Rather go suck on a mango (It leaves a better taste in your mouth)

South Africa’s newest addition to the budget domestic airlines Velvet sky has made quite a splash if by splash I meant a leaf falling into a puddle..

At least it’s cheap! How bad can it really be?

My flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg was quite an experience, not only because I had the whole cabin to choose for my “free seating” but also because everyone that works at Velvet Sky definitely has some sort of zombie relative. No one smiles, no one is helpful and the service is terrible.

It all starts right at the check in counter. There were three check in lady(troll’s) each directed me to the next check in lady(troll) with a half hearted wave of a hand. I was all smiles and rainbows until I eventually spoke to the only “available” check in lady. The world went dark and cold as soon as her straight face allowed words to exit (through her lips I’m guessing). My heart beat became irregular and I lost the ability to feel joy.

 I might be exaggerating a little bit, but in all honesty it was a highly unpleasant experience. 

I was glad to see I wasn’t the only person whose day was ruined by these check in troll’s (misery loves company). Two other sets of passengers were shouting at the check in lady about how rude she was, while the casually dressed manager just stood at a distance.  What a lovely way to start your journey.

On the plus side: The cabin is very clean.

Unfortunately this wouldn’t mean any progression for Velvet Sky. The airhostesses make you feel like the “service” they are providing is done under duress. Once again, the happiness is drained from the area with the no smiles rule and the ‘listen to the flight instructions or die’ attitude.

These Velvet Sky troll’s were mean, I mean really mean. They were loaded with backhanded comments (eg: “excuse me, can you buckle your seat belt. We’d like to take off at some stage”) and they were incapable of smiling, and the weirdest thing is they didn’t blink (okay I made that part up). But in all seriousness, I’ve never been that well behaved in my life. My airhostess troll made me feel like I should be sitting up tall with my finger on my lips, in silence. I felt like a bad person when she woke me up to tell me to put my seat upright for landing. I even apologised.

 The baby that cried for the whole flight wasn’t even a problem for me as much as the crap service. The airline has nothing to offer passengers as a cheap alternative. It’s not even ‘that’ cheap. To be quite honest I’d much rather pay a bit more to ensure that I land in a good mood, rather than save some cash and have to deal with the Velvet Sky Troll’s.

Ultimately, Velvet sky feels the way velvet does when you go against the grain: Not so smooth, not so enjoyable.

This sucks!

What sucks Big Time?

A vacuum cleaner!

What sucks even more than a vacuum cleaner?

A broken window in a plane AND a Hoover vacuum cleaner!

GENIUS!

I really enjoyed this advert. It’s smart and single minded. I especially like how the product isn’t seen in the ad. I think that anyone will agree that the dots are placed at the perfect distance apart so that anyone can actually connect them.

Hoover ads have come a long way! From the days of gender slavery were women got cleaning equipment for gifts, to now, where women don’t have to pretend that they know any secret family-hand-me-down recipes and the like. It’s a swift move toward an insight on the product rather than focussing on what women really want (yup you guessed it: a hoover).

I can hear it now: (Sweet middle class American woman in the 50's) Golly Gosh Stuart, is this for me?”

Yes it is sweety, I hope you like it.

Like it? I love it! Thanks hun for knowing me so well! Its the perfect birthday gift! Now I’ll be the envy of all the other bored and intellectually stifled house wives who have to sweep their homes with broomes!

So thanks for moving forward Hoover. Not only am I pleased that the product isn’t in the advert but nor is the (un)happy housewife.

highschool

My big sister is a real big sister. She’s the type of big sister that bosses you around when you’re little and even though you try fight it, a part of you actually likes it. My friends (even now) think she’s scary. She’s the perfect teacher-type. And now, she IS a teacher at our old high school.

At first it was just fun to call her ma’am around the house and especially in public. She pretends to hate it but actually she loves it. I went back to school for a day to visit her and she turned on one of the poor, innocent, shy kids that was looking a bit scruffy. “Brush your hair! You look like a womble, and please stand up straight before you turn into Gollum”. What a lovely, kind, big sister I have, right? Then I looked around properly and  saw exactly what I looked like 5 years ago!

I’m a generic! They are generics! Nothing has changed since I left high school. Now, I see it from the other perspective: The annoying chit-chat at the back, the silly giggles when the word “reproductive” comes up, the long haired boys and the silly girls wearing make-up. It was kind of creepy.

