Category: the parenting bunny

The 2009 Kids in Tow Tour

Posted on

The 2009 Kids in Tow Tour is almost upon us and I know that there is one burning question on your collective minds:

How will it affect us, the reading public of 6000 miles…?

It wouldn’t be right if, like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown, I didn’t put you out of your misery, so here’s the deal as I see it.

  1. I am not guaranteeing a post every day, although I’ll certainly try. If you want to know when a new post is up, you can follow @6000 on twitter or better still, you can subscribe to the 6000 miles… RSS feed.
  2. Comments may take longer to get through moderation. Sorry and all that. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t comment, but I’m going to be on holiday, chasing my boy around a beach and generally drinking red wine and beer. Pretty similar to life in Cape Town then, but a slightly different beach.
  3. There will be plenty of photo action. Not least (I hope) with my new camera. Those photos will go onto my flickr and I will let you know when they are going up there. Some (if not more) will probably make it onto the blog as quota photos anyway.
  4. It’s possible that I won’t be reading your blogs as often as usual. Don’t hold it against me – I will try to catch up when I get back. However, SA blogs will be my main link with the Saffa world while I’m away, so please keep me informed of developments. (Or lack of them, if that stadium-building strike begins to bite.)

And that’s pretty much it. We fly tomorrow, Kids in Tow and, anticipating un jour ‘ectique, I’ve already pre-published a special KiTT send off post, which will appear here at 1800 CAT (or some other time, if I got my time zones mixed up) tomorrow.  That post may appear mildly trivial (although reading it now, rather prophetic) if there happens to be a nuclear holocaust between now and then; but then you probably won’t be reading it if there’s a nuclear holocaust between now and then, will you?

I leave you with the ever popular Simple Minds 1985 hit Don’t You (Forget About Me); firstly, because I love songs (with brackets in the title) and secondly, because I’m gonna miss you guys. *sniffle*

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAdaQhitdKg]

Listen to Jim:

Slow change may pull us apart
When the light gets into your heart, baby

Don’t You Forget About Me
Don’t Don’t Don’t Don’t
Don’t You Forget About Me

See you soon!
6k.

Michael Jackson is still dead

Posted on

And he’s been joined by my PC.

Yes, the world has ended. Sort of.

With the Lions losing with the last kick of the game in Pretoria and having spent the afternoon in shopping hell with one (if not more) of the kids playing up, my computer has failed to work.
Well, it started. Briefly.
And then it stopped. My guess is a power supply issue, but after the day I’ve had, I decided that the best way to cure the problem was to sit down and watch Top Gear with a large glass of red wine and order a large BeeGee from Butlers.

Don’t worry – you’ll still get your updates. This one is being tapped out on Mrs 6000’s laptop and I can always head to my super sexy SEX1 if I need to. But right now, all I need to head to is my 2003 Vrede and Lust Cara.

Laters.

Amazon.co.uk #fail

Posted on

I got my Dad two brilliant books for Father’s Day. He’ll love them, if amazon.co.uk and their “premium” courier company, ShittyLink, ever actually get around to delivering them.

The story so far = two failed delivery attempts + a wasted day + a stinking email complaint + a grovelling reply.

But still no books.

Bring forth the sarcasm and the crying child: 

Thanks for your last email. I was consoled. 

Briefly. 

However, my father has had to continually ring Citylink and (having stayed in all day as he said he would) has now found out that the parcel has been in Rotherham all day. Poor parcel. But that’s beside the point. 

So – you (or rather your courier) didn’t manage to leave a note when they allegedly came to deliver the parcel on Saturday, didn’t fulfill their obligation to deliver after 10:30am on Monday and have failed to show up at all today despite my Dad wasting his entire day at home. 

In summary, it’s not great, is it? 

You know, I actually have no problem when things sometimes go awry. It happens to all of us from time to time. I used to work in a hospital lab and once almost killed a patient by mistake. (She got better). But when a company has one task – namely to courier goods from one place to another, not anything as taxing as therapeutic drug monitoring (which is really difficult and can easily go wrong) – and they mess it up time and time and time again, it annoys me. When they repeatedly waste the time and effort of their customers, that annoys me more. And when they claim to be offering this as a “premium service” – well, it’s just like some sort of sick joke, isn’t it?
I want to laugh, but I can’t. I hurt too much.

Truly, it probably doesn’t even matter when this order turns up now. You’ve ruined Father’s Day for my Dad; you’ve wasted an entire day of his life today and you’ve wasted his money in having to chase your “premium” courier company all over South Yorkshire on the phone. 

My 3 year old son keeps asking why Granddad hasn’t said thank you for his books. I told him that the useless company I ordered them from couldn’t get their arses into gear to organise a simple delivery. He cried. Copiously.
I reckon that’s basically a whole lifetime of potential orders you’ve lost – and who can blame him? 

I look forward to hearing how you plan to sort this out.

It’s raining here in Cape Town, I’m off to the rugby this evening and have plans for tomorrow as well, so I’d appreciate some sort of solution preferably within 48 minutes and not the 48 hours you promised in your last email. 

Yours, in foolishly optimistic anticipation,

6k.

I’m actually really disappointed. I’ve only used amazon.co.uk three times over the past year or so and this is the second time that they’ve let me down. Suffice to say, it’s going to take a lot to get me to use them again.

Tomorrow: my next letter to them, because the books blatantly aren’t going to arrive plus a report on what could be the muddiest game of rugby ever. It’s been raining HEAVILY for 24 hours all over Newlands. Handling errors deluxe.

Father’s Grey

Posted on

As it is a rather grey Father’s Day here in Cape Town and I’m full of cold, I have spent most of the day inside watching the T20 final, reading my new Jeremy Clarkson book (sorry Mum) and listening to Placebo and Kasabian’s latest offerings. I’m never sure about albums with completely ridiculous titles, but despite its name, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum is absolutely superb. Underdog is still my favourite track, which many of you will have unknowingly heard on the Kaka Sony Bravia ad which features the world’s largest zoetrope.

I think it’s a great ad and I’m not just saying that so that Sony read this and send me a free 42″ Bravia for my living room. I’ve still got the last one that they gave me and that’s working fine, thank you very much. So I’ll take the cash alternative this time, please.

Incidentally, Mr Kaka – who will be playing for Brazil against Italy just up the road in Pretoria this evening – learnt most of those fancy footballing tricks he shows off in that ad from me. Not many people know that I have taken many of the world’s top footballers under my wing at some point in their careers in order to let them learn from the best. Those who regularly play football with me will appreciate that I (very modestly) take great care to hide my silky skills so as not to outshine those around me.

And now, with the Sri Lankan innings coming to a close (although some would argue it was pretty much closed in the first two overs), I will return to my seat in front of the fire with my pipe and slippers and fulfill that traditional father stereotype.

One final thing – it is the summer solstice in the Northern hemisphere today, which means that today is the shortest day for us down below the equator. Summer is on its way*!

* ever so gradually.

littleworld update

Posted on

Incoming from Nicole – who commented on the original littleworld post:

I received a (short and sweet) reply from Anita Scott, Customer Service Head at Woolworths to the email I sent her about this issue.

“Dear Nicole
 Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I will respond to the customer.”

Her email was sent at 11:30am on Thursday 18th June. Please let me know if you actually do hear from her.

Keep up the good work!
Nicole.

Thanks, Nicole.

I can safely say, 25 hours on from her email to you, that no-one from Woolworths has got in touch with me.
I’ll keep you updated.