Kim du Toit – Page 22 – Splendid Isolation

Fooling The Gullible

May 29, 2025 Kim du Toit Marketing / Advertising

As a longtime marketing guy, I’m still fascinated by how easy it is to hoodwink people by making them think that a higher price equates to better quality.

The genius move, however, is to build on another perception of quality, e.g. “German engineering” or “French luxury” as a support for that higher price.

The “German engineering” ethos has been leveraged countless times, most notably with Mercedes cars — although in this case, it was a reputation very well earned, back in the 1960s and -70s. (In the recent past: not so much, as anyone who’s driven a Merc of said vintage will tell you.) As gunnies, we all know of the Heckler & Koch example, which has enabled this bunch of WWII-era retreads to make oodles of cash out of their not-especially noteworthy handguns and cheekbone-crushing G3/PTR-91 automatic rifles.

It’s why I always roll my eyes at the extreme HK fanbois, because I’m positive that most of their fanaticism stems from a need to justify their paying a premium price for what is really a pretty ordinary product.

As for “French luxury”, here’s one example of the trope: Grey Goose vodka, which is a case history for the ages. (Watch it; it’s 10 minutes of your time well spent.)

I happen to know quite a bit about vodka manufacturing, as it happens, having worked with the South African retail arm of Gilbey’s. As I’ve recounted on these pages before, part of my education occurred when the Gilbey’s guys took me on a tour of their production facility, where an engineer taught me how to make cheap liquor: take a clear distilled spirit (from any source: potatoes, sugar cane, barley, wheat, apples, all mixed together, whatever) and pass it through a series of charcoal filters to make vodka, or add a few drops of diesel fuel(!) to make gin, and so on.

The genius of marketing, in the Grey Goose example, was not the manufacture of the vodka or the quality of its raw material, therefore — French wheat is no different from any other wheat — but utilizing the aura of French luxury brands (Louis Vuitton, Chanel etc.) to imply that GG was an exceptional product, made all the more so by creating an artificial bottleneck on supply, and most telling of all, selling the product at a premium price to the International Status-Hungry Parvenu Set. Good grief: $30 per bottle for vodka? When it first came out, I tried it at a hotel bar somewhere — I think it was at Claridges in London, while on a business trip — and while I’m no expert on vodka, I have drunk a woeful amount of the foul stuff. I could discern little difference between Grey Goose, Stolichnaya and Smirnoff. (The bartender obliged me by setting up a blind taste test of the three brands — the mark of a good bartender, by the way.) I identified Smirnoff immediately (see above for reasons), but GG and Stoli? No chance. And Stolichnaya, by the way, is a product that trades on the Russian ethos for vodka quality, go figure.

But what all the above illustrates is how easy it can be to dupe people into buying expensive products as part of an aspirational desire to be part of a specific set — most notably, what used to be described as the “jet set” (now, the private jet set), which contains elements of society such as professional footballers, pop stars, supermodels, Russian oligarchs, Hollywood actors, software billionaires and other such scum.

And never has the old adage been so verified that a fool and his money are soon parted.

How To Breathe

May 29, 2025 Kim du Toit Education, Seen On Campus

I can only regard with incredulity this new adventure in education:

A renowned Canadian university has launched a bizarre ‘Adulting 101’ crash course for pampered students who can’t perform the most basic life tasks like changing a tire, buying groceries or doing laundry.

In an era dominated by digital innovation, Generation Z – or those born between 1997 and 2012 – are in desperate need of practical knowledge that older generations might otherwise consider ‘common sense’.

Adulting 101 is designed to teach basic life skills that Gen Z often struggles with, including cooking, budgeting, basic nutrition, laundry and even navigating a grocery store. The course covers everything from maintaining healthy relationships, practicing fire safety in the kitchen and changing a tire.

For many, the course has been a saving grace – not only helping them personally, but also boosting their daily confidence in navigating the ins and outs of adulthood.

Well, I guess that once a university stoops to deliver courses in Remedial English because such basics somehow escaped the grade-, middle- and high school curriculum, why not the equivalent of 8th-grade Home Economics?

The difference is that “life skills” belong not in secondary school education, but squarely in the “parenting” remit, as the article suggests:

Jean Twenge, a researcher and psychology professor at San Diego State University, suggests that prolonged adolescence and ‘helicopter’ parenting have delayed development among Gen Z.

You don’t say.

For all the mud slung by “educators” at homeschoolers, I defy anyone to come up with examples of such helplessness among the homeschooled. We started giving our kids an allowance as soon as they reached an age we deemed appropriate, said budget to cover their clothing, toiletries and entertainment. We took them shopping all the time, whether for toiletries, groceries or clothing, but let them make their own decisions, staying well back as they navigated their way through the stores — although we did show them basic stuff like comparative pricing and value judgements. Hell, I think the Son&Heir learned how to shop for produce from the age of five, because he always accompanied me on the weekly supermarket trip; and when he bought his first car (at age 19, cash, from his own savings), I showed both him and Daughter the basics of car maintenance — checking the oil, the radiator, how to use a gas pump, and so on. Their allowance, by the way, ended at age 17 and they all went out to work, at restaurants, movie houses, drugstores and so on, and they were solely responsible for managing their savings and expenditure.

I’m not holding us up as ideal parents, but FFS, any parent who doesn’t do this kind of thing is setting their kids up for failure.

But thank goodness for the universities, who will make up for parental neglect with a course that probably costs $2,500 per quarter. That cost, by the way, should not be covered by public subsidy or student loans, but by the fucking parents.

