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Pilot pitches in to free passenger stuck in plane bathroom

A pilot has been forced to abandon his post at the cockpit to rescue a passenger trapped in the bathroom of a plane. While onboard a Delta Airlines flight from Salt Lake City to New Orleans, a father of two named Brent became stuck in the bathroom for 35 minutes during the short domestic flight. When it was discovered that Brent was not breaking out of the bathroom by himself, the cabin crew, including the pilot, stepped in to free the 34-year-old dad. After being refused a refund by the airline's customer service, Brent's dissatisfied partner shared a video of the moment the staff all rallied to heave the door open. Recounting the tale on Reddit, the woman suggested that her husband had fled to the bathroom to have a break from his two young kids. She wrote, "After 5 minutes, I wondered what was going on. Was he using this time as a much-needed break from my children’s whiney demands and frequent tantrums? I didn’t blame him." Brent's partner went on to explain that it wasn't until she heard another passenger say the word "stuck" did she realise her husband's predicament. She turned around to see two members of the crew yanking at the door to the rear cubicle as she watched on while she kept one eye on her young kids. The flight attendants enlisted the help of a male passenger who also failed to provide the magic touch, before the pilot emerged, 20 minutes into the ordeal, to have a go. <iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZWOyr4J2OBo?si=FSdSkXFv4WlClKXB" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> <aside> "It wasn't until Brent kicked the hell out of the door while the pilot was pulling as hard as possible that Brent finally made his escape," she wrote. Finishing off the post, the woman concluded that Delta asked her not to share the footage, filmed by another passenger who was closer to the end of the plane, but after not receiving a refund for their "terrible" journey, the mother decided to post them online. The post racked up hundreds of comments, with many people actually siding with the airline for not issuing a refund, suggesting that the author's response was not proportionate to what actually happened. Image credits: Reddit </aside>

Travel Trouble

The soundtrack to selling: why advertising with popular music needs to be pitch perfect

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/morteza-abolhasani-1346513">Morteza Abolhasani</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-open-university-748">The Open University</a> At some point today, it’s likely that you’ll listen to music. It may be during a commute or school run, while you do some exercise or take some time to relax. Music is all around us – an accessible and popular art form which <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/mp/article-abstract/22/1/41/62190/Uses-of-Music-in-Everyday-Life?redirectedFrom=fulltext">accompanies our daily lives</a>. Advertisers have long understood the popularity and emotional power of music and used it to sell us things. Much time – and money – is spent on securing the right soundtrack to adverts in a bid to boost sales, such as when Microsoft <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1999-05-23/sing-a-song-of-selling?leadSource=uverify%20wall">spent a reported US$3 million</a> (£2.4 million) to use The Rolling Stones’ song Start Me Up as part of their advertising campaign for Windows 95. So how do companies choose the right music for their product? And why is it such a valuable ingredient in the mission to make us consume? Research suggests that the specific qualities of music as an art form enhances the science of selling. As one researcher <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mar.4220010303">puts it</a>: “Music […] is the catalyst of advertising. It augments pictures and colours words, and often adds a form of energy available through no other source.” Other <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-531-18916-1_19">studies have shown</a> how music transports, underlines or amplifies the persuasive message of adverts. Used well, it creates memorable commercials which influence our attitudes to a product or service. Take the visually simple but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6bGnSEwdKY">compelling advert</a> for Air France, with the soundtrack of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. It projects grandeur and elegance, in the hope that viewers will associate those qualities with the airline. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J6bGnSEwdKY?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1470593117692021">My research</a>, which looked at hundreds of viewer comments about the music used in advertising, suggests it was successful. Air France’s use of a sophisticated piece of classical music created a direct perception of a sophisticated and premium airline. This is supported by other <a href="https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38632/chapter-abstract/335307151?redirectedFrom=fulltext">research</a> which suggests that music which matches the main message of an advert has a positive effect on consumer engagement. This alignment, known as “musical congruity”, can result in enhanced attention, a positive emotional response, and improved brand recall, ultimately enhancing the effectiveness of an advert. <h2>Down memory lane</h2> Music is also effective at triggering <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470593114521451?journalCode=mtqa">feelings of nostalgia</a>. The extent to which music arouses emotional memories – “musical indexicality” – in adverts creates associations with consumers’ past experiences. The music for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NwBcCUh24I">an advert</a> for Old Navy inspired <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1470593117692021">positive comments</a> based on viewers’ memories. A good choice of music allows businesses to tap into this nostalgia for commercial benefit, and my <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1470593117692021">research suggests</a> that music with autobiographical resonance can be particularly effective. Another example of this is when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pink+moon+vw">Volkswagen used</a> Nick Drake’s Pink Moon. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_-kqUkZnDcM?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> As one viewer commented: “Rarely do I get sentimental with commercials, but this one takes me back to the time when I was dating my wife and when we were first married. We used to take drives like this in the mountains and I remember looking at her beautiful face in the moonlight. The music is perfect. The sentiment is perfect.” (In this case, the 1999 advert also had a big impact on Nick Drake’s popularity, with album sales <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/nick-drake-pink-moon-song-volkwagen-commercial-182739/">dramatically increasing</a> after the advert’s release. Drake, who died at the age of 26, never saw commercial success in his lifetime.) <h2>Commercial clash</h2> But using music to advertise products doesn’t always work. For one thing, music can infiltrate the mind, repeat itself continuously and become extremely difficult to dislodge. This is why we can’t get some jingles out of our heads for ages. Involuntary and repetitive exposure to a piece of music can quickly reach the point of annoyance. The use of popular music in advertising can also provoke arguments around <a href="https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/currentmusicology/article/view/5206">the tensions</a> between artistic endeavour and commercialism. Some people believe a work of art should not be used for the pursuit of profit. In fact, the findings of my study on viewer comments showed that consumers sometimes passionately oppose the use of music by revered musicians being used in adverts, as they believe that doing this undermines its aesthetic integrity. For example, Nike’s use of the The Beatles’ song Revolution was seen by some as exploiting John Lennon’s lyrics to sell shoes. It made some Nike wearers so angry that they boycotted the brand. One wrote: “This is disgusting. Shame on Nike for exploiting priceless art. I will never buy another Nike shoe again.” Another said: “John didn’t mean change the brand of your trainers!” So advertisers need to be careful. For while the right choice of music can attract customers, boost sales, and inspire brand loyalty, the wrong choice can create something of a backlash. For many people, music is precious, and using it as a marketing tool does not always have harmonious results.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203856/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/morteza-abolhasani-1346513">Morteza Abolhasani</a>, Lecturer in Marketing, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-open-university-748">The Open University</a> Image credits: Getty Images This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-soundtrack-to-selling-why-advertising-with-popular-music-needs-to-be-pitch-perfect-203856">original article</a>.

