It's Time - Patrick Harvie MSP [Equality Network]

Finger Lickin Gross !

Kentucky Fried Chicken is a well known brand world-wide. The Colonel's smiling face and his secret recipe of southern spices is a top consumer brand, with franchises all over the world. 

Here in South Africa though, all is not well with KFC. Their Facebook page is peppered with stories of bad service and even badder chicken. Take a look at this one !

We bought this from a KFC branch at N1 City shopping centre in Cape Town yesterday. it was horrible. What was even worse was the attitude of their customer service reps, a company called DSG who handle all their complaints. It took all afternoon and evening to get a response from them,other than a standard reply of going to some email address or other. 

Eventually, we got a call from Daryl Shapiro, DSG's top dude in JoBurg. He wanted the chicken sent to him by courier which he arranged. But after they banned us from their Facebook page,we preferred to take the chicken to the public health department in cape Town. 

Daryl helpfully gave me his cell number which is 082 903 0310 just in case you have a complaint too. But also, you can call 0860 100 222 and demand a free meal as compensation should you have had a bad experience. 

We'd encourage you to call - its only by pushing in this way that these big businesses can be held to account. Also, please go to our 'alternative' Facebook account, 

 and 'like' us and leave your KFC South Africa experience over there. 

Spectrum Properties in Glasgow

Beware- cowboy landlords are alive and well in Glasgow!

Dalmarnock-based Spectrum Properties show scant regard for the law and fail in their duty of care to tenants.
We've had constant problems with these people ever since we rented a factory unit from them. A leaky roof cause damage to expensive raw materials and the wiring in our kiln. Then flooding caused by blocked drains resulted I almost £6K of damage to our fittings and fixtures and artworks.

This bunch of sheisters refused to give us their insurance company details, and so we are now being forced to sue them for damages. We cleared the valuable things out of the warehouse, and stopped paying rent. And wrote to them informing them of this. Again, no reply. And luckily for us that we'd emptied our unit because they then proceeded to unlawfully evict us by removing our padlocks and changing the locks.

So we're now having to act against them for unlawful eviction. What a bunch of shits. Avoid them like the plague, that's our advice!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Bank Fashion...two bywords for bad service..

We like good service here at Ballito Bay. It's been one of the things we've tried to keep up, for any of the customers at our different networks and outlets. We're quick to praise, like with Yodel delivery couriers and KLM.. Our favourite airline, and the Holiday Inn folks at East Kilbride. All great examples of fantastic service.

But Bank Fashion....oh dear oh dear. Part of the JD sports group, you'd think they'd know a thing or two about looking after folks, but apparently not. I'm not sure if the old adage, pay peanuts get monkeys applies, but it may well fit the bill. Because if two of their motley crew are anything to go by, paying them more than peanuts would be making monkeys out of their employers.

Here's a potted version of the story. Order placed via next day delivery for some clothes for a 21st birthday present. Order duly dispatched but without any checking for quality. Order received in a very poor state with substandard packaging. Boots damaged. Desperate attempts to have them replaced by physical store failed so boots had to be returned. Mobile telephone used to call their 0845 number. This took 25 minutes!!! It's the sell it and forget 'em attitude. And here's where the muppets come out to play...

Firstly, an employee called John O'Callaghan provided a false land-line number!! Talk about avoiding having to deal with an issue...does this idiot just make it up as he goes along? Or does he just not care? Stupid is as stupid does, said Forrest Gump's mother. Does the cap fit? You decide.

Then grunt number two, Adam Short is just a human version of a relay. With no obvious authority to broker a compensatory deal, he passes comments to and fro between us and his imaginary friend sitting somewhere close by. What exactly is the point of Adam Short? He appears to have not much of what one might call a useful function at Bank.

This company is one to avoid like the plague. They don't care about customers. They have employees who are clearly just not up to their roles and in one case above, the unfortunate O'Callaghan, give out false information just to fob off their customers. 25% off an order is not sufficient for your many shortcomings, Bank Fashion, part of JD Sports. It amounts to just about a tenner in this case, and for a ruined 21st birthday which could have been avoided by better product checking procedures, it's an insult.

And the monkeys at Bank fashion....you just keep on munching the peanuts. Frankly, its about all you're good for....


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Wonderfully eclectic...

