Striking nastiness

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Not much from me tonight, but here is an interesting story on the current British Airways dispute.
To be perfectly honest, I haven’t paid a huge amount of interest as to what is going on between BA and the Unite Union, but as this is slowly boiling down to workers (and the public) taking sides in what seems to be becoming a personal scrap between BA’s Willie Walsh and Tony Woodley et al of Unite, I’m getting more interested.  

Sky News was reporting some pretty nasty stuff going on and reading the Telegraph article brought back some vivid memories of the 1984 Miners’ Strike. I lived in Sheffield at the time, and the papers were full of the violence that surrounded that strike, not least the infamous Battle of Orgreave on the other side of the city. And yes, again there was that personal element at the top – Thatcher versus Scargill.
But that was the dirty, grimy mining industry and these are the guys that offer you drinks on the night flight to Heathrow. That was 1984, in the rough North of England; this is 26 years on in the shiny corridors of Terminal 5.

So why on earth do I find myself reading stuff like this?

It can be revealed that some female cabin staff braved the threat of intimidation by union workers to go to work as normal yesterday.
Some of those who worked had received threatening emails on Friday night, one of which read: “If any of you go into work tomorrow, your life won’t be worth living.”

Nice.

There’s obviously more to this than just a row over whether hot towels should be dished out on short-haul flights. With the UK general election around the corner and Unite funding the Labour Party to the tune of £11million, with Charlie Whelan as Unite’s political director and with these ridiculous threats flying around, this is going to be a story worth digging deeper into.

I’m off to polish my spade.

UPDATE: Started reading on the Miners’ Strike instead of the BA one. But there are some thought-provoking and salient lines in there, relevant to the BA dispute:

Those who called the miners “the enemy within” might have won the war, but they did not win many hearts or minds.

Trouble is, I’m just not sure which side they’re relevant to.

Signs of the times

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Since I’m stuck in the house with a small girl who is engrossed in Barbie presents Thumbelina for the 1000th time, I thought I’d chuck up a couple of quota photos. And today’s theme is road signs.

There are so many new signs going up around the city as part of the infrastructure upgrades for the World Cup (and beyond). Not that these ones will be replaced. Edinburgh Drive is still Edinburgh Drive and the M3 still goes to Cape Town.  

For the moment.

6000.co.za relaunch

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After this bit of apparent FIFA silliness, I have decided to relaunch 6000 miles…

We are now The Unofficial National Blog of the You-Know-What

 

Just don’t tell Sepp, ok?

UPDATE: Here’s the offending ad, which Kulula state on their facebook page, has got:

Nothing to do with the WC. Just to be clear.

Well, if by “WC”, they mean “World Cup” (and do they?)
Ja… right. 

My take now, having seen the ad (but not the letter)? I’m with FIFA. They have every right to protect their partners’ rights on this.

Unpopular view, maybe – but as I said in this comment, Emirates must have paid a small large fortune to be the airline associated with the tournament and this is blatent ambush marketing by Kulula. 

To be honest, the only whining we should be hearing from them should be from their plane’s engines.

What a good idea

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Sometimes a good idea comes along and doesn’t get anywhere because it doesn’t get the support it deserves or needs to take off. I would give you examples, but because they never got the support they deserved or needed, I’ve never heard of them. Usually, the only ideas that ever get anywhere are those that are going to make someone, somewhere, some money: cars, computers, drugs etc etc.

But the good idea I heard today isn’t going to make much money. Instead of Rands and cents, this one is all about the currency of goodwill. Which makes you feel all happy and warm inside, but won’t buy you beer. So not perfect, by any means, but still pretty good.

The idea is the brainchild of the improbably-named Dean Oelschig, a creative type from Jo’burg. But let’s not hold those facts against him, for he has come up with the idea of #worldcuphost. This is what is called a hashtag, which is a word or phrase, prefixed with a # that people can search for easily on Twitter.
And Dean’s idea is that willing people from South Africa advertise themselves on Twitter as #worldcuphosts so that visitors coming over from foreign parts can ask all those vexing, awkward or downright stupid questions about the country and how to “do stuff” here – and hopefully get a quick, helpful answer.
I am already predicting a plethora of beer-related queries, interspersed with several on transport, a couple on the weather and maybe even one or two on the football. But mainly beer.

And because the people on twitter are generally of a somewhat higher intelligence and educational standing than on other, less enjoyable social media platforms which involve feeding other people’s penguins on their imaginary farms, the answers those tourists will get will be honest, informative and helpful. Right?

So, go and advertise yourself as a #worldcuphost. 
Better still, retweet this post (use the little button below) so that people know what it’s all about, because obviously, the more people that are aware of this – on either side – the better it will work. 
Let’s do our bit to make this World Cup a even better experience for those visiting South Africa.

Playing the RaceCard

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Thanks to Refresh Creative Media, the clever lot that brought you the brilliant Unfinished Business story about “finishing” Table Mountain, now you too can pretend to be Julius Malema (or any other inflammatory youth leader) by playing the RaceCard™.

Ever been confronted and felt there is no way out?
With no plausible explanation for your actions?
Don’t worry, just pull the RaceCard™.

Simple use the RaceCard™ to get out of any uncomfortable situation with no consequences.

Download your full colour printable RaceCard™ here.