waters fun park. I phoned them to ask if they are snotty like Valley of the Waves at Sun City where they search you at the entrance in case you take so much as your own box of Smarties instead of paying their extortionate prices for whatever rubbish hamburgers and junk food they want to flog you.
"Skattie, you can bring whatever you want with you. Even some meat and have a braai. We just don't allow any glass bottles or alko-holl, and no music," said the delightful lady manning their phone.
Excellent! It sounds even more exciting than the fun balls for kids at Cedar Square. Little One is going to have a blast!

How much did you spend, Mr Mayor?

Joburg's Executive Mayor Amos Masondo is a politician indeed.
Following some not-so-positive media reports about his recent trip to China, Vietnam, India and Russia he quickly called a press briefing to do a bit of damage control.
So off I headed to hear what he had to say. Not surprisingly, he revealed nothing more than was already known. That he had taken 15 people - three of which were "support staff" or aides with him to four countries on a "trade mission".
He lost no time in telling us what a punishing schedule they had. How he sympathised with his fellow travellers when their feet were swollen at the end of the day (perhaps the aides were taken along to massage the tender footsies at the end of the day). It was gruelling, but they did it for the people. The needs of the people were core to all of this.
All of us journalists wanted to know one main thing: exactly how much did this jaunt cost Jozi ratepayers?
First round of questions. First question: "How much did this whole exercise cost?"
Answer: One comma something million rands.
Second round of questions. First question: "Can you be more specific on the cost, please? Can you give an actual figure?"
Answer: When you are talking about these things, it doesn't matter if you spend R1 or R2. You need to weigh it up against the value of what you get at the end of the day, and that is what is important here. We spent something more than a million. It was more than a million, that's all we are saying.
Third round of questions. First question: "Please put an exact figure to the cost of this trip or tell us why you cannot make the cost known. And how do you measure the value, what measures or monitoring process do you have to quantify the value of the trip?"
Answer: You can never quantify these things. There is no way to measure them, but the value is inestimable and will come out in the long term. You see nothing in the short term. But the reports we write will not gather dust, I can assure you. The final cost will be detailed in a report that will be made public in due course".
How is that? The mayor takes 15 people with him to Vietnam, India, China and Russia and now refuses to divulge how much it all cost. Stuff ratepayers, public interest or any other argument we put forward.
He simply refused to say. And there was nothing we could do about it.
So once again the extra-mural activities of Tiger Woods made for the most interesting news of the day.
One of the subs sent me this spoofed Tiger on holiday pic. Classic!!!