Music

Rebel Wilson’s criminal save

While Rebel Wilson has found her forever love with designer Ramona Agruma, it took overcoming a few bumps in the dating road to get there. Speaking on the U Up? podcast, the Pitch Perfect star revealed one of the more notable dating near-disasters she experienced, and how it was her castmates who saved her. “I did go out with one guy I nicknamed ‘The Criminal’,” she told hosts Jordana Abraham and Jared Freid. “I think he was like a legit criminal. Basically, the Pitch Perfect girls saved me from that one.” She went on to explain that her co-stars had managed to find out “some s**t on the internet” about the guy, and warned her to steer clear of the man. She had, apparently, met him on the set of another production. Suspicion arose for them when the man agreed to come to New York to spend the weekend with Rebel, but refused to share the details of his flight with her. Upon pressing him for an explanation, the man confessed that he was not allowed to fly across state lines as he was “under investigation”. And while the relationship had been a “casual thing, so I [Rebel] didn’t get too deep into that situation”, she added that she felt the need to let him down “easy” as she didn’t want to put herself at risk with an alleged criminal. It wasn’t the only story that Rebel chose to share during her appearance, with the 43-year-old also opening up about how she’d actually been “dumped” by a woman before crossing paths with fiancée Ramona Agruma - with whom she shares daughter Royce Lillian. “I met a woman and had, like, feelings for her, which totally came as a blindside,” Rebel admitted. “It wasn’t what I was expecting.” “I said the words, ‘I don’t want to offend you, but are you interested in women?’ “I’ve never had a conversation like that [before] because I was dating dudes and never had to talk about sexuality. “She was like, ‘I have feelings for you as well’.” She noted that it was difficult for her to put her feelings into words, but that time they had together was “very important” to her, and that she wouldn’t be naming her partner out of respect. Things obviously “didn’t end up going anywhere”, but the relationship helped her open up to her sexuality, and she met Ramona soon after. And the rest, as they say, is romantic history. Images: Getty

Relationships

Rebel Wilson reveals strict Pitch Perfect "weight contract"

