nokia phones

Nokia phones used to be fantastic.

In fact I have still got a Nokia 1610 lying around which still functions although the battery is dead and it only works when plugged into a power source. It doesn't do internet, take photos, mms, whatever.  BUT it does work with minimal pain and suffering.  I also have a 3200 which also works with minimal pain.  The ringer speaker is dead.

My new phone, a C3, is 2 years old is dying.  Soon it is going to either get a flying lesson with the aid of a baseball bat or possibly a coffin of resin and become a clock.  Try and open a message and it says "Opening Message" for twenty minutes, then the screen blanks out and you press the middle key and  nothing happens.  Then you press the back key and nothing happens.  Then you press the power button and it reverts to the main menu.  How the f**** h*** are you supposed to retrieve a message?

I cannot believe that Nokia, which was one of the best manufacturers of cellphones could have made such a piece of crap.  Now their new phones are owned by the other bane of my life - Microsoft.  So it is goodbye to Nokia from me.

The only good thing about this C3 phone is that it has a relatively good radio in it.  So it has been promoted to car radio.  Only good thing for it.

It is being replaced with a Samsung Pocket, which hopefully will survive longer than 2 years. The Samsung pocket has worked quite well for the last two months, although the factory settings required to log on to everything that it could and it blew R100 in a day.  SO its little extras got switched off.  I will log onto the internet, GPS, whatever when I want to and not when it wants to. Thank you very much.

Gerrys hostile

Nobody stays there because he is hostile

Gerrys Hostile Achnashellach

10 Style Rules Your Grandma Was Right About

With reference to Marie Claire

Dress to impress on every occasion. These days, dress code is something people take very lightly: but in your grandmas day and age, dressing up was taken very seriously. "The priorities were different back then,” explains Mad Men’s costume director, Janie Bryant. “I do love that about the period when people did dress for occasions. You'd dress for the theater, the grocery store, for dinner," she says. "The priority today is more about comfort than it is glamour."

Fashion happens four times a year, style is inherent: Although fashion today is largely driven by trends, your grandmas era was more about timeless style. “You have to interpret what’s hot to make it work on yourself,” says Rachel Zoe, celebrity stylist. “If tweed suits are in but you’re not a suit kind of girl, wear the jacket with jeans and a pair of Converses. The idea is that you wear it the way that becomes the most you.”

Red lipstick will brighten any outfit It’s amazing how a slick of red lipstick can instantly lift your whole look. You’ll notice that most grandmas never leave the house without it. “It's an elemental, visceral colour – a reminder of what's inside us," explains Dick Page, celebrity make-up artist and creative director for Shiseido, of this timeless trend. "I think red lips are symbolic of female strength."

Wear the right underwear for your dress. Underwear is probably the last thing you think about when getting dressed right? But, according to Bryant, it should be one of your top priorities. "I think that, for a woman, back in the 60s, it was a requirement that you wore your foundations. A lot of ladies wouldn’t think about going out of their house without their girdles," Bryant says.

Look in the mirror and take one accessory off before you leave the house. While we’ll happily shun the rule that your shoes and bags must match at all times, your grandma makes a good point when she says to keep accessories to a minimum. Overload on earrings, bracelets and a necklace and you’ll end up looking more like a Christmas tree. Instead, choose key pieces, such as a cocktail ring or a string of pearls, to dress up your outfit.

The tailor is your friend. How often have you bought something straight off the rack and thought, “this would be great, if only it was a cm shorter/longer/more to the right” and then never bothered to do it? The tiniest amount of tailoring can make a huge difference – just ask your grandma, who would have had most of her wardrobe specially fitted.

Details matter. Gone are the days when you could wander into a store solely dedicated to the art of the button. "During that period, there were definitely attention to detail with the care, right down to how a buttonhole was made," says Bryant.

Hats aren’t just for the races. While you might feel ridiculous wearing a hat anywhere but the racetrack, it was once a staple in your grandmas wardrobe. Take her cue and try it out for yourself: you’ll be amazed at how it can instantly dress up any outfit.

Silhouette is key. The female shape was celebrated in your grandmas era: the hourglass was the silhouette du’jour. Translate this trend to today by looking for nipped in waists and A-line skirts.

Your hair is as important as your outfit: We bet you’ve never seen a picture of your grandma with a topknot. That’s because hair was considered the crowning touch to an outfit: make it yours by running a brush through it every now and again. Also, dry shampoo is your friend.

Life is a bitch and then there are the beggars

Living in South Africa is wonderful.

Only in South Africa can you be insulted by beggars at the traffic lights.

If these beggars actually did something constructive I might give them something.  But all they do is stand there and say "Gimme."

Most of them make more money than I do  and I work hard for the little I do make.

