GrumpyOldGuy

Yah, I forgot about it, I read it a while back, it must have been hell on earth, something like that is definitely going to change you one way or another, agreed, very good book,

Indeed, just looking at the cover was scary enough for me.

Thanks, I shall download it onto my Kindle today. Yip, sometimes I also wonder, actually I think our pets and probably all our fellow animal friends are a lot more intuitive than we give them credit for.

Great, its easy light reading, a feel good book, its not a Tolstoy classic by any means but I am almost convinced I want a penguin now.

No was not aware of her at all, seems I may have been living in a musical desert for a while. Beautiful Lyrics, I shall do so and listen to a few on you-tube, thank you for the heads up, thats two wonderful artists I didn't know of.

I interrupted my usual reading this weekend to read a book my wife just finished, "The Penguin Lessons" by Tom Mitchell and I pronounce it brilliant. Unique, captivating and human, its about a young man who rescues an oil covered Penguin, he takes it home washes it and tries to set the penguin free, however it refuses to leave.......if you dont read anything else this year, read this!

Yah, its a very "real" song and I relate to it in much the same way, my father also passed when I was not around, I never got to say goodbye, so for me its a very genuine song, a tribute if you like. Aah yes, Cat Stevens, haven't heard his music for a while, but its always been thought provoking, Billy Joel too, Piano man is most likely his (and my favourite) but "You may be right" and a number of others were also good. What about the Moody Blues.....

Here ya go.......

Indeed, I still have many of Louis L'Amours early westerns on my book shelf, they were great easy reading. Another great Western author was George G Gilman, he wrote a series of westerns known as EDGE. I have just pulled one off my shelf now Edge - the loner, Published in 1971 and I paid a whole R1.95 for it. I'll try take a photo just for fun.

Or perhaps this one by Mike and the Mechanics.?

Yah,.... a lot of music I listen to has a Christian theme Uni, musicians like David Ruis - Sweet winds, or Don Francisco - Never let go of your hand,... music like that, you can find them on you tube if you feel like it. I like music that has meaning to me, I sort of have to feel a theme, emotion, it must be relative to me, sadly I dont find much modern music like that, it may be out there but I just haven't found it. That said I like a lot of the music by the Eurythmics, Annie Lennox has a lovely voice and I think one of her best songs was the one below. Otherwise I listen to John Lennon, Mike and the Mechanics, Toni Childs, even occasionally Robbie Williams, but I stress.. occasionally! I also like Dire Straits as your last post, Brothers in arms, Money for nothing, all great songs. See how you enjoy Annie.

Ha, Ha, Okay, well 50 is still young in my book... still a beautiful voice, strong and clear, lovely song and a treat to listen to.

Thats actually very good, never heard it before but the young lass has a beautiful voice. Most of the music I see on here is a bit to modern for me, but I liked this, its beautiful.

Yes, Indeed I have, I enjoyed it but I enjoyed his early travel books more, as Steven mentioned Walk in the woods was also good, his "short history" got a bit boring for me eventually, but it was still a nice read....I give it 70%.

Indeed, me neither, and I include horror movies or TV shows in that as well. I haven't read Robert Rankin but I quite enjoy British Humour so I may look into that, makes me think of that crazy book "Three men in a boat" by the British comic author Jerome K. Jerome, its a humorous travel novel written, I think in the early 19th century, but its laugh out loud hilarious, I think I must have read it three or four times now over the years and it always makes me chuckle. Another author who started out writing really funny travel books in the modern era is Bill Bryson, his "Notes from a Small Island" (UK) was a lark, as was his "Travels in a big country" (USA) but then he also lost the plot in my opinion and his recent books have left me under impressed, I seldom dont finish a book, but his recent "The life of the Thunderbolt kid" was one of the few I didn't finish.

I am busy with Pirate Hunters by Robert Kurson at the moment, its about the discovery of the Pirate Ship "The golden Fleece" for me its thrilling reading because I enjoy books about diving and the underwater habitat, but you dont need an understanding of wreck diving or even the underwater environment to fully appreciate it, its aimed at everybody who has an interest in the history of Pirates and their ships.

I dont read fiction much anymore, but at a time I really liked Stephan King, I think he lost the plot a bit though in his later books, I never enjoyed them, the Dark tower was really pitiful in my opinion. For me his best book was "The Stand", followed closely by "Salems Lot". Other very good one's were "The long walk", "The Shining" "The Mist" was a short story but really good as well, actually any of his earlier books were great reading, from the late 80's onward he struggled to keep my attention, I tried a few recent ones but they just didn't do it for me.

Sure, I think a lot of distributors locally in SA are accepting the fact that folk move around the world and supporting the brand is just as important for their future business as the name of the manufacturer. Yes, I had to show I had actually paid for the Harley legitimately with papers and I had to re register it on the USA data base with a local registration number, but thats part of the legal process which I imagine is the same all over, but Yah, you always get the chancer I guess. Just as another example and I wonder how a local distributor would handle this, lets take a hypothetical case of a couple on Honeymoon in Austria, great ski slopes, great food, all looks good, but Hey, you want a better video of your lovely new wife than your mobile is capable of producing, so not wanting to waste your valuable honeymoon memories you rush out and buy, lets say, an action camera at the local store, you take some great video's and return home. A few weeks later it develops an issue, you take it in to your local shop explain the issue and rightly expect it to be repaired under warranty, but are refused based on the fact it was not bought domestically. This is not right, this is not a good business decision and does nothing but make the customer antagonistic and irritated, and for what, a camera the manufacturer will replace anyway? I have to ask is it worth it.? Please let me reiterate, this is a hypothetical question, I have no idea if a SA distributor would react like that or not, for all I know they may say sure, no problem, I am just showing how a legitimate customer can be inconvenienced and irritated by rigid terms and conditions, and bear in mind a camera could just as easily be a wheel set, a seat, a pair of shoes, it makes no difference, the outcome is the same, an unhappy customer who feels done in.

