Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog

“Overture” is a musical term, meaning introduction to a musical piece.   As a restaurant, Overture has been operating on the Hidden Valley wine estate outside Stellenbosch for 2,5 years, and no longer needs to be introduced.   With its owner and chef Bertus Basson, it has established itself as a most professional and passionate restaurant, which has made it on the Eat Out Top 10 restaurant list for the last two years.

To receive an invitation to a lunch at Overture is a treat - to spend 2,5 hours hours with Bertus Basson enjoying his restaurant’s lunch with him was an absolute privilege.   It was my fourth visit to Overture, having enjoyed each of our lunches in the past.

As I drove to the Hidden Valley Estate, well hidden at the end of a road that takes one past Ernie Els wines outside Stellenbosch, not far from another Eat Out Top 10 restaurant, Rust en Vrede, I had to think back how negative Rossouw’s Restaurants was about the road to Overture when JP Rossouw first reviewed it.  It is no problem to drive at all, unless JP has a fear of heights.  All is forgiven, Rossouw has been back, and now he has included Overture as one of his select top-rated 3-star restaurants.

Bertus and I started talking about the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant Awards, which placed Overture and Le Quartier Francais’ Tasting Room at joint 10th position, an unprecedented occurrence in the history of the Eat Out awards, and which attracted a huge degree of criticism.   Basson admits that he was extremely angry, using an unrepeatable word.  He consoled himself by saying that at least he was in good company with Le Quartier Francais’ chef Margot Janse.  Whilst he said he did not need to rethink his restaurant as a result of this ranking, he did make one immediate change - that was to start buying imported products, e.g. scallops, salmon, truffles, and foie gras,  because the imported products offered a better range, and the service delivery from the importers suited his needs better, says Basson.  Prior to this Basson had been ‘proudly South African’ in terms of sourcing his ingredients.  Recently Basson has thrown out the clipboard menu holder, and changed to a beautiful brown leather holder for each of the winelist, and the daily menu, the latter which changes daily.

Bertus Basson is a character - for years he sported a Mohican, but he has grown his hair, and now hides it underneath a grey ‘Andy Capp’ cap.   He had stopped smoking earlier in the week, and was really chuffed about this victory.   The restaurant has added new round tables, for tables for two, and added beautiful white table cloths and serviettes.   Bertus talks and talks, and he reflects confidence in his product and his staff, without ever sounding like he is bragging.   He has found his niche, yet he never takes his restaurant’s success for granted.  He often arrives at work, he says, and radically changes something about it - the winelist, a dish is added or removed, constantly reinventing the restaurant, believing that evolution is necessary for all restaurants.

We discuss the plethora of food blogs and restaurant websites, and he is critical of some, and complimentary of most.  He says he reads Eat Out, Food24, JamieWho, Kim Maxwell, Tony Jackman, Michael Olivier and WhaleTales regularly, to stay up to date about what is being written about restaurants.  While he wants to make sure that any mentions of Overture are positive, and he wants to learn more about his restaurant colleagues through these websites, he says that he does not care about reviews, because the success of his restaurant is purely measured by his bookings book.  The summer season has been very good, mostly sold out, and so far the ‘green season’ has been better than last year.

One of his favourite restaurants is Restaurant Christophe (its foie gras in particular - read our review), and he raves about George Jardine’s new restaurant at Jordan, both in Stellenbosch.

At Overture a three course meal costs R 265, 4 courses R 315, 5 courses R 375, and 8 courses R 470.   Pairing the courses to recommended wines costs extra.   Each portion is roughly the same size, so that there is no differentiation between the size of a starter or a main course.  In total, ten menu options are offered.   The wine list has a choice of reasonably priced Hidden Valley and Lands End wines, which come from the wine estate, but Overture also offers a small collection of four Cap Classiques/champagnes, white and red wines, and dessert wines each.  A special 4-course winter lunch menu is available at R 200, Tuesdays - Fridays.