...that's the new range of kitchen clocks from our pals at bottles2clocks. Not content with scavenging in bins for old alcohol bottles, they now recycle some well known food jars and bottles as well. Think Hellmans, HP, Napolina, Nescafé, and Heinz...  With loads more to come, they're a great addition to what must surely be the largest range of bottleclocks in the UK! Have a look here - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Refurbishing and reopening...

We've got lots going on over the next couple of months or so. Please retweet us as often as possible to spread the word around...(we remember and reward our Twitter and Facebook friends!)

We are exhibiting at this year's Art Erotica exhibition in London at the Cork Street Gallery where Ruth's Glass Sculpture "Sexual Baggage" has been shortlisted for the prize list. Details here http://www.arteroticaexhibition.com/

The sculpture and other similar works in Glass are our current exhibition on display in our Gallery. It will be re-exhibited from Feb 1st for one month.

Details can be found on our website 'glass' page

We will be having a glass jewellery sale starting on Feb 1st featuring hand-crafted and bespoke jewellery from local artists and designers at some amazing prices(many items under a tenner!)...perfect for St Valentine's Day.

We will be making glass hearts for Valentine's day. They make the perfect gift for that special other and are available in a variety of designs, including the rainbow colours and pink, as well as the usual red. They come complete with a sterling silver chain and sell at £9.99.

Our Bottle clocks will be on sale again from February 1st again at amazing prices. All your favourite drinks brands, as well as kitchen clocks ( Heinz, Marmite, HP, Olive Oil, etc) will be buy two get one free whilst stocks last, whilst single purchases will be discounted by 20%

We are currently undertaking Stained glass window commissions and restoration/repair work and are booking up to June 2012 so far. Please get in touch for any stained glass work you require.

Our Cafe will be reopening for customers from Feb 1st for Hot drinks, breakfast, cakes, and afternoon teas. *Free hot drinks for all customers spending £15 or more in our glass gallery*

Please feature these offers on your website, and Facebook as well as twitter. We are always very greatful for all the fan publicity we get from you guys :-)

We are about to start selling glass craft supplies, including all types of glass in a wide range of colours and designs, materials and sundries fro cold glass work and stained glass. We will also be selling glass working kits and tools, books, designs, DVD's and software for glass artists, craft folks and jewellery makers. Workshops and teaching sessions will also be restarting very soon. We will update you as and when these happen.

Bottles 2 clocks

Have you had a look at some of the fantastic bottle clocks and cheesboards over on our updated sister site...?

http://www.bottles2clocks.co.uk/

Some really great original ideas for presents. Unique and handmade from recycled glass bottles. Order on line or visit us at Ballito bay on St Andrew's Street.

Not so random facts...number 2

Autism diagnoses growing in the USA by 10-17% each year !

Times and Tribune


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The impact of big business indifference

Those of you that have been following us from the Saltmarket premises, will remember that we had a huge struggle getting a telephone line and broadband connection after a lot of empty promises from Virgin Media Business. The trouble started when in December we were told its about a two week turnaround from Order to installation. We submitted the order only for it to go missing. Being human we are reasonably understanding particularly when the bad weather affected everyone. The post Christmas week led us to try and redo the order, only to discover that Virgin Media Business was closed from the 24th of December to the 2nd of January.

Now an organisation that employs 12500 employees and enjoys over a million customers, you would expect that at the very least there would be a skeleton staff to answer the phones over the holiday season. I should have stopped to think, there and then. I was however  blinded by the promise of superfast broadband.

The order was finally placed and accepted in January and we had an install date allocated for the 7th of February. The seventh of February came and went and there was no sign of Virgin. A phone call later and we were told there was a delay and the new install date was the 7th of March.

Bear in mind that this is a business utility  - not residential. BT could have done the install albeit with an ADSL line in under 3 weeks. We started to complain. The impact this had on walk in and online business was entering a high end four figure sum. We could not process credit card transactions automatically and had to make 0845 calls on mobile phones every time we needed to process a transaction. Working on the artists social media project had become nigh impossible impacting negatively on that side of our business.

We started to Tweet, Facebook and Forum notify. Suddenly we had the attention of the Bosses. An installation was organised and finally in March we had our installation.

