Thought Picnic: Taking a sniff at the stalk

A stalker strikes again

There is a saying that could be haunting as it could be disturbing, but rather than consider the saying it is the thought of being stalked or watched without knowing that you have featured as a target in a sniper scope.

Without being confronted, you are affronted by an invasion seeking to upset and discombobulate, someone aims to remotely control your every move inducing a sense of paranoia and caution leaving you wondering whether you are safe from harm.

I have navigated many such stalking episodes over the years that go back decades and have had experiences of attempted blackmail, threat of exposure, or possible embarrassment. I have addressed many such occasions with the resolve that I will not allow myself to be compromised and become a pawn at the behest of some cowardly agent seeking to cause distress.

Scuppered by recalcitrance

Where I could have had an ally and supporter in these issues, there has been a blank refusal to share pertinent information to help terminate the ability of such nefarious persons to sow discord and distrust. It is their prerogative to decide what they think is best even after persuasive arguments have been made to suggest a united front against an unseen enemy against using such material to insinuate betrayal.

One thing I will not abide with is chicanery by those who should know better. I can be impulsive as much as I can be decisive. What seems a done deal can quite easily be cancelled, I will not stand for threat, innuendo, or inference. I am deeply invested, and I can also cut my losses.

The less said, the better

I suppose I will not be treated as an adult, as I am being confronted with the undertones of an allegation. In that case, I will not cower in the fear of dread of being found wanting because of some failings that could both be expressed in the propensity for a liaison without essentially acting on it. An alter ego can be an outlet for certain frustrations, it separates the real from the imagined.

Many emotions are difficult to express in the kind of directness and detail demanded, however, I will not address this elsewhere. To say I am annoyed is an understatement, when I choose to be silent over expressing my thoughts, I have decided to be foolish, dumb, defenceless, and incapable – it is sometimes the smartest thing to do. You never know, when the time is right, what was left unsaid will have more than any impact imaginable.

I'll take the service, please and keep the compensation

A failure to do

Compensation: the refuge of service providers after the efficient display and demonstration of ineptitude and incompetence in the provision of an advertised and vaunted service you first can afford and pay for, that they have so failed to deliver, you are left both speechlessly askance and quite livid with rage.

You might think I am on the roll with regards to compensations in December, for at first, it was with my laundry service provider, LaundryHeap, with a laundry and dry-cleaning turnout of 24 hours, picking up and dropping off your clothes at your home.

A willingness to fix

When I used that service in mid-November, 20 out of 58 clothing items were returned in the service window, the rest involved a back-and-forth that ran for 4 additional days with a £10.57 compensation offered at that time.

Blog - Laundered to distress by Laundryheap

I was utterly dissatisfied even after using the service for years, and I resisted posting a review apart from what I posted on my blog, keeping my counsel and holding my peace. Then out of the blue on the first of the month, Laundry Heap contacted me to refund the full-service charge for 38 clothing items that were not returned within the 24-hour service window. It amounted to £184.50.

My globetrotting baggage

Moving on, we had a situation where I arrived in Cape Town 40 hours before my baggage which from the assurance of the captain on my Air France flight from Paris to Cape Town indicated our delayed departure was to allow for baggage to be loaded on the plane. The aircraft left Paris with less than half the baggage of the passengers that boarded the plane when we stood at the carousel a few minutes before 23:00 local time.

Blog - In flights of intermittent piquancy

We learnt that baggage had been left behind before each of us got emails from Air France informing us of the possible circulatory route our baggage would take to be reunited with us by Sunday, we having arrived on Friday night. After filling in a Property Irregularity Report with information of where to deliver my baggage, if and when it arrives in Cape Town, I took to Twitter to follow up on the progress.

My baggage made it to Amsterdam on Friday night and then was put on board a plane in the morning from Amsterdam to Cape Town, to arrive just an hour short of midnight. I heard nothing more and could not contact the office in Cape Town nor leave a message as their mailbox was full.

A disorderly organisation

I assumed my baggage was already in Cape Town, so I made for the airport and through some security to a desk where I was informed my baggage was on the way to my Cape Town address without anyone having contacted me to update me of that situation. It transpired my baggage was still on the airport premises, I collected my 3 suitcases and signed for them.

I then returned to Twitter to remonstrate, wherein I was given a link to claim some sort of compensation. You wonder what for? The T-shirt, the pair of shorts and the sandals, I got to just not be overdressed for summertime in Cape Town?

Then I got a call from Air France to my South African number where I was offered a maximum compensation of £85 and 8,000 Air Miles. I could quibble because the last time Air France forgot to keep my baggage on the same itinerary and schedule as I was, they gave me 10,000 Air Miles and it was a journey to Bucharest and I was reunited with my baggage within 24 hours. But for the fact that I was a premium rate customer with a Platinum Flying Blue card meant this was throwing pennies at me to compensate for pounds of distress. I was unimpressed, we soldier on.