We were spoilt by being served by the Maitre’d Kris van Zyl and the sommelier Kris Snyman.   An amuse bouche was brought to the table on a wooden board, with a selection of coppa ham, sweet cream and onion, parmesan cheese straws, garlic aioli, and caviar salt.  An olive roll was served with this, as was a refreshing glass of Graham Beck Brut Rose.  A glass of Jordan Unwooded Chardonnay accompanied the first course, which was my favourite dish of the meal: cured salmon and kingklip terrine, a beautiful pink/white wheel, oyster beignet, and seared scallop in a sweetcorn and vanilla sauce.  Tagliatelle, basil pesto, buffalo ridge mozarella and smoked aubergine puree, a symphony in green, was served with Aeternitas Blanc, a garagiste wine made by the Kanu winemaker after hours in his garage in the Strand.   A matured entrecote with turnips and pomme fondant was paired with the Hidden Valley Gems, a Bordeaux style blend.   When the dessert of chocolate torte, banana and banana sorbet was served, the sommelier brought two massive bottles of Bottega Chocolate Grappa, offering us a choice in white chocolate or dark chocolate.  The glass bottles look less like alcoholic containers, and more like those for shampoo, and become a talking point at the table close by, being so unusual.

Our coffees were served with a collection of jugs, containing a most unusual vanilla syrup, grappa, and cardomon syrup, which one can add to one’s coffee, a nice touch.   The ‘real’ Bertus came to the fore over coffee, and he talks almost emotionally about the new ‘addition to his family’, Patat his dog.  One can hear the love for his pet when he speaks.  He emphasises that Overture is family friendly, and he and his team will gladly prepare meals suitable for young guests.

I left Overture impressed with the slick operation which Bertus and his team runs.  His staff appear happy, despite his reputation of being a tough boss, but he needs the best staff, to stay at the top.   He sources the best products, and he has his hand firmly on his restaurant’s pulse, and is mostly in the kitchen himself.   If there was anything to recommend, then it is to the Manager Kris to look a little less serious, and to smile more.   I also found it hard to understand him explaining the elements of each dish, but was allowed to take the menu with me, to save me from having to write it all down.  I know I will return to Overture regularly, and that Bertus and his team deserve better than joint 10th in this year’s Eat Out Top 10 restaurant awards list!

Overture Restaurant, Hidden Valley Wine Estate, Annandale Road, off R 44, Stellenbosch.  Tel 021 880-2721.  www.dineatoverture.co.za (the website is not very helpful, with barely any information, and an outdated menu of 12 March).    Open for lunch Tuesdays - Sundays, and for dinner on Thursday and Friday evenings. Closed for a week for minor renovations from 10 May, re-opens on 18 May.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

After more than a year of claiming that all its of its beef, lamb and game is organic, and that it comes from owner Giorgio Nava’s Karoo farm, and persisting to do so for more than two months after this blog challenged this claim, Carne has finally changed the introduction to its website www.carne-sa.com, removing references to “Giorgio’s own Karoo farms” and “organically grown”, thereby doing the honourable thing!   We are surprised that it has taken him so long to make the corrections.

Originally the Carne website’s Homepage made the following claim:   “Dedicated entirely to meat as is evident from its Italian name, Carne SA is a carnivore’s paradise serving a unique offering of the finest cuts of Romagnola beef, Dorper lamb and game, all organically grown on Giorgio’s own Karoo farms.”

Now it reads as follows:  Dedicated entirely to meat as is evident from its Italian name, Carne SA is a carnivore’s paradise serving a unique offering of the finest cuts of Romagnola beef, Dorper lamb,game and more.  

