A vendor with an agenda

I’LL BET you probably believe that there is nobody worse than a pushy telemarketer, but you may be wrong.

People who sell products or services over the phone have an incredibly hard job. Having to coldcontact a potential client and then, in just five minutes, try to convince someone that they can trust you and that what you are promoting is worth their investment, is not something I think I could do.

And though I do have sympathy for telemarketers, I confess that I lack the patience to listen to their spiel, especially that formulaic greeting: “Good morning sir, how are you doing,” they ask; and when you – by pure reflex or habit – ask how they are, the answer is always the same, “I am doing very well, sir, and thank you for asking.”

Once they’ve said that, one of the most irritating songs I know starts to play in my head – Hallo, goeie môre, hoe gaan dit, by Maritza.

And hours after they’ve ended the call, that earworm with its polkabeat keeps on playing in my head.

It’s true, I have found, that the agony of telephonic sales lasts long after the call has ended.

However, I have learned that there is something worse than having a telemarketer unintentionally put an earworm in your head; and that “something worse” is being accosted by a “worm-vendor”.

You see, while telemarketers do not mean to put Maritza’s tune in your head, the worm-vendor does it unconsciously but relentlessly.

The other day I came across a worm-vendor in the mall’s parking garage. He was whistling a tune, and every note of the tune was at the highest pitch his pursed lips could produce. I headed for the glass doors desperately trying to escape the ultrasonic assault, but he was walking in a line parallel to me … whistling.

By the time I got to the elevator he had succeeded in embedding his tune in my head, and there it stayed for the rest of the afternoon.

When we were growing up, my brother was one of the most dedicated worm-vendors on the planet. He would get a tune in his head, and every now and again – it used to happen at least once a day – he would, at the top of his voice, belt out his favourite portion of the song, loud enough to securely lodge the earworm in my head. And no matter what tune I had been thinking of, or tried to think of, or how I tried to forget his aural assault, his earworm would continue to casually munch away at my brain.

It’s as if worm-vendors force you to be part of their plans, no matter what your original plans were. It borders on the abusive – musical assault! But lately, I’ve noticed that worm-vendors have diversified and expanded their operations.

Who hasn’t already experienced having a driver, unconsciously but relentlessly, hogging the middle of the road, travelling at almost zero kilometres per hour, leaving you unable to overtake? Or clogged aisles in a supermarket, unconsciously but relentlessly, blocked by a vendor with another agenda. Even on escalators, worm-vendors will ignore the fact that someone behind them may be in a rush. The flavour they’re selling is “inconsiderate”.

I get the impression that in society today the overwhelming mindset is that “I” am the only one that matters no matter what “I” do.

It’s even as if more and more people are developing the attitude, “I’ll make you respect me” or “I’ll show you who’s boss.”

For example, our nation’s go-to form of protest these days is by a show of force, where roads are blocked off, tyres are burned and there’s general mayhem.

And while this acting out is supposed to catch the attention of and inconvenience those in power, it always happens that those most affected, most inconvenienced and alarmingly most harmed are the people who had nothing to do with creating the intolerable problem in the first place.

But worm vendors don’t seem to care; they will make it your problem. It really bothers me how the worm has turned. THE FIRST ever image of a black hole released by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration was made possible as a result of VLBI, a technique that the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope will take full advantage of. One of the SKA Organisation’s astronomers was also involved in the results.

SKA system scientist Dr Robert Laing was part of a global team of more than 200 researchers involved in the result, and he co-authored two of the six papers published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The announcement, which was broadcast around the world, was also shown at the SKA Science Conference taking place at the same time in Cheshire. Three-hundred astronomers from 20 countries, including some who were involved in the EHT results, gathered to watch the live announcement.

“This is the first image of the shadow of the event horizon of a black hole around the nucleus of a galaxy called Messier 87. It’s confirmation that what we believed about black holes is really true,” Laing said on the sidelines of the meeting.

“We’ve known for a long time that there are very big masses in very small volumes in objects in the universe but now I think we have real confirmation that general relativity is correct in predicting the properties of black holes in the cosmos.”

The EHT observations were made with eight radio telescopes spread around the globe, using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). By combining the signals from telescopes observing the same object at the same time, but from different locations, the effect is like observing with a radio telescope the size of the Earth.

VLBI is a technique that the SKA will contribute to in the future.

“The Event Horizon Telescope goes in very close to the nucleus of an active galaxy,” Laing explained. “SKA VLBI will go a little bit further out but in much more detail and sensitivity so they give you complementary pictures of the same objects.”

Laing previously worked for the European Southern Observatory on the ALMA telescope project, which was one of the key facilities in the EHT observations. – Norma Wildenboer SO TIGER Woods did shake up the world, just as we said he might…

His victory, and his 15th major title, was immediately hailed as one of the greatest comebacks in sport – many are saying the greatest. Because of the demands of different sporting codes, such things are by their nature a little subjective, but let’s at least just say this: Woods’ win is right up there on the list of greatest achievements.

Nick Faldo, himself a threetimes Masters winner and now a perceptive, outspoken TV commentator, told viewers yesterday that Tiger had said to him at a Masters dinner just two years ago: “I think I’m done. I don’t think I can ever play golf again.” A debilitating back injury meant Woods had to literally shuffle across the room.

And yet here he is now, ruling his sport again and purring with pleasure as he luxuriates in the glory and the acclaim.

Now the feverish, delightful prospect is back in our minds: will Woods equal or overhaul Jack Nicklaus’ tally of 18 majors?