Friday 29 May 2009

Happy Birthday Peter




It's a sign that the blog has been running for a long time when Instanta Staff birthdays start to come around for the second time and here is Peter Barlow who celebrates his 48th birthday on Sunday.



And here's how he appeared on the blog this time last year in happier times before credit crunches and recession and just after his beloved Manchester United had won the Champions League. For some reason he didn't seem keen on waving his scarf around this year. But I won't give him any stick as his workmates at ASDA (where he does a few extra hours)have already given him punishment enough. Storeman Peter lives and breathes football and it was a sad day when we reported on the blog that he had finally hung up his boots due to persistent injury. But you can't keep a football fanatic down and within a short while he was back only to be out again a few weeks later.Peter's football version of the hokey cokey continued throughout the year and he is now back again having made more farewell appearances than Frank Sinatra. Football aside, Peter is also a devoted father. His son James is a talented footballer as too is youngest son Alex who, along with his sister Heidi is an outstanding dancer. Have a great day Peter.



Heidi and Alex once auditioned for "Britain's Got Talent" but were not successful but tonight it's our CEDABOND waiter Greg Pritchard's turn to appear in the semi finals. I see that his odds on Betfair are very long so people aren't rating his chances but he is a charismatic young man and if he performs well he could easily cause an upset. I've had a very small flutter on the competition and have simply bet against Susan Boyle winning. Her behaviour after winning her semi final was weird to say the least and the subsequent press reports of four letter tirades against fellow contestants and the police are hardly the way to make friends and influence people. I was quite amused last night when Amanda Holden said that if Callum Francis didn't get into the final after his medley of Jungle Book songs the other judges would have her to answer to. So when young Callum was up against Two Grand for the judges' vote who did she vote for? Two Grand of course.



It's the last working day of the month. That's the day when our overdraft is at its very lowest level before we pay all our bills on Monday. That's right all our bills on Monday (customers please note we would appreciate it if you could do the same). Sadly we have a big corporation tax bill to pay on Monday so the overdraft will be right back up again. I was thinking of going cap in hand asking the Inland Revnue to give us a bit more time as I hear that they are very sympathetic at the moment (for a change)but to be honest I haven't really got any sob stories to spin, no big customers gone bust so we'll just have to pay up.



Speaking of efficient cash flow control, two days after the final game of the season at Anfield, the Kop season ticket renewal forms land on my desk. But amazingly all prices are reduced for next season from £650 to £634 a saving of £16 or 2.46%. But hang on a minute hasn't VAT gone down? So what's the saving before VAT? £2 per season or 10p per match. Thanks Liverpool. All prices reduced! The generosity astounds me. They should establish the club as a registered charity.



The weather forecast for the weekend is good. Marion and I have invited her mum and a number of her elderly friends and our neighbour round for Sunday lunch so we should be able to have the roast in the garden. The older generation tends to be overlooked and we know a number of widows and widowers who are on their own with families a long way away and they don't get many chances to get out. The conversation at the lunches is always interesting and I hope that when we reach that age somebody feels the same about us.

I'll leave you with young Callum and decisive judge Amanda Holden.


Thursday 28 May 2009

Drag Me To Hell



We rushed home from "Drag Me To Hell", our Orange Wednesday trip to the cinema last night in time to catch the wannabee young apprentices on TV. This week's task was to perform live on television whilst grumpy old Sir Al watched from a distance. He wanted them to go out and sell themselves and make sure they hit their targets. As usual his faithful pair of old codgers were on hand to help him out and he even took the unusual step of making one of them team leader (only for him not to be seen for the next hour when he was replaced by the other who seemed intent on taking big chunks out of the competition).Sir Al wanted them to go for bling. He had his eyes on that enormous silver cup with the big handles but the team went for the safe option and went instead for the small silver medals engraved with the word "LOSER". Which was a big mistake as the cup was a big ticket item with an estimated £96m payback which Sir Al could have used to keep little Carlos in the side.Fortunately for the viewers, the other team played a blinder. We missed the boardroom scenes but I'm pretty sure that Sir Al will have pointed the finger and said "Berbatov. You're fired!"



Meanwhile on BBC1 "The Apprentice" had a similar theme with the contestants having to sell live on a TV shopping channel.Even the glamorous Kate was unable to use her charms to sell a polystyrene cat that you pushed pins into.Perhaps a polystyrene Sir Al would have brought better results. The show ended with the ever jovial James likening himself to Hugh Heffner. Left in the house with those women I think I would have opted for Macbeth, James.