What has come out of this is that we have realised that we are not alone. Virgin media are hurting businesses all over the country by its indifferent approach to customer service. They are also hurting themselves.

We agreed a compensation package, which was pound for pound extremely short of our losses, but in good faith and in the interests of spending our time constructively we decided to move on. We were asked informally not to reveal the details of this package. VIRGIN MEDIA Remember we signed NOTHING - it was all in good faith.

We moved premises with a promise of a maximum four week wait for our new install. I was told this would be much easier because it was an off network move and that it was an ADSL line installed by BT. A simple plug in, switch on operation.

I have the confirmation email that installation was to be on the 25th of August. I was initially impressed because the technician turned up on the 24th. Opened up the sockets, pressed a few buttons, played with some equipment and left. On the 25th two different technicians turned up  and did the same, announcing it would take a couple of hours and we were ready to go. Neither of the two technicians knew anything about the bloke that turned up on the 24th.

When we realised we had a phone line but no ADSL/broadband on the 26th I called to log the problem, and the previous number still had not been ported.

Since then Virgin have blamed BT,  BT have blamed Virgin. We had a new technician turn up and confirm the ADSL line was live and that it was a Virgin problem.

I have been given a static ip address, which any even slightly savvy person can test and realise it remains unallocated. VIRGIN MEDIA FAIL. This has nothing to do with BT, but everything to do with Virgin media's indifferent and possibly underpaid tech and customer service staff.

We have been given every excuse under the sun, from its a line fault and BT's fault, exchange problem - still BT's fault. Software fault, a reset at Virgin would fix it (Still waiting) - Ummmm unsure what it is and cant give a fix date. Hang on a fix date? It is even properly installed yet. How can you fix something that isn't even installed properly?

I decided to play devils advocate. I called BT business yesterday, gave them the address and postcode and asked for an installation date as well as a time frame. They made no promises. They asked me if they could come back to me. They had to find out about exchange status, line viability and some technical stuff. They came back to me (Something Virgin promises but fail to do) Guess what -Two weeks. The lines are live and active, no problems at the exchange and we can get a better deal. ADSL and lines.

Our telephone number was finally redirected yesterday.

We've just had a call to say they are sending the BT technician over. I am tempted to YouTube the shop CCTV which will capture it, when the technician finds nothing wrong. I really hope he does find something, because if Virgin are being wholly incompetent, we'll be passing business to one of the regular stream of lawyers that pass through our neighbourhood and thus our shop on their way to the courts across the road. And this time it wont be a paltry compensation package. Because consistent bad service hurts business, which hurts the economy and we need EVERYONE small and big business alike to approach economic stimulation seriously.


Virgin you are in breach of contract. Start quoting the small print again and we'll quote the law. The small print does NOT exempt you from the law.

Are you going to pay my advertising costs? Are you going to pay my rent proportionate to loss of revenue? What about my other overheads? If you took the hit proportionately to your revenue that we have taken to ours, it would make business news headlines!

And we are now being contacted by others that have suffered under their bad service, administration and big company bullying. It is a well known fact that when the small guys get together, their shouting is loud and it gets heard. One small voice turns louder with each person/business that emails us and sends us details of their experience. It is the customer that pays your salaries, your rent, your overheads. If we successfully called on every dissatisfied Virgin customer to withhold payment for ninety days, it would be interesting to see what happens to your cash flow!

Creative industries, find creative ways to resolve problems.Virgin should try employing some creative people. By the way that Churchill salute on their website actually looks like the people are standing behind a rude hand gesture! Says so much for what they think of their customers.

Pearsons - End of an era in Scotland

With Pearsons closing down, leaving Scotland one supplier less and no source of Art Glass on the west coast of Scotland, we are going to stock and supply small amounts of bullseye and spectrum glass. We shall also have some moulds and tools available. We wont however seek to be competing with the lovely folk at Retro-Glass on the scale on which they operate.

We'll also be stocking very small sizes and amounts of glass for those of you that want to finish off that essential project without having to buy a full. half or quarter sheet. sizes will be marked by area and/or weight. Either or both. This will incude frit etc.

While our business is primarily aimed at the walk in market, a mail/phone order service will be available.
 We have an excellent book resourcing service and will seek to provide books at cut rate prices.
Books are available to buy, or if youre just looking to resource a project come into our reference library.