When one clicks onto the word “more”, a full page explaining how Nava obtains his meat can be read.  This is what is written - difficult to follow at times, due to Nava’s ‘Italglish’: “Giorgio Nava’s flair for quality is undisputed. Patrons of the award winning 95 on Keerom have been enjoying the benefits of his culinary stance since their opening in 2003.   In alignment of Giorgios’ unwavering inclination towards supreme quality and use of only the finest ingredients has led him and his partners of Carne SA-(his latest instalment of Milanese appeal)-open since November 2008 to a intersection pertaining to the ultimate quality of meat offered at Carne.  Months of extensive research has seen Carne, a carnivores’ paradise which has to date boasted a unique offering of the finest cuts of Romagnola beef, Dorper lamb and game, all historically grown on Giorgio’s own Karoo farm- progress to a crossroad where a savoir-faire business approach and an adherence to the requests of the local market shift to now officially incorporating into-an already impressive free range selection- the finest in grass and grain fed beef. Patrons of Carne can look forward to an exclusive menu featuring the very best meat Southern Africa has to offer, aspiring to indulge the meat lover with an extensive choice of beef of which its calibre can be traced back to its farm, aging time and whether it was grain or grass fed. These all-inclusive details will be readily available to the customer-making dining at Carne an elite experience.  Absolute strict characteristics are considered before a product is included on the menu like age of animal, diet, terroir, slaughter process, fat content, and meat flavour.  Paying reverence to the meaning of its simple Italian name - meat, Carne surpasses the highest standards of all meat produce obtainable in Southern Africa guaranteeing the ultimate in carnivorous culinary.  Giorgio, his partners and all involved in Carne SA, are excited at its capacity to offer its followers both local and abroad the ultimate variety in supreme South African beef, delivering Carne SA to the status of international meat emporium“.

Initially Nava refuted the WhaleTales challenge about Carne’s organic and his Karoo farm origin claims, but did admit that he bought in meat from other suppliers for quality comparison purposes.  His supplier Gastro Foods also admitted that they supply non-organic and non-Karoo game to Carne.   The fact that Nava did not institute legal proceedings against this blog was further proof of the false claims made.

From guest feedback it was understood that Nava took great care to explain personally to all his Carne customers how he obtains his meat for the restaurant.

The Carne con correction leaves “steak” on Eat Out editor Abigail Donnelly’s face, in that she refused to allow a comment about the misleading Carne claims on the magazine’s website.  She is one of the three judges for the Eat Out Top 10 restaurant list, for which Carne was nominated last year.  

The original story about the Carne con can be read here.

POSTSCRIPT: Giogio Nava, the owner of Carne, has written a Comment to this post, denying making changes to his website due to the exposure of his restaurant’s misleading claims.   Read his comment (click on ‘Comments’ at the top). 

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

One could see it coming!   With numerous reports over the past month indicating that ticket sales for the World Cup were not as brisk as they should be, especially from non-South African countries, it has now been announced that prices of category 2 and 3 tickets have been slashed by FIFA, reports the Weekend Argus.

Instead of costing up to R 840 a ticket, category 2 and 3 tickets will now be sold exclusively to South Africans at R 140, on the www.fifa.com website, at FNB branches, or telephonically at 083 123 2010.

Furthermore, the number of category 4 tickets, the cheapest tickets, and offered at a special low rate to South Africans, will be increased, to boost sales, and to ensure that the stadiums are full on match days.   “The plan to discount tickets comes as Fifa admitted that projected inflow of tourists coming to the World Cup would be much less than expected”, writes the newspaper.   FIFA’s General Secretary, Jerome Valcke, told a British newspaper that it was trying its best to get more South Africans to buy tickets.

While the ticket price reductions make the tickets more affordable to South Africa’s soccer fans, those that had bought tickets already are angry that they bought them at the higher prices.  

No arrangements appear to have been made to encourage more ticket sales from other African countries, where soccer fans have complained that technological contraints in booking tickets via the internet, as well as general lack of credit card ownership, are impeding sales in those countries.

WhaleTales speculated that in a “FIFA flop”, ticket prices would drop, and that more South Africans than international soccer fans would watch the matches, a disaster for the hospitality industry, as the accommodation, restaurant, and other related services would not be required by locals, and would not be affordable to many of them, given that pricing had been set at 2010 summer rates + 10 - 20 % for the international market.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

The Whale Cottage Portfolio has increased the traffic to its website six-fold in one year, since embodying social media marketing, and has exceeded the 30 000 visitorship for the first time this month.  In 2009 a total of just fewer than 200000 unique visitors was recorded.

In January 2009 4850 unique visitors (i.e. unduplicated visitorship) had accessed the website, four months after Whale Cottage had started this blog www.whalecottage.com/blog.   At the end of December this had grown to 27 928 unique visitors.

