The saying goes, ‘if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.’ But in some cases preparation can lead to a FAIL, like when the Universal channel (channel 117) accidentally released a Nelson Mandeal obituary ad last night.

Much panic and drama ensued. This, from Timeslive:

An ad of the obituary, titled “Remembering Madiba 1918-2013” appeared on Universal Channel 117 on Tuesday night, featuring some facts about Mandela’s life, The Star reported.

Mandela, 94, was admitted to hospital last week and is being treated for pneumonia.

The presidency and the Nelson Mandela Foundation contacted Multichoice chief executive Nico Meyer on Tuesday night to complain, according to the publication.

Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj told the newspaper that the mistake was “unfortunate” and “insensitive to the Mandela family”.

The channel said it had obituaries ready for major statesmen and offered a “sincere and heartfelt apology for the airing of such announcement… due to a technical error by our team”.

[more here] 

One day earlier, and it would have been a really bad April fool’s joke..