totally absurd

UNIQLO’s unfortunate marketing mistake in Australia

Lili Gans totally absurd, Uncategorized

Since the days when I studied Japanese at university I have been a great admirer of Japan’s business acumen.  So when UNIQLO opened up some clothing stores in Australia I was very pleased.

You can imagine my disappointment when year after year, UNIQLO fails to cater for Australian sizes.

It is well known that average Australians are not thin.  The average size has been growing so that many Aussies are now about a size 16 or Medium to Large.

However,  when one enters a UNIQLO store all the larger sizes have disappeared and the only sizes still left are S for small or XS for extra small. These sizes would be more appropriate for the Japanese customers. When I asked the very pleasant attendants why there are only tiny sizes left they actually admitted that the larger sizes always sell out immediately.

Today they even admitted that this is a frequent complaint from potential customers.

So shouldn’t this be a lesson for the bosses at UNIQLO?

The first lesson in marketing is  “Learn who your customers are.”  The second lesson is “Cater to the market.”

In my opinion,  UNIQLO would be much more successful if it remembered that Aussie customers are not the same shape as Japanese customers.

We would love to enjoy the excellent products provided by UNIQLO if only they would fit.

 

The next Father of the Year will be a woman. Happy now?

Lili Gans totally absurd, What Pisses me off

When I see women and some men marching in the name of feminism and  screeching hysterically about how awful men are,  I wonder if these women are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

I despair that a new terminology has entered our language- toxic masculinity.

So men are dangerous, poisonous, horrible creatures and it is up to women to reform them,  castigate them,  and demonstrate against them.

Basically,  what women want is to turn the men into women or  “menettes”.  Apparently, we need men but only on our terms.  They must be more like us.

Is it any wonder that men are subconsciously feeling so set-upon that they are growing beards and getting tattoos?  I interpret this desire to grow facial hair as evidence that men need to assert their masculine traits.  They are confused about how they should approach women. They don’t want to offend women  and heaven help them if they are politically incorrect by opening a door for a woman or paying her a compliment.

Before somebody accuses me of treachery and misogyny regarding my own gender, I categorically declare that I am for equal rights and equal opportunities for both sexes.

I am concerned,  however,  that so much animosity towards men, is counter-productive.

Not all men are monsters who rape and pillage,  so don’t treat them as if they are.

 

Rob Thomas told the truth but Australians can’t handle the truth

Lili Gans totally absurd

Poor Rob Thomas made a comment about Australians being big alcohol drinkers. He also said that the traditional owners, that is, the aborigines, were heavy drinkers as well.

For this he had to apologise.

Why?  When he only spoke the truth.

Australians do drink. In fact, for them it’s a rite of passage. Heavy drinking is responsible for car accidents, domestic violence and violence in the streets. In fact,  being drunk has been used as a mitigating excuse for breaking the law. “I didn’t know what I was doing, your Honour,  cause I was pissed.”

The hospitals are overwhelmed on the weekend by drunks who are violent towards nurses and doctors.  Aggressive behaviour combined with the use of other drugs chokes our health system and it is the genuinely sick people who cannot be treated in our emergency departments because of these drunks who waste our precious resources.

There is hardly an event in Australia that doesn’t involve drinking. Watching sport? Have a beer. Fishing? Have a beer.  Watching TV? Have a beer. It’s hard to think of any occasion that doesn’t involve drinking alcohol.

Now, I have nothing against drinking in moderation, but being too drunk to remember what you did seems to be the ambition of many revellers and that is pathetic.  It could be our colonial heritage that is to blame.  Who knows why?

A few years ago someone wrote a song about a pub with no beer. It was amusing but also prophetic and it became one of those iconic songs in Australia.  Seems to me it would be hard to imagine a greater tragedy for the majority of Aussies than running out of grog.

It’s a pity that poor Rob Thomas had to cop it for telling it the way it is.

 

 

Climate Change? Yes, No, Maybe or Whatever….

Lili Gans totally absurd, Uncategorized, What Pisses me off

Hardly a day goes by that somebody somewhere does not reiterate that climate change is a scientific reality. The research has been done and 120% of scientists say it is a fact.

We cannot argue against a scientific fact,  I guess,  but I am led to believe that not everybody is convinced it’s the fault of homo sapiens. We must change our ways,  however,  even if it’s not our fault warn the prophets of doom.