While we are strict about copyright issues, photocopying is available for research and students, for a nominal fee.

Our new gallery opens at last...

Finally after months of searching and weeks of hard work our new gallery and coffee shop is now open. We've a much larger range of glass art, jewellery and stained glass, and much more room in a huge basement workshop to undertake special commissions and restoration. Our teaching will expand as well so look out for our updated list of Glass classes for September.

We can still offer you great tasting coffee, teas, and cold drinks whilst you browse, or why not join us for breakfast, with lovely bacon, sausage and potato scone hot rolls on offer every morning.

With great music and free WiFi thrown into the mix, why not pay us another visit very soon. We look forward to seeing you :-)

Here are some piccies of our new gallery

Fireworks app - from Ballito Bay

Coming Soon...... from Ballito Bay, that web app, glass artists have been waiting for! A Brilliant little app, that lets you choose the make (Bullseye, System 96, Baoli etc.) and thickness of the glass(2mm, 3mm,6mm)  and then what you want to do with it - fuse, slump, cast etc and produces a recommended firing schedule in either centigrade or fahrenheit. The easiest quick access handy helper right in your pocket! Available in both android and iphone!

Soon to follow... other crafters schedules. Watch this space.

We are moving...

Yes, our search for bigger and better premises has been concluded successfully and we've just signed a lease, and will be moving over the next two weeks.

The new Gallery and workshop will be just around the corner in St Andrew's Street in the building previously used by the Gorbals Art project. It's a much bigger unit, with more floorspace and a huge basement. Plenty of room for all our different activities; teaching and demonstrations, glassworks, Art, and our cafe. We are going to be open later into the evening on some days, and our Saturday Vinyl record sessions will also move to the new Gallery. There will even be space for the occasional live performance !

We'll be having a big opening event pretty soon so watch this space for all the details...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Your memories preserved for ever ( well, nearly. For a long time anyway!)

We've just started doing something a little different here at Ballito Bay. Say you've got a lovely image or photograph you want to keep or display. We are now able to take a copy and transfer it onto a glass plaque or pendant!

We posted some images on Twitter

If you go though our tweets, you'll see the images ! Or have a look over at our website http://www.ballitobay.co.uk/

Or... Here

And
Here


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Scooping the news

Jaye signed up to a new social media projec called Scoop it! This online product enables you to curate your own topic and manage the content. Its really fabulous and Ive had a look at what she's done for her project with scottish autism. I have hastily followed suit and truly hope that they will invite us to do the same.

The Art glass industry is so diverse and is made up of an international glassy people population that really enjoy sharing their work. This application is great for sharing news and views globally and makes accessing what is happening world widea positive experience.

Cant wait for the invite!

Father's day is here again..

Ballito Bottles-part 2

Have a look over at our Tumblr for some lovely ideas for #fathers day coming up very soon. Contact us or purchase through the website contact page.

Enjoy

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ballito Bottles !

We've turned the showroom into the workshop for the next few weeks. This is mainly to catch up on some work and build up stock again. We took delivery of hundreds of empty glass bottles today to be turned into clocks, place mats, serving dishes, cheeseboards, vases, and tumblers.

Lots of jewellery to make as well as more pieces for the whips and chains exhibition that's coming up.

So, if you want to watch us at work turning recycled glass into beautiful jewellery and tableware, as well as some wonderfully erotic art, why not pop along and have a coffee whilst watching us creating :-)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

More erotica..

More items for the forthcoming Whips and Chains exhibition came out of the kiln this morning... here's a sneek preview of the work involved. The pieces are set on a clear glass with white swirl effect, and sepia olden day style images of various BDSM and LGBT symbols, poses and activity.
Register your interest on the website contact form, and if you'd like an invite to the opening event, let us know as well

Whips and Chains...

Is the title of our forthcoming exhibition. To give it its full moniker, Whips and Chains - a Journey in Glass through the world of BDSM Erotica...

Now this might not be to everyone's taste, but some of the planned pieces are going to be really beautiful and certainly thought provoking. And to give you a wee taster, have a look at some photographs of the first pieces. All the pieces will be on sale following the exhibition, some individually and some as collections....Please get in touch using our website contact form if you are interested in an invite to the exhibition opening night, or wish to express a purchase interest..