An apartment apart in chaos

Then, we are left wondering what attracted us to the apartment we are staying in for 28 nights in Cape Town because we were no doubt taken in by the glossy pictures and that was about it. The letting agents that injected themselves into the process after we booked the apartment on Hotels.com now have to earn their keep because they have heretofore been sitting pretty and indolent.

The agent who was supposed to meet us to show us around the apartment was not available because of car trouble, then on entering the apartment, we began to see that so many things were not as stated in the details we read about this place. There is a lift in the building even as the material suggests there isn’t as there is a bathtub in the bathroom when we were informed it only had a shower. How do you miss that, except if you have never bothered to visit the property under management?

No cooks ever cooked here

There is no microwave oven in a 21^st Century apartment leaving you wondering if anyone who ever stayed here ever ordered or takeaway or even tried to cook anything with the aluminium pots that had no handles and lids without holders, it got worse when I tried to prepare a salad and there were no kitchen knives.

The wardrobe with two 1.5m rails only had 3 clothes hangers, and though the apartment had a washer/dryer with a 7kg/4kg weighting for the respective cycles, there was no clothesline and there is no vacuum cleaner in the apartment. Considering this is the 5^th apartment we are staying in since we started visiting Cape Town, even we are left astonished that this is the first time we have ever had to complain about where we are staying.

We always try to create a home away from home experience with fully domesticated living, but this is at a stretch difficult in this apartment without considerable remediation that the agent has informed us the owner of the apartment would sort out, we just do not know when and it is the 5^th day of our stay.

Get it right the first time, thanks

Now, this is my view of the issue of compensation, I do not need it, what I need is the service I paid for delivered to the standard and better of what was advertised without my need to complain, except to be appreciative and commend whoever and the service provider for their excellent service.

In fact, you can never fully compensate for a failed or below par service apart from paying back everything with a little more for the distress and inconvenience suffered. In my view, LaundryHeap went the furthest in the compensation stakes, Air France has not acquitted themselves well for the fact that the captain knew he was leaving France without our baggage and that it took that long to get things back to me.

Then 6 hours after I collected my baggage from the airport, I received a message from Air France indicating my baggage had arrived in Cape Town and will be delivered to my address. Honestly!

As for our apartment, we are expecting to be surprised if any of the issues were raised gets sorted out. One thing the agency and the owner of this apartment should avoid is a negative review because I will be honest and that is just the way things are.

Teargas and smoke in pandemic times

The root of public unrest

I do wonder if the right questions are asked that try to determine why people protest and those protests sometimes lead to the destruction of life and property in the aftermath of what the people consider is police brutality as the wheels of justice roll with lethargy and inertia if they do ever turn at all.

If there were a sense of justice that law enforcement was fully accountable for their actions in their call to duty without a seeming blanket of exculpation built into the system to exonerate working from the premise the police are infallible and the victim can never be innocent, maybe, just maybe, the frustrations of the people won't be pouring out onto the streets, they would allow the system of justice to run its course.

Weed out the rotten cops

The police forces know the bad eggs amongst their lot, sworn allegiances and unquestioned support amongst the ranks leaving the institutions operating beneath the standards of probity and integrity and they harbour the undesirables always stores up trouble for the future when for each infraction by the irresponsible crew they are assured immunity to go out to act with more impunity.

They should stop shielding the worst amongst their ranks, punish them and kick them out before they kindle the tinder of societal unrest and set in trail irreparable damage.

America is imperfect, grossly flawed, and has constantly been in a pressure cooker tensioned situation since its birth. The more we think things are improving there are many examples of where things are no better. To then be cursed with a leadership that has no facility or capacity to unify the people in a common purpose for the good is like Ichabod is enthroned on One Nation unto God.

Teargassing, smoking, and respiratory pandemics

There is much difficulty controlling violent protests, angry mobs, and riotous crowds in ordinary times. Crowd dispersal with tear gas during a global pandemic exacerbated by a possibly airborne virus that could cause respiratory distress and grave illness as we are instructed to keep safe distances between each other computes on the side of the unbelievably incredulous like no one is using their senses.

One other thing, I would hope the pandemic addresses with some determination is smoking on the streets either from cigarettes or vaping. For if the social-distancing requirement is to prevent contracting COVID-19, what should not be happening is people walking into the clouds of smoke or vapour expelled from the lungs of possibly infected people.

Ban it, treat it

I do not think it would be safe to have people trying to dodge smoke trails too as they walk the streets. It would call for designated smoking areas along with radical programmes to get people off tobacco because it would not augur well for pavement rage to develop from people taking umbrage to others who in their carefree use of tobacco products visibly pollute the air we breathe as we incidentally, walk into their smoky slipstream.

For the purposes of full disclosure, I started smoking at 14 and gave it up at 18. I cannot remember what inspired it, I just stopped, I did not enjoy it anymore. I used to smoke menthol cigarettes then. Now, my doctor considers having dropped smoking over 3 decades ago as being a non-smoker.