It has to be said that hard work and excellent service certainly pays off. One coaches gently that tourism is all about service and dedication, which in this particular instance has to be lauded.

A few months ago, the Spur steak house on the harbour point was taken over by new owners. These young people have completely refurbished the cafe that was almost derelict and extremely tatty. They have with the workers they employed, toiled in that establishment from before sunrise, day after day. Customers were almost unaware of the work taking place, as when the doors opened every day, all work stopped, and the building was spotless. Long after the last clients had left at night, the same workers arrived to continue working through to late night.

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The most amazing thing was revealed the other day in relation to the telephone lines that went down big time in Port Alfred. When the Telkom engineers started digging up the cable at the traffic lights, they discovered that the date stamp on the cabling was 1936! Imagine then, 75 years later they eventually breakdown due in part to rust from the water seeping under the ‘joiners’ and the aged copper simply gave up the ghost.

For many this will not mean much, other than the new cables will ensure good service, but for those elderly residents, these cable were laid for the ‘telephone-exchange’ which was the first system in Port Alfred. What fun those exchange folks used to be.

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If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." Mark Twain.

This is a classic concept between newspapers one has to pay for, and “free-sheets’ that are handed out to all and sundry. There is an added intervention here, and the conception of ‘on-line’ newspapers’, which have become extremely popular, although argument shows at the convention of journalism recently, headed by noted, ‘regarded’ editors, professors of journalism, and classical ‘war-hacks’, that the online tendency, unless an off-shoot of  known media, are “predisposed to editorial mis”. The ‘mis’ is the pre-emphasis which they regard opinionated twaddle, sensationalism, and incorrect reporting of facts. The discussion went onto highlight language, (with praise for the Afrikaans media), punctuation, the horror of ‘texting’, which has appeared lately, and the lack of apology when the information is proved incorrect.

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