Rebel Wilson has lifted the lid on the strict rules she had to follow while she was starring in the Pitch Perfect films. The actress spilled the beans on her weight contract while chatting candidly on the Call Her Daddy podcast, revealing that she was contractually obliged to not lose any weight in between movies. “I couldn’t lose a massive amount of weight because I was in the contracts for that movie,” she said. “You can’t lose, I think it’s not more than 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms), or gain more than 10 pounds.” The 42-year-old actor added, “Yeah, you have to kind of stay at the weight. It’s in your contract.” Rebel famously played the role of Fat Amy in the Pitch Perfect trilogy, which conflicted with her plans to "get healthier" in order to improve her fertility before the age of 40. “I went to see a fertility doctor and he was like, ‘You’d have a much better chance with fertility if you were healthier,’” she recalled. “It really hit me hard because I was living a fantastic bigger life.” The situation made Wilson “re-examine” her lifestyle and she “slowly became healthier.” She also shared that she wanted to lose weight so she could diversify the roles she played in her movie career. <div id="indie-campaign-rHsIzpAmAj7xkA4llYlH-2" data-campaign-name="NCA ENTERTAINMENT newsletter" data-campaign-indie="newsletter-signup" data-jira="TSN-268" data-from="1640955600000" data-to="1677502800000"></div> “I was stereotyped in playing that fat funny friend, which is so hard because I love those roles. I love doing the roles. I love those characters,” she said. “But then I did want to do more things but I felt like being the bigger girl you’re just more pigeonholed.” The three Pitch Perfect movies came out between 2012 and 2017, before Rebel started her "year of health" in 2020 and lost more than 30 kilograms. Wilson revealed in 2021 that her team initially didn’t want her to embark on her health journey because they believed it would have a negative impact on her acting career. “I got a lot of pushback from my own team, actually, here in Hollywood. When I said, ‘OK, I’m going to do this year of health. I feel like I’m really gonna physically transform and change my life,’” she told the BBC at the time. “And they were like, ‘Why? Why would you wanna do that?’ Because I was earning millions of dollars being the funny fat girl and being that person.” Image credits: Getty Images

Body

Nick Kyrgios' impressive pitch to Ben Stiller

After his tense and fiery quarter-final defeat at the hands of Rafael Nadal at Indian Wells – where <a href="https://www.oversixty.co.nz/news/news/ben-stiller-dragged-into-fiery-kyrgios-outburst">Kyrgios dragged Stiller into things </a>while venting his considerable frustration over the behaviour of unruly spectators – Australia's bad boy of tennis has kept things going with Stiller in a series of social media exchanges. Kyrgios has actually had the nerve to come out and ask point blank if he could star alongside Stiller in his next film – and the response appears to be. . . yes! Stiller sent a message to Kyrgios on Twitter following his loss to Nadal: “Great match today.” Kyrgios responded on Sunday with: “Thanks. Maybe we can start working on the next film together, I think I got some acting in me. How is your tennis?” Stiller followed that up with a reply on Monday morning. “I could use some help with my serve but maybe a new doubles team? We can discuss it on set …” he wrote. Of his loss to Nadal, Kyrgios said in a post-match press conference: “This one hurts, because I know that no matches that I played before this are going to get talked about, and it’s been the story of my career." “I played three bloody good matches. I beat one of the guys that had like nearly 60 wins last year and no one remembered that. And everyone will just remember that time where Kyrgios lost to Rafa at Indian Wells or the time that he threw the racquet.” Kyrgios is referring to a moment after shaking hands with Nadal and the umpire, when he smashed his racquet into the ground. It then flew off and nearly hit a ballkid, who ducked out of the way just in time. Kyrgios later made amends by contacting the ballkid, tracking him down at the courts, and gifting him a tennis racquet. Image: Getty

