Dear Scam Victim

Posted on

Solace at last, in the shape of an email from Juliet Joel.

For a bit of background on this story, all you have to do is to remember back to when I was a victim from Scam?
No?
Me neither.

But supposing I had been defrauded, it would all be fine because remittance officer Juliet Joel (you may remember her from SYPNIC BANK BENIN PLC. SCAM COMPENSATION OFFICE DEPARTMENT WORLD BANK/UNITED NATIONS) is here to help:

Screenshot

At first, I was worried that this might also be some sort of scam, but I was immediately reassured by the good names of SYPNIC BANK BENIN PLC. and WORLD BANK/UNITED NATIONS being included therein. After all, it’s highly unlikely that good, proud organisations such as these would be tangled up in any sort of naughtiness. Amiright?

Seems, as they say, legit.

And if there really is $1,500,000.00 USD (One Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars Only) available and I have been listed/approved for this payment as one of the scammed victims to be paid this amount, then why would I say no? Why would anyone say no? After all, that’s a healthy R21,532,650.00 ZAR (Twenty One Million Five Hundred Thirty Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty Rand Only) in JZ’s Monopoly money.

I’m already halfway through filling the not ever so taxing form (most difficult bit by miles being the very short field for my address) for further verifications and scan copy of my passport. After all, without them having this information, how can I expect to be fed with further modalities?

It’s a question I know we’ve all asked.

Yep, when it comes to helping Juliet Joel out so that she can help me out, I am there in the manner of an rather keen ursine.

 

I don’t mind telling you that I have a very, VERY good feeling about this.

Banting And Chips

Posted on

Firstly, I’d better explain to overseas readers what the Banting diet is (because contrary to the alleged “Much Bigger Than That Oscar Trial” billing of the recent HPCSA hearing in Rondebosch, virtually no-one outside SA has actually heard of it) – it’s a Low Carbohydrate, High Fat eating plan.
And it’s currently all the rage amongst several very vocal and very affluent people in South Africa.

Banting And Chips. That’s going to be the name of my new cookbook. I’m told that other people have done Banting cookbooks, and apparently they’ve been mildly successful, but having looked at the Banting diet, I noted one omission that, if remedied, could make just about every dish therein better: Chips.

Allow me to demonstrate:

Cauliflower tabouleh salad with beef bangers – meh
Cauliflower tabouleh salad with beef bangers and Chips – YES PLEASE!

Open chicken burgers, served with a delicious tzatziki – ok
Open chicken burgers, served with a delicious tzatziki and Chips – SOUNDS FANTASTIC!

Banting Chocolate and coconut fudge – eww
Banting Chocolate and coconut fudge and Chips – NOW WE’RE TALKING!

It’s like the best bits of the Banting diet, fully supported by their cherry-picked stats and lack of peer-reviewed papers, together with the added The Joy Of Chips™. Best of both worlds. Quite why no-one has thought of this before is beyond me.
Sales are going to be through the roof. Everyone will be doing it soon. Dodgy reporters with foreign sounding names will be paid to advertise it report on it on second or third rate news sites. I will be loved. More.
All that said, I’ll probably stop short of using social media to advise mothers to feed their young children on it. Because even though I’m an accomplished scientist, I have no qualification in paediatric nutrition. So I don’t really know about that sort of thing. Would be silly to do that. So I won’t.

If you’re doing the Banting diet, that’s lovely. I’m happy for you. You can even tell me about it if you like. Oh yes, you already had. I do recall now. But…

Don’t expect me to do it, just because you do it.
Don’t tell me that because it “works” for you, it “works” for everyone.
Don’t tell me about “all the scientific evidence for it”, because there really ain’t much china, and
Don’t tell me that at least some people on the Banting diet aren’t a little bit like people in a cult, raising certain individuals to near-Deity status:

Fullscreen capture 2015-12-01 090015 AM.bmpu wot m8? 

If you’re in SA (or even if you’re not), you’ll almost certainly be aware of what Mandela did for this country. And sure, yes, he has his detractors, but I think you’d have to argue that his 67 years of selfless struggle, his calls for forgiveness and unity when SA was on the brink of civil war, and his spectacular ambassadorial role around the world, even into old age were something very special.
HERO TIM DID MORE THOUGH! And in such a short time too.