Meanwhile our photographer Peter Raymond sent me a link to a bizarre news story about the proposed launch of a new reality TV show. It seems that past contestants on "I'm a Celebrity" are getting together to launch "It's an Election.". So far David Van Day and Esther Rantzen have thrown their hats into the ring. Peter Andre was very interested until he realised that he'd misread the title.



I see that Nicholas Soames has launched an official complaint against the BNP using Churchill's image in their campaign literature although why Nicholas is worried about a stuffed dog with a Yorkshire accent is beyond me. Oh yes! Have you noticed how whenever a BNP supporter is interviewed on TV they always, without exception, start by saying "I'm not racist but"? Isn't it strange how they always forget to finish the sentence. I'll do it for them "I'm not racist but I AM very thick."



As for last night's film "Drag Me To Hell". It was a very entertaining bit of fun with plenty of jump out of your seat shocks and a lot of laugh raising horrors. As we were forty years older than the vast majority of the audience we found it hard to cope with their constant traipsing in and out of the cinema to check their text messages. I would have gladly dragged them to hell.



Here at Instanta the Dealer Newsletter is now in the post. Look out for it.

Quote of the night came from Andy Gray during Sky Sport's coverage of the Champions League Final. It was twenty three minutes from the end and United were trailing 2-0. "If they don't do something in 23 minutes, it will be all over." Talk about stating the bleedin obvious. I'll finish with last night's lesson for the young apprentices.





Wednesday 27 May 2009

Speling Waz Neva My Strongist Poynt

As the girls in the office exhaustedly finished stuffing 2,000 Dealer Newsletters into envelopes, Jenny coyly asked me who had proof read it. Always a bad sign don't you think? Well, of course it was me who proof read it. Mya cuppa. Or should that be mea culpa? Having then been shown the glaring spelling mistake I gave the instruction to let it go and not to check for any more. (My proof reading skills are notoriously bad). A perfectionist might open 2,000 envelopes and redo the job but we are very green here at Instanta and there's quite a few trees worth of paper here.At least it will give the competitors something to tut about, "Did you see that spelling in the Instanta Dealer News?" Well, if they must know, it was there for a purpose - just to check that everyone reads it properly. Because whenever we do anything in print you can be sure that someone, somewhere (you know who you are M) will be on the phone to point out what we did wrong. Spelling apart it is an excellent newsletter, read it and you will find out how to take advantage of some special offers in June.



Just as I am reading about madman Kim Jong Il's latest nuclear bomb test, another madman Nick Griffin appears on TV in a political broadcast. The BNP broadcast ended with the slogan "Punish The Pigs" which implied that by voting BNP you would be getting one over on those wicked MPs. I think "Cut Off Your Nose" would have been more appropriate Nick as a vote for your dark politics would certainly be spiting our faces. Back with Kim Jong Il, what worries me is that if you dig a very deep hole and drop a nuclear bomb down it that produces a reading like an earthquake on the Richter Scale, isn't there some risk of killing us all? Just imagine. The bomb goes off at a particular weak spot on the earth's crust and it's curtains. Goodnight Vienna.



I said yesterday that "Britain's Got Talent" was ideal betting material and, once again last night, the final two were dead certs although I did expect it to be the other way around thinking that Stavros Flatly (above) would get through on the judges' rather than the public vote. There is certainly something appealing about the flabby duo but I'm not sure that I'd call it talent. I admire Simon Cowell who usually has the knack of getting his comments exactly right and does not shy from the truth. But , for once, I felt that he over stepped the mark with his criticism of the teenage dance duo Ben & Vicky Milan-Vega which, though truthful, was needlessly cruel and reduced the dedicated 16 year old Vicky to tears on the biggest night of her life. OK so truth hurts but is it always necessary? The couple were never going to win but had spent most of their lives practicing and deserved better. I suspect Simon regretted his remarks almost immediately.



Truly back in the old routine tonight with Orange Wednesday and "Drag Me To Hell" which will be like deja vu for Marion having joined me on the Kop for Liverpool's last home game of the season. How did the Hyypia mosaic look? Being part of it we never get the chance to see the effect. We simply turn up and hold aloft the coloured square of paper that's been left on our seats. It would be the perfect opportunity for sabotage. If the message read "We're All Gay" or We Love Sir Alex" we'd be none the wiser. Which reminds me that there is a football match on tonight. Better go to the early showing of "Drag Me To Hell" so I can get home in time to watch....... "The Apprentice". Seriously I wish United' apprentices well in their attempts to catch up with the masters Liverpool's five wins.



