How to block calls and SMSs on Android

I have had a few issues recently with persistent wrong numbers. Or at least I did, until I found a good way of blocking them.
You can send calls from selected numbers directly to voicemail using just the Android interface and if you want to do that, it’s as simple as adding the offending number to your contacts, then using EDIT CONTACT and checking… er… “Send calls directly to voicemail”.

However, that still leaves you with two problems: you will end with several (probably blank) voicemails and/or your annoying stalker may also decide to send you an SMS.

Don’t panic.

Step forward Easy Filter Call & SMS Blocker from Moonbeam Development. This freebie app, available from the Android Market does exactly what it says on the tin. Simply add any number from your contact list or call log (or at random if you feel the need) and it will block calls and/or SMSs from that person. It even works on Please Call Me SMSs, the bane of South African cellphone users lives.
You can choose to be informed (or not) that a call or SMS has been blocked and you can also choose to send a message to the blocked caller, telling them to “bugger off ” (this can be edited as you wish).

But wait! There’s more!

Don’t you just hate those private numbers that keep calling you? Is it a payphone, is it an irritating switchboard, or is it YOUR STALKER?!?!? (sorry).

Well, Easy Filter Call & SMS Blocker has an option to block those as well. Which is nice.

If you choose to install this app, please leave a comment and tell me what you think of it.

The alternative to all this, is presented by brilliant UK comedian Sean Lock.

Why not try this and have some fun before you block the number?

Chalk and Cheese (and Wine) (and Whine)

With some tourists in tow, it seemed that the most obvious thing to do was to continue the great tradition of Cape Town tourism and head out down the Constantia Wine Route – once described as “one of the most underrated attractions in Cape Town”.

And some of it is.

Klein Constantia is always a pleasure to visit. Their easy-drinking “KC” Cab Sauv/Merlot wasn’t on offer today, but they had a ludicrously good red blend from 2008 with plenty of Petit Verdot and plenty of Cabernet Franc. The hostess was friendly and informative: no question was too big or small and we lingered longer because of it. The tasting was free and although we didn’t buy there, we went away knowing that we would looking for their stuff in the supermarkets and – in my parent’s case – at the local UK importer.

Compare and contrast this experience with “The Wine Shop” at Constantia Uitsig. Their tasting comes in at R25 a head and there was a distinct lack of engagement with the customers. We were given a tasting sheet and the wine was brought out, poured and taken away again. It was all a bit unfriendly, but having paid, we weren’t about to leave without at least trying the wines. That took time though, because the hostess was more interested in chatting to her friends behind the high desk. Thus, we found ourselves sitting and chatting about anything but wine while waiting for glasses to be refilled. I don’t think that’s going to help their sales much.
The final wine we tasted there was their dessert wine: Muscat d’Alexandrie. When it was poured, the hostess told us that it should never be served too cold as it ruined the taste, but that their bottle had been sitting next to the freezer and so was… er… too cold. Much like the rest of their selection – and the service there – it was very average and a big disappointment to the tourists in our party.

By this time, mildly delayed by the poor service, we were getting hungry, so we headed next door the The River Cafe. Things started well with some decent coffees, but it really degenerated into an absolute farce by the end. The waitress took the order, but didn’t put it into the system and so we watched as others arrived after us and tucked into their lunch. When we enquired about our food, we were told by manager that it would be about 5 minutes. Most of it eventually arrived about 10 minutes later with no apology. It was mostly pretty good, although the muffins were rock hard – like “unable to get through the crust with a knife” rock hard. For a one course meal to take 1½ hours is ridiculous and annoying. (To be charged for the bent knife was extremely irritating as well.)

Day seemingly ruined, we decided to brave Steenberg anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and looking on the bright side, it couldn’t be much worse, could it?
Well no – actually it was much better and restored our faith in our new shorter version of the Constantia Wine Route, which now bypasses Uitsig completely, save for raising a middle finger as you drive past it. At Steenberg, we got a free and informative cellar tour from Graham and then the charming and hugely enthusiastic Zelda took us through their selection. You could see that there was a pride and a passion in their work and it really mended our broken day. The wines were pretty good as well – even the whites and I don’t really like whites. But it was their 2008 Shiraz that finished off my day completely.
Wow – I got pepper, I got spice, I got flavour. I got quite, quite pissed. Is nice.

So –  here’s another 6000 Recommends… tip: if you’re going to do the Constantia Wine Route, don’t do Constantia Uitsig. But do do Klein Constantia and Steenberg.
And then go back and do them again.

Simple as that.

New Wine Tour

Now this looks like a good plan.

During the Christmas break, we took the kids (and ourselves) on the Cape  Town Sightseeing bus. We did the Waterfront, the CBD, Table Mountain and Camps Bay, before taking two exhausted, happy kids home. For some weird personal reasons, maybe you don’t believe me, so here are some photos and a blog post to prove it. See? Your issues, not mine. Get some help.

Anyway, incoming PR from Cape Town Sightseeing tells me that they have now added a couple of wine farms onto their Peninsular “Blue Tour”. Nice idea, peeps.

Claus Tworeck, the CEO of City Sightseeing, explains that the new Wine Tour has been launched as an added free value extension to the existing Blue Mini Peninsula Tour, and offers visitors and locals alike the chance to experience a true Cape outing.

“The Cape is synonymous with its wines and Groot Constantia, which has been in existence since 1685, not only offers visitors the chance to taste and purchase top quality wines but to also experience the grandeur and history of this beautiful estate and its surrounds!”

