Category: this is south africa

ASA ruling against Red Bull – those complaints in full

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I really don’t want to get into this, but I absolutely had to share the complaints against the Red Bull “Jesus walks on water ad” (you can watch it here), as submitted to the SA ASA.

It’s comedy gold!

COMPLAINTS
The complainant submitted, in essence, that:

  • The commercial is offensive as it makes a mockery of Jesus Christ by portraying Him in a blasphemous manner. Peripheral arguments to the allegation of offence relate to the fact that the commercial implies that the miracle of Jesus walking on water was all a sham.
  • Christians believe that Jesus Christ is alive and sitting at the right hand of God and as such His express permission should have been obtained before being featured in the commercial (in accordance with certain provisions of the Code).
  • The advertiser should apologise publicly and should be fined as well to indicate the level of offence caused.
  • Creates a bad example for children.
  • Its misleading as it creates an impression that the product existed during the time that Jesus Christ lived.

Yes, the first point initially suggesting that Jesus’ walking on water was not a sham, the second point then actually argues that Red Bull should have got Jesus’ “express permission” before featuring him (“Him” – whatever) in an advertisement.

How would one go about doing that? Presumably via your local church? Or through “Healing” Pastor Chris? Surely a verbal agreement would not be enough – some form of documentation would have to be signed by both parties. How many Christians have got Jesus’ autograph? None? Why on earth not?

And then point five? “…it creates an impression that the product existed during the time that Jesus Christ lived”?

Well, in point two, you just told us he (“He”) is still alive, so what’s with using the past participle? And if he (“He”) is still alive and I can buy a Red Bull (and I can), then the product does exist during the time that Jesus Christ lived… lives… lived… oh… whatever.

Contradiction much?

I do agree with point four though. Stepping out of fishing boats into the Sea of Galilee and expecting to be able to walk on water does set a very bad example for children by suggesting that people can walk on water.

They can’t, that’s all a sham.

Cape Party make huge strides on “Turn Cape into France” effort

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Regular readers will remember last year’s infamous Cape Party want to turn the Cape into France Shock! post, in which I suggested that, shockingly, the Cape Party wanted to turn the Cape into France and which was revived recently by commenter Lourens Camphor’s fantastic PERHAPS YOU ARE A BABY!!! allegation:

Check the party emblem and compare the shape of the new Cape Republic to… France:

OK, Normandy is a bit out of proportion, but that Southern coast looks dangerously familiar.

It was because of this concerning similarity that I looked into the Cape Party in greater detail. And look what I found as the very first line in their Vision for The Cape Republic:

The Cape Republic is roughly the size of France

Oh – isn’t that convenient???

So we look like France and we’re about the same size as France. Now all that is needed is an hatred of the British because you once lost a war to them.

The selfish motives of politicians a political system that is as racially divisive and oppressive as the others that have plagued this land since the British Empire forced the Union of South Africa upon us in 1910…

Bingo.

Further evidence: constant references to Cape Provence and suggested adoption of the Swiss system of voting – a country where they speak French and which borders France.  In addition, the Cape Party headquarters is in Franschhoek. Need I say more, except for informing you that I actually made this last bit up – they’re actually based in Claremont. Which sounds very much like Clermont-Ferrand, which is in France.

The Cape Party’s performance in last year’s municipal elections was undeniably dreadful, gathering, as they did, a whole 0.09% of the vote in the Western Cape. And thus, we thought (Lourens aside) that this issue was over and done with.

Not so, it seems, because Cape Town’s Llandudno beach has now been annexed. BY THE FRENCH!!!

Yes, in what is described by Steve Turton, Managing Director of UK-based The Line Agency as:

a genuine, absolute mistake

it seems that photos of Llandudno beach, a short sprint down the Atlantic Seaboard from Cape Town CBD, are being used to advertise holidays in Normandy. WHICH IS IN FRANCE!!!

This error was spotted by eagle-eyed (you’ll see what I did there) ex-Capetonian, Bradford Bird.

Billboards displayed in London Underground stations advertising cheap travel to the French north coast have left a UK creative agency red-faced when it was discovered the beach pictured, was actually Llandudno in Cape Town.