I see that Red Bull has been pulled from the shelves in Germany after inspectors found traces of coke in it. Was it Diet , Zero , Cherry or Classic?. I think we should know. I can see this giving all the drug test failing athletes an escape. Bath Rugby star Mat Stevens should lodge an appeal immediately. It was the Red Bull. Honest!



Two lots of charts arrived on my desk this morning. The first from the CBI shows little to enthuse about with the only glimmer of green shoots in the expectations of manufacturers who expect the fall in output to be slower. That's hardly a green shoot, more a seed. The second set of figures were from CESA. These are an industrial trends survey of how the catering industry as a whole is faring and I have to say that our figures are bucking the trend which is showing a pretty hefty downturn for the last three quarters whilst ours remains marginally up. The result? We have increased our (admittedly tiny) share of the catering equipment market by over 60%.

I'll close today with Simon Cowell getting his just deserts.







Tuesday 26 May 2009

Back In The Old Routine

The holiday is over and Marion and I are back into our working routine. As with our previous holidays of late, we have returned to nice tidy desks so thanks again to Jenny for keeping things ship shape. We enjoyed the holiday and, after days of rain, actually had a bit of good weather at the weekend when we visited friends in Llangollen. The plan was to go for a couple of country walks but the temptation of a pub lunch and a read of the weekend newspapers was too strong and the boots remained in the boot.



The Guardian Pick the Score ended with a runaway win for store man Tony Lowe who finished with a very impressive 285 points. After leading for most of the season, Sales Director Nick Neal had a scare when Sheet Metal Worker Dave Horrocks overtook him but Nick stormed back to finish second with Dave in third. I will be presenting the prizes at the next staff meeting. After winning last year I ended well down the field probably due to my habit of putting a defeat down for Manchester United and a win for Liverpool for most of the last few months. The full Instanta Sports league ended like this.

1 Tony Lowe (clarettoe) 285
2 Nick Neal (Melvis) 274
3 david horrocks (mr aitch) 273
4 Jenny Wright (jenuwin) 267
5 Peter Brindle (claret4ever) 260
6 MAX VIDAL (maximus) 244
7 Craig Buckley (craig-imus) 243
8 John Brassey (lfcchampions) 242
9 peter barlow (manc) 240
10 Dave Wilson (NorthernGunner) 235
11 Gavin Ford (Rossi46) 230
12 michael chubbs (chubby's champ) 225
13 andrew fyles (babyfyleszy) 221
13 neil horrocks (neilydone21) 221
15 david boutle (dbarcle) 140

We also opened another league up to friends this season and Simon Smith of Dunk Ink was the highest outsider finishing 2nd. Mark Jones from Workhouse came a very respectable 7th with Dave Sweeney from City Servicing taking 8th place. Thanks to everyone who joined in. We hope to run it again next year.



It's not quite been a typical day as my eBay sale of the century finished on Sunday and I had to get up early to pack things and was here at Instanta at 7.45 with a pile of boxes and tape gun at the ready. The sale was a bit of a curate's egg with excellent results for some Chinese pieces but break even or even a loss on some of the other antique pottery and porcelain. If I had just sold the five best items I would have made only a fraction less than I did by selling seventeen and saved myself a lot of work to boot. The trouble is how to know which will bring results. Fortunately the huge Chinese vase sold to a very pleasant buyer in England who has agreed that I can deliver it next week when I am in the area rather than risking it getting smashed and losing £1,200 by sending it with a carrier.

Poor Craig Mercer from our machine department went for a night out in Southport at the weekend and ended up at A&E after a brutal attack by a group of thugs who smashed a glass in his face. This is the second time that one of our staff has ended up in A&E after a night out in Southport in the last five months. When you realise that we have a pretty small workforce, this is a scary statistic and not a great advert for the town.

Craig took orders for almost 200 boilers whilst we were on holiday last week. If we could repeat that 52 weeks of the year that would be great. The girls in the office are now busy stuffing Newsletters into envelopes. We've got 2,000 envelopes to post before the end of the week. The newsletters are promoting the new Sous Vide equipment and our special June offers which will appear here daily throughout next month.



I have not been betting on Betfair lately but I will have to have ago with "Britain's Got Talent". In each of the first two semi finals the two to get through into the final stood out so far that they were as near to dead certs as you will ever get. This is the first year that we have watched this show and, whilst it is a production triumph, the quality of three quarters of the acts is dire. Having said that, the quality of the remaining quarter is very high. Marion and I are rooting for the two dance groups Diversity and Flawless and we really can't choose between them. As for Susan Boyle, is it just me or is she a bit odd? Here's an American take on the show. Pretty accurate in my opinion.