I cannot find a job (according to prospective employers) because:

a) I am white
b) I am old (at 58)
c) I am female
d)  and one little employment "consultant" had the cheek to tell me I am too fat.

So I work doing deliveries and taxiing people around. I also teach people to use computers.

I am now so deep in debt that I am on the verge of being evicted.

MUSIC AND NARRATIVE

What is it with documentary producers?

They insist on adding crappy musuk to the narrative of a documentary thereby overcrowding the narrative with useless duff duff crap.

I don't have a hearing problem, merely that I have difficulty excluding the musuk from the narrative.

It detracts from the documentary not enhance it.  Most times when I hear the musuk I switch the sound off and watch the documentary sans sound.

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY - (a husband's point of view)

The missus bought a Paperback,

down Shepton Mallet way,

I had a look inside her bag;

... T'was "Fifty Shades of Grey".

Well I just left her to it,

And at ten I went to bed.

An hour later she appeared;

The sight filled me with dread...

In her left she held a rope;

And in her right a whip!

She threw them down upon the floor,

And then began to strip.

Well fifty years or so ago;

I might have had a peek;

But Mabel hasn't weathered well;

She's eighty four next week!!

Watching Mabel bump and grind;

Could not have been much grimmer.

And things then went from bad to worse;

She toppled off her Zimmer!

She struggled back upon her feet;

A couple minutes later;

She put her teeth back in and said

I am a dominater !!

Now if you knew our Mabel,

You'd see just why I spluttered,

I'd spent two months in traction

For the last complaint I'd uttered.

She stood there nude and naked

Bent forward just a bit

I went to hold her, sensual like

and stood on her left tit!

Mabel screamed, her teeth shot out;

My God what had I done!?

She moaned and groaned then shouted out:

"Step on the other one!!

Well readers, I can tell no more;

Of what occurred that day.

Suffice to say my jet black hair,

Turned fifty shades of grey.

Guides should tell tourism where to stick its Cathsseta

John Scott

August 13 2013 at 10:50

Guides should tell tourism where to stick its Cathsseta

A wonderful thing, bureaucracy. It can deprive people of their livelihoods at the stroke of a pen.

That’s what it’s done to hundreds of Cape Town tour guides who completed a three-year national diploma in tourism management at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and have been working competently in the industry ever since, only to be informed by the Department of Tourism that their accreditation is now invalid.

Apparently they are no longer recognised as “legal guides”. They may not work unless they have a certificate from Cathsseta, which sounds like something you use for urine drainage but actually stands for Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Education Training Authority.

What a lot of... not urine, the other substance!

Surely three years at a university should be sufficient to teach you how to show visitors the attractions of the Cape.

All you need do is swot up a bit of history, be knowledgeable about the exact state of the Robben Island ferry’s seaworthiness and when its next breakdown is likely, learn the difference between leucadendrons and leucospermums before taking your party to Kirstenbosch, stop them falling over the edge of Table Mountain, be able to expound on the relative after-tastes of Merlot and Pinotage, convince them that Cape Point is southern Africa’s most dramatic headland (even the Cape Agulhas two-ocean fanatics can’t argue with that), and Bob’s your uncle.

So long as they don’t think you’re referring to that Zimbabwean Bob.

Rather tell them you’ve met Nelson Mandela. That will impress them. They are not to know that nearly everybody in South Africa has met Madiba at some stage or other.

The diploma course graduates will be even better informed. But if they now try to impart their knowledge to paying guests, they are likely to be pounced on by the tourist police, or whoever enforces the tourism authority’s absurd edicts.

That wouldn’t have stopped me when, some 25 years ago, I proclaimed myself to be a “mountain walk guide”.

Having lost a parliamentary election as Prog candidate and been reduced to freelance work, I added that to the top of my letterhead, after “writer, editor and after-dinner speaker”, in the hope that I could also augment my income by taking visitors up the mountains I had been climbing as a man and a boy.

Alas, no one ever requested my mountaineering services.

Thank goodness my other abilities were more in demand, or my family would have starved.

I trust that my old friend Nachum Arnoni is not rendered penniless by the tourist licence fiasco. All Israeli tourists to the city know that in Nachum (who prefers to be known as Norman to his friends and whom my wife calls “Stormin’ Norman”) they have a tour guide who speaks fluent Hebrew. Which is not surprising because he was born and bred in Israel.

Another tour guide friend is Hugh Finn, who gained his accreditation after retiring as headmaster of St Joseph’s College. He reminded me that guides were also required to have a diploma in first-aid. I just wondered whether mental assessment fell within the ambit of first-aid, in which case all those guides put out of work might consider asking the tourism bureaucrats whether they wanted their heads read.

 johnvscott@mweb.co.za