Fat chance.

Background Story

May 29, 2025 Kim du Toit Africa, Marxists, Third World

If any of you are at all interested in post-apartheid South Africa, then watch Rob Hersov explain it all. He’s absolutely, positively correct in all his observations, and his brief summary of South Africa’s history is 100% likewise.

And by the way, he has a classic definition of all the elements of “genocide”:

…of which South Africa has seven happening as we speak.

What a disaster.

Checking The Numbers

May 28, 2025 Kim du Toit Lies and Untruths

Over at TCW, Norman Fenton applies serious statistics (as opposed to lies and / or wishful thinking) to the mainstream media’s latest take on the murder rates of White South African farmers. (For the record, the Guttersnipe Media is claiming that the murder rate of the above group isn’t that different from South Africa’s already-appalling murder rate.) His final take?

Probability true murder rate of Whites is higher than Blacks: 99.99999997%
Probability true murder rate of Whites at least 2 times higher than Blacks: 99.98%
Probability true murder rate of Whites at least 3 times higher than Blacks: 96.95%

So, over the entire period [2017-2022] it is essentially certain (99.98% probability) that the true murder rate of Whites is at least twice that of Black and highly likely (96.95% probability) to be at least three times as high.

In other words: State-tolerated or -approved mass murder.

And people still ask me why I left South Africa? I left because I foresaw precisely this situation. My only mistake was that I thought this would start to happen much sooner than it actually has.

That Suitcase Thing

May 28, 2025 Kim du Toit Good Stuff, Travels

This silly article in the Daily Mail (is there any other kind?) prompted a thought or two from me. But first, an excerpt:

Despite years of obsessive searching, I’m yet to find the perfect suitcase. It’s as elusive as a desert mirage. My attic is filled with discarded luggage experiments, lurking in the dark as memories of a different life and far too impractical for my current one.

I used to have that same problem, back when I traveled a lot (50+ flights per annum, on United — mostly — out of O’Hare). A simple overnighter? No problem, a decent garment bag generally sufficed. Anything more than a couple/three nights, however, and things started getting a little more problematic.

And back when I was constantly flying to Yurp and Britishland, the problems increased exponentially.

I remember once giving in to the nylon/canvas “duffle bag” trend, and oy…never again, even with wheels. (Without wheels? Nope, never again in this lifetime. No wheels — on any luggage choice, no buy.)

The only good thing to say about duffle bags is that they start off light, whereas suitcases start off being heavier. And of course, if you’re carrying anything that’s not an anvil, the soft duffles afford no protection for your stuff whatsoever. But if you’re going to use the wheeled duffle bag, just remember that the extendable handles need a structure to hold them when not in use, and that structure means that the bags will end up being about the same weight as a soft-sided suitcase.

Now add to all that the journey through the tender ministrations of baggage “handlers” at any airport…

(thanks,Kenny)

…and you’ll see my point.

Then there’s this little temptation:

I would love to indulge myself with really expensive, luxury suitcases such as the Globe-Trotter Safari:

…but at around $3,000 per piece, and remembering Kenny’s pic above, you’d be better off — maybe — just shipping your luggage via FedEx or something. (Don’t laugh; I knew a guy of considerable wealth who used to do just that: ship his heavy luggage from one destination to the next, leaving the hotel’s concierge to handle the details.)

Or you can do what I used to do, when doing expense-account / client-funded travel: buy cheap-ish luggage, use it once and then toss it in the trash after you get home. Repeat as necessary. (It actually adds to the pre-trip excitement, by the way; buying luggage for your trip is an event all by itself.)

One last option is to see your luggage as a challenge to baggage handlers of the Delta/American/United ilk, and go with aluminum suitcases:

Just be aware that this stuff can cost a lot more than the hotel bill from your trip to Amsterdam or Tokyo. And baggage thieves know how much this stuff costs, so the chances increase greatly of having your luggage simply stolen for its container rather than its contents.

Lastly, you can always just go with a steamer truck (or as they’re sometimes called, footlockers):

Just remember that unless you’re going to a place that has porters on call, you’ll want to make sure to get that thing with wheels. (Another of my buddies uses one for travels with his wife; they pack all their clothes and such into the one trunk, and he just pays the weight penalty on his air ticket, saying that the reduction of hassle is worth the extra cost. I don’t believe him, by the way; if you’ve ever seen Planes Trains And Automobiles, and watched John Candy struggling with his trunk, you’ll understand my skepticism.)

Trunks, by the way, are pretty much indestructible, even for airlines. I once used one to get a large and expensive crockery set back from Britishland, just checking it in at Heathrow or Gatwick (don’t recall which one). I expected to lose a couple of pieces to breakage, but nary as much as a chip, let alone a breakage. Trunks are also less likely to be stolen because they’re just too heavy to carry easily, and too bulky to be hidden away somewhere.

And unlike Alexandra Shulman, I don’t care about features like “compartments”; just a sufficient volume will do just fine.

Afterthought: one of the besetting problems with airline luggage is that most options (like Ford’s Model T) come only in black, which makes it a chore to distinguish your luggage from all the others on the baggage carousel. One option is to go with something like this camping trunk:

…which should be strong enough to survive the trip, and it generally costs (and weighs) much less than the average suitcase — $50 compared to $200-$300 for ordinary suitcases. And it’ll stand out like a dog turd on the black tablecloth of carousel luggage.