Movies

6 tips for choosing the perfect campsite

The right spot on a campsite can make or break your camping trip. Here are six tips to help you find the perfect spot the pitch a tent. 1. Flat, flatter, flattest First things first, look for the flattest spot you can find. This means both that the ground is not on a slope (which could leave you sleeping on an angle) and that the surface of the ground is also flat. You want to avoid any holes, ridges, or large mounds of grass. Beware of depressions in the ground – if it rains there’s a good chance you’ll end up with a puddle beneath you. 2. Smooth things over It’s always a good idea to give your site a quick sweep before you set up your tent. Remove any rocks, sticks or other objects that could make for an uncomfortable sleep or even tear your tent. Ideally, you should be able to set up on something relatively smooth, even and soft like grass or sand. 3. Look out for anthills We really can’t stress this enough. Nothing (really, nothing) will ruin your camping trip faster than a tent full of ants. These little guys will find you before you know it, so do a thorough check of the area around your site. 4. Be smart with shade The sun can very quickly progress from pleasantly warm to searingly hot, so you’re going to want some shade. Position yourself close to some trees that will provide shade in the afternoon, when the sun is at its strongest. Give the trees a good once over before selecting your spot and make sure there are no branches that are dead or look unstable. A strong wind can easily bring one down on you. <img width="498" height="245" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/33971/image__498x245.jpg" alt="Image_ (93)"/> 5. Get some privacy If you’re camping at an established campground, you don’t want to find yourself in the middle of the most popular thoroughfare. Try to stay at least one site back from roads or paths where people will walk frequently. Avoid choosing a site too close to the amenities blocks or right by the barbecues as these can be noisy at all hours of the day (and night). 6. Pick the right neighbours Setting up next to a large family with lots of young kids or a bunch of blokes on a beer and fishing trip could spell disaster. If you want peace and quiet, choosing the right neighbours will make all the difference. Do a quick scan when you arrive and try to work out which co-campers are going to suit you best. Are you a serious camper? What tips would you suggest? Share them with the Over60 community in the comments below. Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/travel-tips/2016/10/5-reasons-to-start-wrapping-your-luggage-in-plastic/">5 reasons to start wrapping your luggage in plastic</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/travel-tips/2016/10/major-airline-replaces-meals-with-chocolate-bars/">Major airline replaces meals with chocolate bars</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/travel-tips/2016/10/sleep-better-in-a-hotel-room/">10 tips for a better night’s sleep in a hotel room</a>

Travel Tips

Community pitches in to buy drive-thru worker new bike

Just when you think there’s no kindness left in the world, you hear about stories like this. After learning that a drive-thru attendant at a local fast food restaurant was struggling to make his way to work each day due to having no means of transport, a New Jersey community has stepped in to give the young man a new lease on life. Jaron, a worker at the McDonald’s restaurant in the town of Franklin, is seen by his customers as a “ray of sunshine” thanks to his positive attitude and constant smile. So, to help make the struggling young man’s life easier, members of the community have pitched in to help buy Jaron a bike. “With the help of this group of ladies from the community and the Franklin Volunteer Fire Department, Jaron was able to purchase a new bike as our way of saying ‘thank you’ for always being a positive person even when times are tough!” the Fire Department explained in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lovewhatreallymatters/posts/1433364193352641" target="_blank">a post</a> on the Love What Matters Facebook page. Commenters have praised the generosity of those who helped Jaron, thanking them for showing appreciation for good workers often taken for granted. “Customer service is often a thankless job and barely exists these days,” one woman wrote. “Way to go Jaron! Keep up the great work and making people’s days. The world needs more people like you in it! Glad these lovely people showed their appreciation for his service.” Related links: <a href="/finance/money-banking/2017/03/barack-and-michelle-obama-book-deal-worth-millions/">You won’t believe what the Obama’s book deal is worth</a> <a href="/finance/money-banking/2017/03/stranger-buys-elderly-womans-groceries/">Kind stranger pays for elderly woman’s groceries</a> <a href="/lifestyle/retirement-life/2017/03/man-credits-grandma-for-inspiring-him-to-pay-for-elderly-womans-groceries/">Man credits grandma for inspiring him to pay for elderly woman’s groceries</a>

Money & Banking

Pitch purrfect: Cats who love listening to “cat music”

It turns out our feline friends are secret music fans with very particular tastes (and no, their favourite song isn’t The Cure’s Love Cats or Elton John’s Honky Cat). A recent study investigating music’s effects on cats published in the journal Applied Animal Behavioral Science found that while cats ignore our music, they are highly responsive to “cat music” – music that is written especially for cats. Two psychologists and a composer from the University of Wisconsin-Madison created a “species-specific” song, which as you can imagine, included plenty of cat-friendly sounds. As cats vocalise one octave higher than people, the pitch of the music was also an octave higher and the song tempo was matched to the tempo of cats’ purrs. “We are not actually replicating cat sounds,” says lead author Charles Snowdon, an emeritus professor of psychology. “We are trying to create music with a pitch and tempo that appeals to cats.” Next, the team played cat tunes and human tunes to 47 cats of various breeds and found that cats were significantly more positive towards cat music than our music. The cats would purr, walk towards the speaker and rub against them when played this specially-composed tune. If you’re wondering why anyone would bother to find out the musical preferences of our feline friends in the first place, the researchers wanted to evaluate the benefits of music on animals to see if music could help socialise rescue cats in shelter who are not use to human contact. <a href="https://soundcloud.com/io9/cozmos-air" target="_blank">Why not play a sample of the cat-friendly tune and let us know how they react?</a>

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