The Sweet Service Award goes to Gill Spargo of Hlala Panzi Guest House in Parkhurst in Johannesburg, who assisted me in finding a room for Tuesday evening, when Johannesburg accommodation seemed very hard to find. Despite being fully booked already, she called around to other guest house ‘colleagues’ in the area, and gave me some numbers. I also found 6 on Sixth in Parktown North, around the corner from Cube restaurant where I ate last night, via her. Each one of the guest house owners (Bridge House, Wind Mill, Remote Corner) gave me another name and another number, until I made a booking at La Bougain Villa (see below). 
The Sour Service Award goes to La Bougain Villa and its owner Chris Richards, a very rude and cranky owner of a guest house in Dunkeld which has been running for 24 years. After the passing of his wife three years ago, he has had to run the three guest bedrooms, and it was evident that his lack of guest house skills led to rooms being available at the inn, whereas everywhere else was fully booked. He struggled to get the M-Net tuned, and I could not get a decent wifi signal, being in a different building to the main house with the router. He was highly irritated when I told him this, saying that no one has ever complained about it before, and told me that it was the fault of my ‘machine‘, pointing to my iPad! When he asked about my evening sleep, I told that I had frozen (there was only a sheet on the bed, with 8C night-time temperature). That really got him going, it being clear that he cannot tolerate any negative feedback. In the end he did not charge me, whereas he was desperate to get my credit card while I was having breakfast just an hour before I left! The housekeeper Georgina told me that he is rude to all the guests, and another guest house owner told me that he treated his late wife like that too!
The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog. Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at whalecot@iafrica.com. Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog.
Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.whalecottage.com/blog Tel 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@WhaleCottage Facebook: click here
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Some people should seek other callings but it’s interesting that jozi is seemingly more booked than the cape . We decided to give Cape Town a miss this year due to silly pricing for accommodation and you just have to look at sites like property 24 where daily rentals are daylight robbery with chancers aplenty ready to shove all their chattels into their garage if they get a booking but good luck to them . The market will eventually correct itself but it will be too late to save tourism for the summer season
Greed is the new catchword unfortunately.
AirBnb will sort out the greed, their rates are good, and there are many of them.
Joburg does not suffer seasonality as we do in Cape Town!