The major impact on the growth in web traffic has been persistent blogging, with the target of one blog post published per day having been met with one or two exceptions.   Performance improved once the blog posts were posted during mid-morning, instead of just after midnight, when they had just been written.   This post is the 500th written on this WhaleTales blog.

Twitter has made a significant contribution too, with it serving as an “announcement” of what one has blogged about, providing a link to the website which can be accessed for more information, given its 140 character space restriction.   Whale Cottage has close to 700 followers, and has written more than 2 000 tweets to date.   Facebook has played only a small role in contributing to web traffic.

Cross-referencing has also assisted in the growth in Whale Cottage’s visibility, in that the social media links are part of the Whale Cottage e-mail signature; in that the WhaleTales newsletter invites its readers to follow Whale Cottage on Twitter and Facebook; and the blog has an RSS feed link, to enable regular readers to receive the latest WhaleTales blog post, and it has links to the Whale Cottage Twitter and Facebook pages.

New traffic to the website has come from restaurant reviews in particular, especially for new restaurants.  Few restaurants have websites, and do not understand about search engine optimisation.  Some Whale Cottage restaurant reviews have outperformed the restaurant websites in terms of the Google ranking on page one of a search on a specific restaurant.   Where other websites provided a link to the Whale Cottage blog in cases of restaurant controversy (e.g. Portofino, Carne), traffic to the website has been enhanced.

In 2009 the top 10 blog posts that were read most often were the following:

1.   Spar Sweet and Limelight Sour Service Awards (8 838)

2.   Petrol price drop best Christmas present for tourists (5119)

3.   Franschhoek goes Italian (Allora review) (4394)

4.   Rebel restaurateur a hit at Portofino (3 360)

5.   SA presence on top 50 restaurant list grows (2 468)

6.   Prince Albert celebrates in Fresnaye (2 276)

7.   Whales beach on Kommetjie beach (1 984)

8.   Minstrels do it for Cape Town (1 698)

9.   Table Mountain only SA New7wonders nominee (1 570)

10.  Sun Princess to visit Cape Town (1 510)

The most popular restaurants in Cape Town at the moment, based on restaurant reviews accessed on the Whale Cottage Portfolio website via Google this month, are Duchess of Wisbeach, Vaudeville and Kuzina.   

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

The Sweet Service Award winner is Robert’s Roofing, for fixing the roof of Whale Cottage Camps Bay on 17 December, four days after a gale force southeaster had taken 100 tiles off the roof.  Despite a public holiday falling into this week, and the builder’s holiday having officially started two days prior, and numerous buildings’ roofs in Cape Town requiring repairs in the aftermath of the storm, the company came just in time before it rained. 

The Sour Service Award winners this week jointly are Nedbank (Sour Award), ID Solutions (Sour Award) and Limelight (Sour Award), for threatening legal action against WhaleTales for their Sour Service Award nominations, not being able to face up to feedback about the poor service experienced first hand.   Big-bully tactics will not make WhaleTales withdraw its Sour Service Awards.  Freedom-of-speech is allowed in the South African constitution.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com. Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.

The Sweet Service Award goes to Ian Halfon and his team at Belthazar restaurant, a consistent winner of the Best Restaurant in the V & A Waterfront Award.   Halfon is a busy man, also owning Balducci’s in the V & A Waterfront, and a franchised collection of St Elmo’s woodfired pizza branches around the country.   However, he is not too busy to be hands-on at Belthazar, last evening even helping in the kitchen, complete with his chef’s uniform, and to make time to chat to his customers, and to offer them a glass of wine.   Belthazar offers one of the largest collections of wines-by-the-glass in South African restaurants, and serves excellent quality steaks in particular.   The food, service and wine range offered is exemplary. 

The Sour Service Award goes to Robben Island, for closing just before the Heritage Day long weekend, due to a technical problem with its ferry.   The company announced the “indefinite” suspension of the service, while it waited for a replacement part to be flown in from Germany.   Tourists who had booked tickets were met with a notice, and were not contacted by the company.   No contingency planning had taken place, over a weekend that saw the first signs of a recovery from the poor tourism weeks preceding Heritage Day.   The ferry trips appear to not have been re-instated, judging by Robben Island’s website.   Robben Island’s management is regularly in the news, for alleged financial irregularities and overspending.   The Island is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Cape Town, and it reflects badly on the professionalism of Cape Town as a tourist destination, especially given the 2010 World Cup being just over 200 days away.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.   Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.

