Let's Just Clear One Thing Up

I would like to point out that the advice from my doctor as mentioned on the blog yesterday was to relax. It was not, ,as suggested by some readers, to go out and indulge in gay sex. OK, now that's cleared up, I would like to start by wishing a very happy 41st birthday on Sunday to my right hand man in the office Mr Max Vidal (below).



Devoted father to three girls, Max is a keen Liverpool fan and golfer. He will be known to many customers as the friendly voice who tells them we are not paying for their boiler to be de-scaled under guarantee and to many more as the friendly voice who gives them sensible advice on how to carry out running repairs on their old machines. We get few of these nowadays as Max initially forgot to mention that these repairs are supposed to be carried out with the boiler disconnected from the mains electricity supply (only kidding Max). Max has a beautiful singing voice and constantly serenades us all in the office so we are keenly awaiting his performance at the Christmas Karaoke. As well as supporting a decent football team, Max is no mean player himself and can be relied on to put in a full ninety minutes every week at our five a side sessions which, as we only have the hall for an hour, does cause some hassle with the badminton players who come on after us. Max has worked in many departments at Instanta before making a niche for himself here in the office. Next week he's going to make one for me too. I know that everyone at Instanta will join me in wishing him all the very best for Sunday.



Marion and I had a very enjoyable lunch yesterday at Southport's excellent Warehouse brasserie. Apart from enjoying lunch with two old friends Paul & Ann Johnson from Skelmersdale, I was supposed to be getting feedback on our new sous vide unit from Marc the chef who is running trials on it for us. Unfortunately by the time we had finished gabbing, the kitchen had closed and Marc had gone home. However he did give me a friendly wave from the kitchen while we were eating so I think I can safely assume that there are no problems and when I visited the kitchen hatch I was pleased to see the unit on with several timers running. I am quite excited about this unit. We have spent a long time developing it and I can see it doing very well.



It was like Armageddon in Southport's M & S yesterday. After lunch we made a quick visit as we had heard that there was a sale on and , sure enough, there was 20% off everything for one day only. It would have been daft not to take advantage of this as we always buy our Xmas turkey there so we promptly bought two turkey crowns and all the trimmings plus a couple of good bottles of wine. Now I don't know about you but I can't see the logic in this offer. The store was absolutely heaving but, apart from a huge boost to cash, what has M&S gained from this? They got our £50 for turkey three weeks early but instead of £50 they only got £40. I reckon that works out at an annual interest rate of 343%. The argument may be that we would not have bought the turkey from them so they at least have something from us but unless they pay virtually nothing for their turkeys. clothes, wine whatever, the price cut must have driven a big hole through their profits.

The new medication for the blood pressure had an immediate impact with a first result of 153 over 85. That 85 is the first reading below 100 for a couple of weeks so maybe I can stay around a bit longer and take the doctor's advice. Think we could relax by going to the pictures tomorrow. Just found this trailer. Looks good.