The L key is never closer to the N key than when you’re talking about Prof Tim’s cult following.
Because wait, there’s more:

Fullscreen capture 2015-12-01 090011 AM.bmp

Genocide?

qq

Yeah, I’m equally lost, but I can only think that “@lowcarbJC” (I never trust anyone with a football team name in the twitter handle to be a reasonable individual, let alone a frikkin’ diet tip) is referring to anyone that thinks it’s OK to eat carbs as a “Genocide group”. Frankly, it’s incredible that the human race has survived this long without Tim advocating bombing Syria. Or something. Perhaps that’s why “we” (whoever “we” are) are unable to fight ISIS. Perhaps it’s merely because Tim hasn’t given us the go-ahead. But then, why bother? Unless ISIS are all on LCHF (which they’re surely not), presumably they’re going to be dead soon anyway. That would save a lot of bother.

I wonder, has anyone told Mr Putin?

The only advantage of the Banting diet as far as I can see is that once those cult members people doing it succumb to premature cardiovascular disease, we can have their oily remains melted down to make candles to sell for charity.

Hmm. I appear to have strayed somewhat from my original cookbook promotional plan.
I’ll let you (and lowcarbJC) know when I’ve shamelessly stolen some egg white and cauliflower-based recipes, added fries to them and written it all down.

Watch this space.

Where Eagles Dare

Posted on

A funny thing happened while I was writing up the Constantia Wine Route post yesterday.

The preamble follows.
Firstly, I wanted to link back to the last Constantia Wine Route post I did. Standard practice there. I had a quick read through it as well.

And then secondly, for some reason (alcohol + lack of an introduction + no name badge + my age (whatevs) + [one last excuse here]) I couldn’t recall the name of the guy who served us at Eagles’ Nest. UCT student, doing Business Science and Commerce, passion for wine, third season working there, favourite Eagles’ Nest wine: Viognier, top knot, possible beard. Nice chap. Nameless.
So I went to the Eagle’s Nest website, clicked on ABOUT and selected PEOPLE BEHIND OUR WINES. Maybe they had a ‘meet and greet our front room staff’ thing. They didn’t.

What they did have was the Executive Director, the Winemaker, the Farm Manager etc etc.
And they had this too:

Fullscreen capture 2015-11-30 034909 PM.bmp

That’s Kaylee Stewart. She’s the Brand Manager: Tasting Room, Sales & Marketing (Western Cape).
Says her blurb:

Kaylee joined the Eagles’ Nest team at the end of 2011 to build on her families involvement. Since, she has enthusiastically taken up the role of managing the tasting room, local Cape Town trade and fulfilling certain public relation and marketing roles.

(Families [sic] involvement being her Dad is the Executive Director)
But what would “fulfilling certain public relation and marketing roles” actually entail, though? And how would one prove oneself capable of handling such a taxing role?

Might it include putting promotional comments about Eagles’ Nest on blog posts about the Constantia Wine Route, even when the said blog posts don’t mention Eagles’ Nest?

I doubt it.

Fullscreen capture 2015-11-30 035953 PM.bmp

What are the chances that someone called Kaylee Stewart thought that a wine farm run by Peter Stewart was the best of all the wine farms in the Constantia Valley? It’s almost too coincidental to not be the same Kaylee Stewart that now fulfils certain public relation and marketing roles.
And yet, it’s obviously not the same Kaylee Stewart because surely she would have mentioned that she took her family members down from England “because Dad is the Executive Director there”. And she would just have given her Pops a call and asked when the Shiraz was coming out, no? None of this “mid May if I am not mistaken” nonsense.

Right.

And yet, even if it were the same Kaylee Stewart (which it isn’t), then there’s nothing illegal about what she did. Rather disingenuous, ethically iffy, sure, but that’s about it.
If it had have been the same Kaylee Stewart (which it wasn’t) she would have known that if she had ‘come out’ as being connected to the Eagles’ Nest estate, readers would obviously have taken everything positive she said about the place with a pinch of salt. And so if it was her (and we’re all aware that it wasn’t) she would have simply omitted any reference to the fact that it was her family’s business anyway. Clever lady.
(It’s worth noting that according to the website, the real Kaylee Stewart wasn’t working for the vineyard when the comment was posted.)