As MATCH is unable to fill the missing 15 000 beds it requires to accommodate FIFA’s officials, sport teams and ticket package holders, it has made the shock announcement that it is letting go of its requirement that 2010 World Cup accommodation must be graded by the Tourism Grading Council, reports the Southern African Tourism Update.

MATCH requires 55 000 rooms, and has contracted 40 495 rooms to date, of which 75 % are hotel rooms and 25 % small accommodation rooms.

The report says that MATCH will use its “discretion” to select non-graded accommodation for the event.   The Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Tourism and MATCH will be amended to reflect the grading requirement change.

However, Minister of Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk was adamant that he preferred that graded accommodation be used: “The South African government neither supports nor promotes the use of non-graded accommodation establishments.     Furthermore, the South African government respects the right of all accommodation establishments, whether graded or not, to choose whether they want to contract with MATCH or not”.  These are interesting words, reflecting the Minister’s understanding of the resistance to MATCH by the small accommodation sector, regularly reported by WhaleTales in this blog.

In the media statement, MATCH reiterated that it will not contract private homes, an initiative driven by Seeff and Pam Golding estate agencies.

FEDHASA National CEO Brett Dungan addressed the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee last week, and trashed the Sunday Times report of a week prior, which described the resistance from the small accommodation sector to FIFA’s “MATCH-fixing”.   Southern African Tourism Update reports that Dungan said that MATCH requires ”100 000 rooms”, clearly an exaggeration of the FIFA accommodation requirement.   Dungan is also quoted as saying that only 13 % of small accommodation establishments have contracted with MATCH, which, if correct, reflects how deep the distrust of MATCH is by small establishments.   Dungan also is quoted as saying that a 20 % commission is a standard fee to pay when receiving business from tour operators.  Once again he appears to be poorly informed, as MATCH is taking a 30 % (not 20 %) commission on top of the 2010 accommodation rates, a most exceptionally high rate.   Dungan did acknowledge that there would not be enough accommodation in each of the towns and cities with 2010 soccer stadia, according to the report.

One of the solutions to general accommodation during June and July 2010 is cruise ships, not for MATCH, but for soccer fan groups and individuals.   The QE2 from Dubai was reported to have requested docking in the Cape Town harbour, but Minister van Schalkwyk had strongly rejected the request, saying that South African accommodation establishments should be supported.  

The latest news on cruise ships is that a German based company Moltke Promotion GmbH, through its subsidiary One Ocean Club,  has partnered with IKapa Tours & Travel.  The MS Noordam is reported by Southern African Tourism Update to be based in Durban harbour, accommodating soccer fans, who will be taken to Port Elizabeth for the quarter final, and for the third and fourth place play-off.   The MS Westerdam will be based in Port Elizabeth for the first half of the soccer tournament, and then will be cruising between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town in the second half.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio www.whalecottage.com]

The best tourism news in a long time is the announcement by Frankfurt-based Kleber PR Network that it has been appointed to market Cape Town, reports DeinTouristNet.

Kleber PR Network has good experience of marketing South Africa in Germany for the past 15 years, having been the PR company in Germany for S A Tourism for many years, until the local national marketing body appointed Ogilvy as its new advertising agency, with an affiliated PR company, therefore relinquishing its relationship with Kleber.  

Whale Cottage has accommodated S A Tourism journalists over the years, and can vouch for the knowledge of and passion for Cape Town and the rest of South Africa of the Kleber PR Network executives. 