The planet will dry out or it will get flooded and islands will hit rock bottom, so to speak.

It’s a grim outlook, is it not?

Heaven help us if we question this apocalyptic prediction.  Look what happened to the witches of Salem!

So I’m not going to do that.

What I will say is that I don’t know,  but it’s hard to be convinced by any prophesy about climate when one considers how inexact a science weather forecasting is in general.

In any case I have lost interest in the topic because it’s possible,  just a suggestion mind,  that this world is not really worth saving and perhaps it’s time to start all over again.

Save me from the Superfoods like Chia and Kale

Lili Gans totally absurd, Uncategorized

I’m convinced that the health food greenie, organic industry will not rest until it has destroyed our will to live.

We have to sacrifice taste, aroma, appearance and yum yum for the alleged promise of eternal life and so we should stuff ourselves with  Superfoods.  In other words, we have to abandon anything that tastes good.

Just yesterday, the World Health Organisation announced that meat is deadly, ham and other processed meats are a threat to our very existence and advised us to limit our meat intake or else!

So much for the Paleo diet. It’s now poisonous, apparently, and more of a threat to our very existence than nuclear weapons.

So yesterday,  because the supermarket  was promoting its healthy wrap collection I bought a couple of packets of MEB Superfood wraps.

Would you like to know how organic wraps with Chia, Spinach,  Kale and Broccoli taste?

Well, they taste very organic. They also look bad and smell pretty bad in an organic sort of way. They are bland in texture,  but with a smidgen of yuk,  very much like the most organic of our excretions.

Bon appétit to the masochists of the world!

 

 

Why Coles supermarket is better than Woolworths in Australia

Lili Gans totally absurd

Yesterday,  I finally complained to Woolworths Head Office in Sydney about the poor service in my local Woolworths supermarket.

Wrong prices placed incorrectly  seem to be intended to trick the shopper into picking up the item.  Once the shopper gets to the cashier he either doesn’t notice or can’t be bothered saying  “in that case I don’t want it.”

I find these mistakes occur too frequently and I suspect they are a ploy.

My worst complaint, however,  concerns the deli section of the supermarket.  Whereas Coles advertises that it will slice your smallgoods any way you may wish  e.g I like my meats thinly shaved,  our local Woolworths refuses and says that this is not possible.

Apparently,  it’s too much trouble.

Today I went to Coles at Malvern, asked if they would mind slicing the silverside very thinly and they did so willingly and efficiently without a complaint.  They also had enough staff in the deli section so that the waiting period was not long.

Conclusion?  Poor service,  fewer customers at Woolworths.

Why our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, doesn’t understand Melbourne people

Lili Gans totally absurd, Uncategorized, What Pisses me off

The Prime Minister of Australia has criticised the Premier of Victoria because a public holiday was declared for The Day Before,  I repeat,  The Day Before, the Grand Final of a football match.

Daniel Andrews, who is the Premier of Victoria said it would put Melbourne on the map. Shoppers will flock to the city and the economy will boom.  People will come from all over to spend their cash.

Well,  the grand parade took place yesterday and Melbourne is not rolling in gold coins as Andrews promised.  There was the little problem of overtime pay etc. etc. so businesses could not afford to stay open.

Nevertheless,  there was a parade yesterday of footballers and thousands came to watch. Now that was for free, of course. So much for the economic boost.

So when the Prime Minister of Australia lamented the loss of productivity,  and its cost to the nation,   Andrews retorted that Turnbull obviously doesn’t understand football and Melbourne.

Well, neither do I.

There is something nasty about Melbourne which causes crime to flourish here.  So if you are into crime and drugs Melbourne is the place to be. In the rest of Australia  smoking is not allowed  in outdoor venues where food is served.

But here in Melbourne, you can smoke all you want because the liquor lobby is too powerful.

You cannot walk the streets on Friday and Saturdays nights because the druggies and the drunks are out in force.

And as for aesthetics,  Melbourne is ugly. It’s full of alleys desecrated with grafitti. The public transport system is unreliable and archaic.

And yes, everyone agrees something should be done about it,  so let’s have a discussion about it, shall we?  What hypocrisy!

Now for some more distressing facts about the effect of this Holy Football event.  Surgery has had to be postponed because the doctors and other staff have escaped from Melbourne for the long weekend. Those people who are in hospital and ready to go home cannot leave because there aren’t enough doctors to release them. So they are crammed into rooms all because of this special holiday.