The list of things to do at Groot Constantia is impressive and, amongst other things, includes a fascinating tour of the historical Cape Dutch manor house, a cellar tour and wine tasting, the unique vineyard walk, the option to eat lunch at the restaurants or order a pre-packed picnic. Alternatively, bring your own.

“This is a wonderful day out for the entire family, and the estate is extremely child friendly. Kids can run around under the oak trees, visit the ducks in the pond and generally have a great time whilst their parents enjoy some wine tasting and a meal.”

And Claus is right. I think that the Constantia Wine Route is one of the most underrated attractions in Cape Town and if this helps it gain a little ground in the competition against its (admittedly also lovely) counterparts in Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek, then I’m all for it.

Add that to the other attractions on the blue tour: Kirstenbosch, Hout Bay and Camps Bay and you’ve got yourself a big day out. With wine. What’s not to like?

The “hop-on, hop-off” buses for the wine tour depart from the Waterfront stop (at the 2 Oceans Aquarium) every 35 minutes from 9am. Tickets are R120 for a day tour or and extraordinary R200 for two days consecutive tours – and if you book online, you will save R10 and R20 on the prices respectively.

Remember: Stuff found in the 6000 recommends category comes personally recommended. I don’t recommend stuff that I haven’t personally used and enjoyed, no matter how much cash people offer me to do so.

Credit where it’s due (but only where it’s due)

I’m not South African, but I like to think of myself as an honorary Saffa. I do my bit for the country, I pay my taxes, I’m optimistic in a realistic sort of way and I try to buy South African goods and products as well as punting them on my blog if they’re any good.

I’ve said before that there’s no point in painting a wholly rosy picture of South Africa and ignoring the negative things that plague us. Not only is that completely misleading, but also it doesn’t bring those negative issues to the fore and therefore does nothing to sort them out. I think Jacques Rousseau made a similar point yesterday regarding the recent Kuli Roberts column debacle.

So having established that there’s no point in ignoring the negatives, please can we agree that equally, there’s no point in blindly praising everything just because it’s South African? This sort of behaviour is also completely misleading, unnecessarily raises expectations of products far too high and encourages disappointment in the real world (the world without rainbow nation-tinted specs). I’m sorry to tell you this, but there is no such thing as something being great, just because it’s South African.

Take, for example, the Kreepy-Krauly. The Kreepy-Krauly is an automated suction-side driven swimming pool cleaner: a hoover for your pool. And ask anyone round these parts for an interesting fact about the Kreepy-Krauly and they will tell you – pride oozing from every orifice – that it was invented in South Africa.

And they’d be right:

The first swimming pool vacuum cleaner was invented by Ferdinand Chauvier in South Africa

Nice work, Ferdinand. Or was it? Because in actual fact, the Kreepy-Krauly is rubbish. Rather than: “the suction provided by the pool’s pump causes the robot to move forward along the floor and walls of the pool picking up dirt and debris as it moves” as you’ll read in the brochure, something along the lines of: “the suction provided by the pool’s pump causes the robot to repeatedly get stuck in one corner of the pool, leaving the dirt and debris everywhere else” is probably more accurate. So the description of a Kreepy-Krauly as “automated” is a bit of a misnomer, since once you’ve shelled out the exorbitant cost of buying one, you will constantly have to assist it in its work by untangling it and freeing it from the step of your pool. And then cleaning up the dirt and debris yourself.
So yes, the Kreepy-Krauly is South African-invented, but that’s nothing to be proud of.

The same goes for music. I’m all for 5fm and the like having a SA music quota on their playlist, but really, some of the stuff they then end up subjecting us to is utter bilge.

Durban-based band The Arrows, for example. They recently gave us the rather watery but catchy Lovesick which made it onto said playlist. And that was “ok”, because the track was “ok” – not amazing – but “ok”. And then they release No Robots, the chorus of which sounds like the lead singer has grabbed an electric fence and is struggling to let it go. Seriously, they’ve been banned from playing it live at several venues as the local ambulance service (and sometimes the local SPCA as well) get calls from the 15 people in the crowd requesting urgent medical assistance “because something’s in pain”. And yet, because it’s South African, it gets airplay.

I’ve singled out The Arrows for a bit of criticism and that’s not fair, because there are other bands out there who are doing the same and getting away with it thanks to the apparent quota system. “We’ll endorse anything” band, The Parlotones (and I’m sure lead singer Khan Morbee won’t mind me telling you this *cough*) have been churning out rubbish from the pisspoor Stardust Galaxies album for well over a year now, but it gets played. Goldfish have somehow fooled the hipsters into thinking that they have released lots of different singles, whereas if you listen carefully, it’s just the same song on repeat. And still they get played.

Why does this happen? Is it because the music industry in SA is so small and fragile, they feel they need to give it this ill-thought support? Or is it merely a matter of national pride? Whatever, the powers that be need to think again on how they judge these things. Base your decisions on quality, not nationality, because much like endorsing the South African Kreepy-Krauly, supporting average local music devalues the good work that bands like Ashtray Electric, Zebra & Giraffe and Goodluck are doing and doesn’t contribute to raising the standard at all (not that I am suggesting that if/when they give us a duff single it should be played either). Is it really any wonder that there are so few local bands making it internationally when mediocrity is encouraged in this way?

Much as I don’t think we should be papering over the cracks as far as crime and corruption are concerned, neither do I think we should be telling people that all South African products and music are great when they patently are not.

All I’m asking for is a bit of honesty.