Vredehoek man overwhelmed with thoughtful and spontaneous birthday greetings from many companies

Pesque Andratief of Vredehoek is raving about the tremendous range of birthday greetings he received on Sunday. 'The avalanche started early on, around 7 am, with a heartfelt tribute from Vodacom International. To think, this was a Sunday morning, early, and some thoughtful person at Vodacom, from somewhere in the world, took the time and trouble to send me a birthday salutation. I mean, I hadn't even woken up yet but there it was as soon as I turned on my phone. So, whoever it was, was thinking that they needed to get the message out before I woke up so that that greeting was the first thing I saw. I tell you, from that point on my day was made!' Pesque never stopped receiving birthday messages, throughout the day. 'Sure, some of my friends and family sent Whatsapps, sms messages or internet cards and I even got a few calls but these didn't really stack up when the likes of Clicks, Old Mutual, Mekor, Facebook and a host of others were messaging me all day with their thoughtful missives. Think of it, these are big companies with zillions of customers, yet they have people dedicated to thinking of their valued clients on these special occasions, Sundays and all.' What Pesque finds especially amazing is that in many cases he can't even remember giving his birthday details to the companies sending messages. 'Somehow they just seem to have discovered my special day and planned a dedicated greeting. I mean, how do these guys even get this information? It's not like there's some Big Brother watching over me who's divulging my personal details or anything. They must have teams of researchers briefed to get out there and dig up personal data so that they can make your day on these memorable occasions.' For one thing, he isn't even a customer of some of the companies that singled him out on his birthday. And he often gives an incorrect birthday date in questionnaires because he doesn't want strangers to know his age. Pesque is now wondering what other kinds of special events these companies may want to share with him between now and his next birthday. Or other companies that he hasn't yet heard from.

Man talks reveals his Glory Days were a long consecutive waste-bin tossing streak

'Glory Days' goes the song .... the ones that pass in the wink of a young girl's eye, according to Bruce (Springsteen, as if you didn't know). The song has left Arnold Nugent of Baltimore wondering about just when his Glory Days really were. "I mean, I was selected the Boy Most Likely to Succeed in my yearbook at high school. But we all know how that turned out. Boy Most Likely to Fail, more likely. It's usually like that: actually it's the dumbest or shyest or most-under-the-radar guys who turn out to be successful. But then again, what is success? Just having a good income, a loving wife and two beautiful kids doesn't necessarily mean you're successful. After all who knows what's really going on behind those freshly painted walls and perfectly tended gardens? Well, no one of course, until some gruesome murder occurs and the wife ends up in the boot of a burning car! Anyway, I digress. As far as my Glory Days are concerned, it's tempting to say it was when I got the top billing in the school book. But because success is hard to measure I've been delving into other periods in my life and, after much agonising, have settled on my own personal Glory Days to be the uninterrupted streak of landing crumpled up paper balls into the waste-bin across the bedroom. It dawned on me that I was just one of those untapped talents that never made the big time. I reckon I could of, if I'd known I possessed such a high level of hand-eye coordination. Look, we can't all be Jens Stoltenberg, that Danish or Norwegian, whatever, dude who is the head honcho of NATO. I mean he just got lucky: his party have just lost the election, so he is out of a job, and suddenly Merkel and Obama get together and call him to offer the post. Is he gonna refuse something like that? No way. So I could of got lucky too but anyway, I know about my waste-bin streak, even if nobody else does. It was crazy man. I just kept on connecting with that bin. It was like 50 or 60 consecutive. There were even a couple that caught the edge but still went in. I couldn't go wrong. How many people on God's Earth can claim such a sequence? Anyway, Glory Days or not, you're not gonna find me in some pub harking back to that time and boring every one with my story, like Bruce in his song."

Top tennis professionals start trend to get their own tennis balls on court

The professional tennis playing fraternity is experiencing a revolution, owing to the wave of anti-ballboy sentiment striking the sport in recent months. It all started in November when Rafael Nadal was going through his normal, interminable, deeply irritating, 19-bounce warm-up routine before each service. His first serve was a let, having hit the net-cord. Although that ball was quickly routed back to him by the network of ballboys, he rejected it and demanded another ball, which was duly bounced to him by a service-line ballboy. His opponent, Roger Federer, who has a much more chilled serving routine, clearly came to a decision at that point. When it was his turn to serve, he asked the service-line ballboys to stand aside and simply drop the balls they were holding. Federer then moved around the back of the court picking up the balls nearest to him, using the technique all players learn at an early age - tapping the ball quickly with the racquet strings so that the ball bounces up. Then he actually picked up one of the balls by lifting it between his racquet head and tennis shoe. Averred Federer, 'I suddenly remembered how fun it is to pick up the balls that way. We always used to do this when we were kids.' Reluctant at first, Nadal joined in the fun after a couple of games. In addition to the bounce and lift techniques, Nadal also used the scoop method where the player quickly scoops the ball up with the side edge of the racquet, keeping the ball glued to the strings, a technique widely used in badminton. Soon both players were improvising, for example, chipping the ball with their tennis shoes against the back wall and collecting it as it bounced back. At the start of the next set, the two players asked for the bottom of the net be lifted a few inches so they could hit the balls along the ground with their racquets to each other from opposite sides of the court. 'There's quite a skill in this,' maintains Federer. 'You aim to get the ball to roll at just the right pace so that it stops as close to your opponent as possible. There's a potential lawn-bowler, or in my case boule-player, deep down in every tennis player.' For Nadal, in particular, this has been a liberating, life-changing experience. Instead of obsessively bouncing the ball, wiping his brow and executing a range of minute routine actions before each point, he now winds up in just a second or two, having himself selected and picked up the balls he wants to play the point with. He's even become less obsessed by which ball to choose. 'Suficiente!' he exploded. 'We change the balls every seven games. How different are they really gonna be?!' The International Federation of Balloys and Ballgirls is in crisis talks as many other players on the circuits, including the Venus sisters, have taken up the trend. So far, another obsessive ball-bouncer and selector, Novak Djokovic, has resisted but sources say that even he is likely to relent soon.