For me, it raises an interesting point with regard to bloggers recommending products. We wouldn’t have believed what the real Kaylee Stewart had said if we’d known about her family’s business, and yet people still read blog posts for which the blogger has been paid or has received free accommodation/food/services or goods and they lap up the positive reviews. It works for the blogger, because they get money and/or free stuff, and it works for the company involved because they get the positive review and the increase in sales. We can all name several (or more) local blogs that do this.

People aren’t going to believe everything that they read, though, are they? Except obviously yes, enough of them do, because otherwise it would all stop. Personally, I can’t understand it. It’s actually fairly depressing that no-one seems to think any deeper than the actual words they are reading when there’s a paid-for review. Most of the time there’s absolutely no disclosure by the blogger anyway, so I guess you’d never know.

These days, when I get asked to do reviews on stuff, I make it clear from the outset that if it’s not very good, I will write that it’s not very good. And suddenly there are very few takers. Maybe because they don’t have the confidence in the product, but more likely that they know that they can get the next blogger they call to write something nice – however poor the actual experience – by just giving them some money or make up or a helicopter trip or a phone or whatever.

Whatever happened to integrity, hey?

Constantia Wine Route redux

Posted on

When people think “Wine Route”, they generally think of Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl or Wellington (jks – no-one goes to Wellington deliberately). We think that Local is lekker though, so we headed just down the road to sample a bit of what Constantia had to offer.

It had been a while since we had been on the Constantia Wine Route, and we came far from doing all of it today. However, three wine farms and 19 wines later, we’d had a good time. It was only when we got back that I realised I hadn’t taken many photos. Having too much fun, see?

First up was Klein Constantia, where a tasting is R30 for 7 wines, but buy a bottle (or more) and they’ll waive the fee. The informative Johan helped us out. They still have their peculiar ‘stand up and taste’ set up, but the wines are superb, including (of course) their famous Vin de Constance and the last of their unusual, but incredible 2007 Madame Marlbrook. All I need is some fine quality seafood to pair it up with now.
I don’t have much more to add here. They just do stuff well, with understated elegance.

Then it was up the hill to Eagles’ Nest. It’s another beautiful place, without the spectacular views of its closest neighbours, but with enthusiastic service; it’s family friendly and tourist driven (it’s on the Red Bus wine tour). The wines though? Not all that. Perhaps the exception was their Little Eagle Rosé, which was alive with crisp strawberry flavours. Their flagship 2012 Shiraz was rather ordinary, and – I thought – vastly overpriced at R225 a bottle. Those Brits on the bus must have thought they were in heaven though. When you compare this with what you get in Tesco for what is essentially ten quid – suddenly you start to understand the pricing structure. R50 gets you a 5 wine tasting, and you have to spend over R300 per person to get that refunded.

Protea on the way up to Constantia Glen

And then onward and upward to Constantia Glen. Last time we were up here (amazingly 4 years ago to the day), we had the tiny place to ourselves. This time, we were greeted with a bright, modern, brand new tasting room and restaurant, plus literally hundreds of people. We got the last two seats at the bar and tucked into one of their cheese and charcuterie platters with a Premium (capital P) wine tasting (R80 for seven wines) for me and a white wine tasting (R55 for 4 wines) for Mrs 6k. Enoch may have helped her out with a couple of refills though. If you’re Enoch’s boss and you have a problem with this, then he didn’t. But he’s still great.

Wines here are excellent, especially their Estate Range Sauvignon Blanc with lots of grass and lots of green figs. On the reds, the bold Three is good, but the hugely rich and deep Five French blend is simply sublime and paired beautifully with the cheeses on the platter. We spent [rather a lot] here, meaning that our tasting was gratis and we have a nicely stocked wine rack for the foreseeable future. Winning.

We’re so lucky to have these amazing places right on our doorstep, but we sometimes need a reminder that they are there. So, let this blog post be it and give yourself a few hours off over the summer holiday enjoying some of the superb wine Constantia has to offer.

Not a sponsored post. Just a really good day.

Dead

Posted on

Not literally. But an afternoon of braai’ing with several (or more) adults and eight kids aged between 4 and 10 years old, together with a near immeasurable amount of beer has just about done for me.

Not that it wasn’t fun. It was fun. But my ears are still ringing and my house looks like something akin to Attercliffe after the Sheffield blitz. But with a beagle.

More? Tomorrow.