Yah, indeed, I bought my Harley in SA and Harley here have had no issues with supporting the maintenance contract and warranty, all it required was a change of registration numbers and "Viola" ... done deal.

Sure, I hear you Eldron, but unfortunately in business you cant stack everything in your favour, eventually it becomes too onerous for somebody, usually the customer. As a distributor of any product I think one needs to factor in that a small percentage of your claims will be iffy, this could be due to grey products or downright fraud, but its part of the deal, if you are not prepared to accept that, then in my opinion you want too big a cake slice. You are correct we benefited from future maintenance contracts, but had we said "sorry boys, not our problem", we would have also walked away from those contracts and a lot of good will, most people and companies are not unreasonable, its not difficult to find middle ground be it in the form of a small handling fee, or a minor labour charge or a call out fee, whatever, I think its important to look for ways to be inclusive, a rigid attitude to what is now a global phenomenon (internet purchases) is just riding a road to nowhere.

Yeah, but I think its a short sighted attitude. We live in a global world where every single manufacturer bar none is trying to get closer to his customer, not further away. People buy goods in one country and move to or use it in another, why should they not be covered.? In most instances this is NOT the manufacturers attitude, its the distributors, the manufacturer cares not a jot where he replaces a warranty item, it can be in SA or inner Mongolia for all he cares, as far as he is concerned a warranty is a warranty. Actually its my contention that the distributor does not lose money by supporting so called gray products for warranty, we were the distributors for an American brand of pumps for industry, but some of our customers were global companies who purchased their pumps elsewhere and shipped them around to the job on hand. Often we were called on to attend to warranty issues and we did it with a smile, why shouldn't we, it was no skin off our nose, we simply claimed a warranty part or unit from the manufacturer and without fail it was replaced. In fact it was good business for us to attend to warranties even if we did not sell the product, because the customer came back time and time again for other items or jobs, never underestimate the goodwill of a happy customer. I had an issue with my Sony camera i bought in SA, it was still under warranty by Sony and I took it to a dealer here, he looked at it to check the fault, made a call and replaced it, no questions about where i bought it, why should he care, Sony replaces it to him and he makes a customer happy who may, next time buy it from him. As I say, to me its a short sighted attitude.

Interesting points indeed, let me just say I know nothing about the cycle issue but I just wanted to make a comparison point, I think SA is unique in that there is such an unequal society, so if things like basic food (bread) fuel, medical care, pharmaceutical products etc were not somewhat regulated by Government, it could end up been beyond the reach of the population. In the USA there is no such regulation that I am aware of on for eg. medical care and pharmaceutical products, its a free market principle, and consequently, as you know, health care in the USA is exorbitantly expensive, so from that perspective I think some regulation on essential products and services especially in the SA scenario is a good thing. I have sort of read many of the posts here and I find it interesting to see the diverse opinions, but in my own personal opinion price fixing for niche market, non essential items (certainly luxury high end bicycles and parts) is indefensible simply because it removes the only option in the customers favour,... price!.

Interesting analysis and most likely correct, but something that irks me no end is this attitude of... "Well in the future it will be better".. and its not only Discovery, this is a general trend across all spectrum's,.. "stand by it will get better".. to which I say thats fine, "but what about the incredible importance of now?" We tend to forget, today is also important to those who may not benefit in the future.

Indeed, usually always the case, it doesn't effect me (although when in SA I did have Discovery Vitality, used it often and thought it was very good) but glancing through the posts here it really doesn't seem fair, any reward programme is designed to retain and incentivise the user equally, it just doesn't strike me as fair that one person slogs out a 5 km run in the wind and rain, another drives up to the door walks in, swipes, then goes home to sit in front of the TV and they are both rewarded equally. People have busy lives today, after a tough day at the office, (and remember not everyone's "office" is an office,... some people do brutal manual labour), and you are tired and hungry, its easy to just go swipe collect your minimal points and go home, but, perhaps if the reward (points) was worth it, you may be incentivised to drag your butt out and go do a 5 km run,.... dont know, just my mileage,.. others may differ.!

Ha,Ha yeah, we did much the same. Land in Miami, hire a car and drive to Orlando (stopping frequently at Cinnabon en route), a week or so in the Magic Kingdom and back to Ft Lauderdale for some diving at West Palm beach, Beer drinking anywhere along the strip and shopping at Sawgrass Mills. I can vividly remember doing numerous trips back to the car every time with loads of shopping bags full of discount clothes, running shoes, jackets, perfumes, handbags you name it. Yes, you are probably thinking of Mega cycles, a short hop from Sawgrass, maybe 5 miles down the Sunrise expressway, I was last there, Sawgrass and Mega in May 2012.... I think I am due another visit.