C is for Clowns

Cell C continue to show us their true colours: red, yellow, gold and all things circus. The cellular service provider has been ordered by the ASA to remove its latest campaign featuring the 4Gs symbol which has proved to be misleading and utter bollocks. CEO Lars Reichelt is now back-peddling and claiming that the use of the 4Gs symbol in their campaign has nothing to do with the building of a technically superior network [bullsh*t], but stands for 'For Great Service' and 'For Great Speed'. Click here for more. And if you read here you'll see that Lars has been fully aware of his misleading actions since February. 

Cell C CEO, Lars Reichelt

Here for my previous article on Cell C. 

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People of WalMart

With all this crazy talk of American retail giant WalMart threatening to buy South Africa's MassMart (which runs Game, Dion, Makro and Builder's Warehouse, among other chains) for a whopping R32 billion, I thought I'd share this little gem with y'all. PEOPLE OF WALMART is a website comprising photos, videos and stories from within the beast. If white-trash and rednecks fascinate you, you'll love this.

Mullet Barbie

Especially for the cane & cream-sode drinking okes in Debben

Now, it's a Saturday morning and I'm not in the mood to get all serious (say that in your best  Kipp from Napoleon Dynamite accent) and discuss trade unions and why South Africans are up in arms about the potential buy-out, so read the full Mail & Guardian article here.

Class!

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McMulti-Billion Dollar Refurbishment

 

Sies

Whilst lounging pool-side with The Restaurateur (did you know restaurateur does not contain an 'n'?) and The Hot Scientist yesterday at Fairlawns Boutique Hotel and Spa, sippin' on a strawberry daiq and generally perusing the interweb, I stumbled upon an interesting McNugget of information detailing the McDonald's 2011 global refurbishment and expansion plan. 

The world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants is looking to revamp their menus, store design and ordering experience. With a juicy budget of $2.4 billion, in 2011 McDonald's is set to rebuild 400, refurbish 1,600 and create an additional ton. Yowza.

 "With over 31,000 restaurants worldwide located in over 100 countries, the big challenge for McDonald's is to curate each restaurant to account for different cultural dining practices.  To do this McDonald's VP of concept and design Denis Weil has created a team of corporate design leaders to research and get a feel for local design trends which will make each restaurant unique to its area. Juicy Design’s Tom Williams has been working with the restaurant giant since 2003, redeveloping restaurants in Australia and now across Asia and the US.  He states the design brief was simply to “make things unique.”

This is the first complete make-over since the 70's and there are a few interesting changes happening. Along with every oke and his dog, Ray will be relocating his coffee machines in McCafé  units to sit flush with the tills to 'enhance the barista experience'. Yawn. Oats served at breakfast will be hand-stirred (ground-breaking) at least 12 times to emulate the home-made experience and drive-through spaces will be redesigned to cope with bigger orders and more traffic in order to minimise waiting times.

$2.4 billion equates to R16,843,680,154.58. That's also what it would cost to educate 120,000,000 African children for a year. I'm just saying. 

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Silly Willoughby

W&C - putting salt on the wound

Maybe I'm a snob, but I have a problem with this. I recently popped into Willoughby & Co. in Hyde Park Shopping Centre, Johannesburg for a couple o' salmon hand-rolls and a warming bowl of Miso soup - my favourites. You can image my surprise when in return for being asked to drop 42 clams on a hand-roll, I was expected to use Cerebos table salt, straight from the original plastic packaging, nogal. Now, being handed a small Cerebos cellar upon request would have been bad enough, but this South African family staple actually comprised the table setting.

Maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I think Willoughby & Co. could have a little more tact than this, especially considering their sushi prices err on the expensive side. Surely sea or rock salt in a grinder would be a nicer touch. And hell, if you're trying to improve your cost of sale by resorting to the cheapest table salt possible, at least have the foresight to decant your Cerebos into something a little nicer. Why not go a step further and commission a group of disadvantaged potters to produce a range of fish shaped salt pots?

Naughty Willoughby. 

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