Would you believe that 690 surgical operations have had to be postponed because of this footy fiasco?

By the way,  it is the entire state of Victoria that has an extra holiday today.  Just to watch a bunch of footballers in a parade in Melbourne.

And for some mysterious reason our Prime Minister cannot understand why people on full pay have the day off so that they can wave at a bunch of footballers prior to the actual day of the match.

I know one thing for sure. If the Melbournians weren’t allowed to get drunk and gamble there would be no interest in “sport.”

But perhaps that’s the case with all of Australia. What surprises me is that they feel they need an extra pretext to drink.

Surely living in Melbourne is reason enough to reach for the bottle.

 

 

 

The new Target Store at Chadstone: Are we there yet?

Lili Gans totally absurd

It’s no secret that the Chadstone Shopping Mall is undergoing a refurbishment and an expansion to rival the Seven Wonders of the World.  It’s taking quite a long time, but we are all reassured it will be worth it.

For the past few months Target has been closed and so we have been waiting for the opening of its new resurrection in September.  It will be so terrific,  marvellous and fantastic that poems will be written about it. I’m thinking of Kubla Khan’s pleasure dome, of course.

There may even be a musical written devoted to the brand new super dooper Target and how its construction added to the attractions of the most liveable city in the world. (Melbourne, that is)

Well,  it opened about a week ago and there has been a noticeable hush all over the world  (Melbourne, that is) about the new improved Target.

We went there today for a peek and had a rather long trek through corridors and passages, past the construction area.  Our excitement grew with each painful step. It was a long way to go,  about one kilometre there and back,  but it would be worth it,  yes?

Not exactly.

I expected to be handed a bottle of water at each turn, as happens in a regular marathon, but there was none and so we marched on in an intrepid but increasingly breathless manner.  When we finally arrived at Target, which is situated in the bowels of this planet,  we noticed a sign saying “We hope you enjoyed the journey.”

Apparently this was meant to amuse us,  but we could not even conjure up a chortle.

Still,  we persevered in a pioneering spirit.  We were nothing if not optimistic.

As it turned out,  we were nothing since the new Target is very uninspiring.  Same old, same old.  Surely there should have been some welcome for those of us who had put in such an effort. No great special offers to tempt us. No elegance or chic appeal. No ambiance.

Is it a work in progress,  perhaps?

As for me,  I can wait to find out.

Cricket Matters!

Lili Gans totally absurd

If you ever doubted that Australia is a lucky country,  here is the proof that we live in a farcically fortunate land.

I woke up this morning to the news that Australia had lost the Ashes.  Our cricket team had been totally defeated by England and this was a tragedy…apparently.

At the same time that the Aussies lost the match Taiwan was being demolished by an enormous  typhoon.  Taiwanese lives and homes are being destroyed.

In the Middle East factions are massacring one another.

Europe is having to cope with an overwhelming influx of “migrants” while Hungary is  preparing to keep them out by building a fence.  Apparently, it’s okay to have a fence now for protection.

All this is going on while our newspapers report the sorry defeat in cricket.  It’s all a matter of priorities, isn’t it?

If it ain’t cricket then it’s some doping scandal in football.

We Aussies definitely know what matters. A little red ball or some other larger one that is chucked around,  passed around, or kicked around a field of grass.

And that’s what counts here in Oz.  How lucky is that!

Abuse of prisoners in Australian prison

Lili Gans totally absurd

Yesterday 300 prisoners rioted in a remand prison in Victoria, Australia.  It was the biggest prison riot in the state’s history.

Millions of dollars of damage and injuries are now being investigated.  How could such a thing happen?

Were the prisoners being physically beaten?  Were they being starved?  Were they denied medical attention, perhaps?

No.

The reason for the riot was much more serious than mere torture which takes place in other countries in the rest of the world.

You see the prisoners will no longer be allowed to smoke cigarettes on account of smoking being bad for your health.

Well,  no wonder they are rioting!

What next?

Will they have to stop screwing one another or using hard drugs?

What if they are no longer allowed to eat junk food?

These poor fellows were even offered nicotine patches,  chuppa chups and extra bottles of water to help them through their ordeal.  I kid you not. And they refused…

Frankly,  my dear…