The billboard poster produced for the French tourism authority, Atout France, shows a family running along a beach under the headline ‘Sprint finish on the Northern France Coast’.

The distinctive rocks on the spur of land in the background, however, unequivocally identify the beach as Llandudno.
The faux-pas was spotted by former Llandudno local, Bradford Bird, who now works in London as a photographer.

Genuine, absolute mistake, my arse. Sure, there is granite in both areas and both contain a phat amount of silica – durr! it’s granite!! –  but in Normandy it’s Barfleur granite, with limited quantities of Rubidium, Strontium, Caesium and Barium. And as Graindor and Wasserburg highlighted in 1962, it’s only around 330 million years old. Cape granite, like that in the photograph, regularly demonstrates magmatic crystallization ages of over 500 million years.

Do you take us for idiots, Steve?

Also, am I really the only one who, when rearranging the letters of “Steve Turton” gets “The Cape Party” (or something ever so slightly similar, anyway)? This is merely the start of a heinous plan by the defeated hoard of Cape Party supporters (both of them) in carrying out their party’s wishes without due democratic process. Just wait until images of Stellenbosch are passed off as the Rhone Valley, Mossel Bay as Calais and that funny little bit of scaffolding on top of the MetLife Centre as the Eiffel Tower.

We are on a slippery slope.

I will utilise this blog post to serve as a record of any further attempts at franco-colonisation of the Western Cape. Please point out any sudden and/or concerning similarities between these two completely separate geographical areas in the comments section below.

Vive le différence! (as they say in Mitchell’s Plain).

Half A World Away

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On the day the UK’s clocks went forward – which always makes it seem closer – and the temperatures in Cape Town were a mere 5C warmer than Sheffield, there were also a couple of similar poses on display in the respective cities:

image        image

That’s me watching the boy swim and my Dad enjoying a Boddington’s.

Obviously, the feet are crossed differently because we’re in different hemispheres.

Waze and means…

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I’ve been fiddling with the Waze app on my Android phone this week. It’s not the first time I have played with it, but I found that it was of very limited use last time out (probably about a year ago), simply because I was the only (slight exaggeration) person in South Africa bothering to use it.

Described as:

…a free social mobile app that enables drivers to build and use live maps, real-time traffic updates and turn-by-turn navigation for an optimal commute. 100% powered by users, the more you drive the better it gets.

Waze allows you to send information about your journey to other Wazers on the road, so that a real-time map can be built up and the app can help other users to avoid troublespots. Because of this, it requires a “critical mass” of users to make it worthwhile and, as I pointed up above, it didn’t have that. Now, however, it has joined forces with MiX Telematics who already have 30,000 users using realtime reporting through their vehicle tracking services.

I found out about this from a rather enthusiastic John Maytham on Cape Talk, who has been enthusing enthusiastically about Waze ever since. Quite how this sits with Primedia’s support of the Lead SA campaign, I’m not sure. After all, they aren’t usually very impressed with people using their cellphones while driving.

My first impressions haven’t been brilliant. There are still very few users in Cape Town, and the information seems only to state the bleeding obvious: traffic is bad into town in the morning, traffic is bad out of town in the evening. Add to that the fact that because of the MASSIVE lump of rock we like to call “The Mountain” and its proximity to Table Bay, there aren’t an awful lot of alternative routes to take in the Mother City and Waze’s usefulness is immediately limited.

And then there’s the battery drain. Wow. I have never known an app like it for using power. A journey from Ysterplaat, via town, to home (about 30km) took over 50% of my (admittedly old) battery life. All of which means that even with a fully charged phone, you aren’t going to get much more than 90 minutes of Waze-related driving fun.

I’m too worldly wise to give up on apps very quickly, but Waze is already on the danger list.
Anyone care to tell me why it deserves to stay on my phone?

More on Waze in SA.
Waze on Android Market Google Play Store [QR].

UPDATE: Ooh – looks like 5fm Breakfast is running a Waze promotion next week as well. 6000 miles… slightly ahead of the curve again…