Disasters in Mid Air and More

Like all great mid air disasters, this one began on the ground. Deep in the offices of PIA, somewhere, someone had the bright idea of restarting the discontinued Hamsafar inflight magazine. I heard initially that it was perhaps outsourced to a private group recently, but given the last issue I saw on my flight back from Islamabad last week, this is NOT the case anymore.

To say that the magazine can be improved would be... the understatement of the decade. 

I will not complain about the quality of writing. Similarly, I will refrain about quibbling about the absurd overall design and layout. I will even not talk about the deplorable quality of the pictures used in it. I will just say one word:

Jokes.

The damned thing has jokes in it. For crying out loud people, what kind of document did you think you're putting together? A children's magazine? I mean seriously - JOKES? Have we such a supreme dearth of content that we're going to resort to using mundane (and not very funny) one liner jokes in the inflight magazine of the national airline?

In a world where we're competing with airlines like Gulf Air, Emirates, Qatar and Oman Air, this is the best we can come up with. As far as airlines go, I think inflight magazines follow a very simple principle: either do it right, or don't do it. My advice to the learned folks at PIA: please don't do it. Because obviously, to out-source it to someone who actually knows what they're doing is not an option (for some God-forsaken reason that I cannot think of).

And while we're on the topic of people not knowing what they're doing, what is up with KESC's advertising agency? Their ad boldly warns all electricity thieves that "they could be fined or go to jail".

Tsk tsk.

Its either "they could face fines or go to jail" or "they could be fined or sent to jail". You can't just mix and match at will. Not only do I find it hard to believe that no one at the advertising agency fixed this, I also find it pretty incredible that not a single person at KESC spotted this glaring error- which has been on TV and radio for some time now. 

And here's something funny I spotted while at dinner last night - the back of a Sucral sweetener packet. Check out the name of the manufacturer... Father & Sons!

Things like these are funny on some level, but they also make me sad. Because its not as if the resources aren't there: there are people who could design an outstanding Hamsafar magazine, or write an ad without a glaring error or suggest a company name that's somewhat more... more anything, really, than Father and Sons.

But while we have resources, it seems we lack the one thing we need the most - the ability to save ourselves, from ourselves.