Hanna Kleber, CEO of Kleber PR Network, said: “Kapstadt hat jede Menge Potential und wir freuen uns darauf, die Stadt mit gezielten Maßnahmen weiter im Urlaubs- und Businessreise-Markt zu etablieren.   Mit seiner traumhaften Lage an zwei Weltmeeren, dem spannenden Mix aus Nationalitäten und Kulturen und einer landschaftlichen Vielfalt, die ihres gleichen sucht, hat sich Kapstadt in den letzten Jahren als eine der großen internationalen Lifestylemetropolen einen Namen gemacht. Im Zuge der FIFA Fussballweltmeisterschaft 2010 - wird die Stadt zudem als wichtige Austragungsstätte im Fokus der Öffentlichkeit stehen.” (Kleber PR will further enhance Cape Town’s presence in the leisure and business tourism markets, and will position the city as a lifestyle metropole, being very much in the focus for the 2010 World Cup.)

One wonders why Cape Town Tourism does not communicate such exciting news to its members.  WhaleTales recently criticised the lack of visible marketing by Cape Town Tourism and by Cape Town Routes Unlimited, but neither of the two bodies responded to this criticism.  

The appointment of a PR company to market South Africa’s top tourism asset is fantastic news, and would delight its members, especially at a time when membership renewals are due!

Communication with Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, has confirmed the appointment of the Kleber PR Network for the marketing of Cape Town in Germany, and she also communicated that a PR company has been appointed in the UK.  A similar appointment is expected in The Netherlands shortly.

Read the full report here

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

The Sweet Service Award  goes to Murnier and his team at Value Car Hire.  Earlier this week a Whale Cottage Camps Bay guest inadvertently took the room keys with him when he checked out, and called the guest house from the airport.   He tried to find a way to get them back to Camps Bay.   Value Car Hire, with whom Whale Cottage has a long-standing relationship, had staff at the airport, and they kindly met the Whale Cottage guest at the check-in counter, and then delivered the keys back to the guest house.  A whale of a thanks to Value Car Hire!

The Sour Service Award goes to ‘Blonde’ Oscar Kotze of Beluga restaurant, for asking this writer to leave the restaurant when invited for lunch as a member and Chairman of the Camps Bay Accommodation association.    Kotze is a director of the Caviar Group of restaurants, which also owns Sevruga and the Caviar deli, as well as Blonde restaurant, which is to open in February.    The reason for the eviction appears to be that Beluga sister restaurant Sevruga received a Sour Service Award from WhaleTales more than 2 months ago in regard to the poor handling of the Penny Vincenzi launch lunch (see here).      The Marketing Manager Sam Obery was in a state, repeatedly being instructed by Kotze by phone to ask the writer to leave.  The staff ignored the writer, even though she sat at the table with her guest house colleagues, not taking her food order, and not serving her drinks other than water.   Kotze was asked to call the writer, but he refused, and also refused to take the call from the writer.  He instructed his staff to call the police, so that the writer could be evicted by them!   Kotze is short-sighted, as he had a fantastic opportunity to make good the writer’s perception of the Caviar Group of restaurants, which unfortunately has worsened as a result of this incident.   Ms Obery was severely embarrassed, understanding that in marketing one tries to turn things around to the positive, and that her marketing effort to attract business from guest houses in Camps Bay had become a PR flop. A smart restaurant owner would have called the writer, and thanked her for the Sevruga feedback, and asked her to retry the food and service that she had critiqued.   The marketing documentation presented to the guest house owners at the lunch was not adapted to be relevant to the guest house group, it thanking the guest houses for “coming to our fabulous cocktail party… this evening”, when it was a lunch they attended!

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.   Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.  

The Sweet Service Award  goes to M-Web, the largest supplier of internet services in South Africa, who have passed on their broadband savings to their customers.  All M-Web subscribers will receive at least one extra GigaByte of broadband for their subscriptions, without an increase in their subscription fee. Even a booster package of R 99, which bought 1 GB in the past, will now supply 1,5 GB.

The Sour Service Award  goes to the SABC TV Licence department, for their inability to provide a tax invoice - instead they issue a statement, yet expect to be paid for the new annual subscription.   A SABC TV call center employee refused to provide the Invoice initially, until the centre supervisor’s assistance was requested.  Given the financial problems of the SABC, one wonders why their staff are so arrogant and rude to TV viewers, as they should be welcoming payment, and make it as easy as possible for TV licences to be paid.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.   Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.