It was particularly creepy when I picked out myself in the crowd. My high school doppelganger appeared. The flat-chested chick wearing a bra for no reason, sitting in the middle, asking all the questions (even if they where blatantly obvious) all the while still chatting away every time the teacher's back is turned. MAN, SHE WAS ANNOYING! She especially peeved me off when she came back after class to see if she could do extra work to 'up her mark'.

Now, to add to the whole doppelganger thing, I’m seeing my old teachers as people. Actual people. Not the tyrants that loved to pile on the homework and shout at you when you came a minute late into class. 

Sigh...I think I’m growing up

I had the pleasure of enjoying a crit of what boys like to do when they choose female products to work on. The product in particular was a sports bra. So being a boy I guess they get excited at the prospect of being allowed to draw breasts openly.

The scamps that were drawn were indeed hilarious and outrageous and actually extremely entertaining. Ultimately its aim was to insult its target market into buying the product. This was done by emphasising the unfortunate yet natural progression of firm perky breasts into sad long droopy breasts that are so droopy they end up in your food.

 Hilarious.

 But something tells me that this insight might, just not be the best option to sell sports bra’s.

Then I found this gem of an advert that does in fact insult its target market into buying the product.

This advert basically says “in case your kids are mildly retarded you should either a) get them some help or b) pick the cheaper option and give them john west tuna since it’s so super duperly PACKED with omega3”.

I think this advert is really amusing and somehow truthful because we know kids can be stupid and willingly engage in dangerous activities. Yet this ‘insult technique’ is less offensive than a woman with boobs so droopy they land in her food.

On the bright side of things, I find quite a lot of adverts mildly offensive as many focus on strange human truths but because no one is really saying it we find it funny.

Advertising is the “no one” , advertising is the Jew with the Jew jokes, the black guy that can call other black guys ____________, and just about any group that humanity enjoy poking a wee bit of fun at.

I think this sums it up:

Being injured is merely a way of life for me. I don’t know why but I think it’s meant as a joke for the man upstairs. He’s like “now let the window fall on her face. It’ll be funny because she’s on matric vac and she’s wearing boys’ clothes”.

Fiction?

I think not!

 This rather unfortunate event is only funny now because of the strange nun’s who, assuming the clothes were my own, tried to literally get me on the ‘straight path’ .

Everyone has that weird, coincidental “I was petrified of bunji jumping and then when I finally decided to do it, the rope broke” story.

Some more unfortunate than others.

I have been injured (often). Last year I tore a ligament in my ankle, and literally 5 minutes later in the same soft core netball match, my twin sister tore the same ligament in the same foot. It would have been funnier if we didn’t have to lean on each other on the longest most treacherous 100 metre journey home.

Soon enough we were scuffling around university together. The injury changed the world for me. It was like all the fluffy happy parts of life were removed and replaced with horrors.  All of a sudden the threat of stairs lingered around every (and I mean EVERY) corner.

 I sat waiting on the Jammie stairs (as one does), staring at people (as one does) and I noticed something Bizarre (as one does while staring and sitting): Lots of people are injured. I was blown away by the catastrophic number of people hobbling around on crutches, wrapped up in bandages and literally riddled in injury memorabilia (ie.scars, scabs, swelling).

It was breathtaking. It could be likened to the graceful movements of a Zombie Ballet.

Shuffle, skip, moan.

Trundle, click, Groan.

 It was beautiful.

Now I understand the Big Man’s humour.

Errrr... I don't get it

Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t.

This I did not get. At all. The image is so graphically appealing that it lulls you into a false sense of excitement. The thought going through my head was “this is so exciting! It’s a water house! What does it mean” then I read the headline “no more hairfall problems”.

Huh? It flew over my head and it wasn’t for lack of trying that I didn’t manage to connect the dots. It just feels like the dots are a bit far apart. Maybe with a smarter headline the dots would be closer.

I realised later on that if your drain clogs full of hair that the water won’t drain! Amazing insight (not really)! But in my mind I guess if this was the case I would stop running the water.  So there it is, the girl who didn’t ‘get’ the ad knows how to solve the problem! HALLALUYAH. At least I hadn’t completely wasted my time.

I think that a good headline can be a concept’s saving grace but it’s like a lot of things in life: if you’re too close you can’t see it for what it really is.

Take the good old “I hate my best friends’ boyfriend” cliché. Okay so your mate is in love with a super arsehole that refers to her as cupcake and pinches her friends’ bums at any given chance. She can’t see it. She is too close. Anyone on the outside can see this phallic representative for the shmuck he is but she never will.

 It’s just like a good headline. Although unlike your mates crap relationship, you won’t be too upset if someone, out of the goodness of their heart, crits your headline by saying: “I know you love it but its crap”.