Friday 22 May 2009

MP Expenses Scandal. Is Botox Claimable?



Whilst the row about MPs' expenses rumbles on, the question I want answered is "Did Hazel Blears claim for whatever it is she has had done to her face?" Because that sure doesn't look natural to me. Sorry if that sounds bitchy but I'm not a big facelift/botox fan and if the resultant face raises questions, what's the point. You have to admire Hazel's cheek though. After her boss says on national TV that her behaviour was "unacceptable" she then claims that he thinks she is doing an excellent job. Not quite sure that was the message being put out Hazel.



Son Paul and his fiancee Josephine have gone for a long weekend in Milan. If anybody deserves a break its these two. Each of them work more hours every week than I have ever done in any week in almost forty years working life. I really hope that they have a wonderful time. I know Paul has a few great ideas to make it a memorable few days.



A big thank you to Mark & Nita from Workhouse Marketing who treated us to a wonderful meal at Heathcote's The Longridge Restaurant last night. The food was excellent and we had a great evening. I can't recommend Workhouse enough. They are full of original ideas, highly creative and always keep to deadlines. To see their different approach click here.



After grumbling about the weather all week we actually saw some sunshine yesterday and Marion managed a bit of gardening. It's back to form again today with black clouds as far as the eye can see. We are going to take Marion's mum out for a bit of lunch. Tomorrow we are off to Llangollen to see old friends David and Janet Wareing. As our holiday will officially be over by then you can guarantee a couple of glorious days and next week will be a heat wave.

Although we have been on holiday we have been in touch with the office and the week has brought its fair share of problems. Peter's car broke down and we gave the go ahead for £1600 of repairs only to be told when the job was finished that another £1,700 worth had ben discovered. Talk about having you over a barrel! The bank managed to lose a payment for £7500 that we made to our element supplier in Italy and then managed to make it twice and most importantly poor Dave B who does our office cleaning got his first negative feedback on eBay. Oh dear.



Speaking of eBay, the first item in my sale of the century went for £180 which is OK. I'll know how the sale has gone on Sunday evening. Until then I'll leave you with a lesson in advanced cat yodelling.



Thursday 21 May 2009

A Hint Of Spring



Our wet weather holiday continued yesterday with a trip to Manchester (OK not exactly the best place to avoid rain). But there was certainly a hint of spring with the unexpected appearance of Morris dancers outside the Royal Exchange Theatre. Whilst this quintessentially English tradition looks fine outside an idyllic pub on a hot sunny day there was something intrinsically wrong in an edgy city centre with Big Issue sellers on every corner and I felt that the dancers should have been whacking each other's heads with the sticks to be more appropriate to the setting.





Lunch was at Harvey Nick's Brasserie. Very "Ab Fab" and "ladies who lunch" I know but a great view, entertaining people watching (Chris Bisson who plays Kash in Shameless was in there although I doubt he'll be mentioning that he saw us)and most of all, extremely good food.Strongly recommended. We always used to eat at one of Selfridge's food bars but this is much better and not that much more expensive. Marion's credit crunching continued with a visit to the much hyped M&S penny bazaar which turned out to have sold out before ten o'clock. The lady on the counter told us that there was nothing worth buying anyway and people were queueing around the block at 9 am.




The main purpose of our Manchester visit was "Haunted" at the Royal Exchange Theatre. It looked like we hit on the SAGA performance as almost everyone in the matinee audience was over fifty. This near geriatric audience enjoyed the play with gusto and hearty laughter rang around the auditorium even when it seemed inappropriate. The play which touched on infidelity, illness, childlessness and growing old was truly haunting and left both of us looking for tissues as it reached its heartbreaking end.To quote Guardian critic Alfred Hickling "Niall Buggy is an affecting, dewy-eyed Mr Berry, whose poetic soul is altogether too large for the compass of suburbia. Beth Cooke is delightfully demure as the impeccably spoken Hazel, who seems to have been taught to chew on her consonants 40 times before spitting them out. Brenda Blethyn gives an over-ripe peach of a performance as Mrs Berry" I certainly could not have put it better.



Blog reader Jim Westbrook of Coffee Plus kindly sent me this photo of an Instanta boiler looking good in The Glasgow Silverburn Yo Sushi. When people ask us why we invested so much in design and styling for our boilers, here is the answer. A square box (which was all that was on offer before we brought design to the market)would have been as inappropriate as some of yesterday's laughter.

Oh look! The sun is shining. Marion is in the garden. Which reminds me of this song from Allan Sherman.


Wednesday 20 May 2009

You Really Have To Hand It To Samsung

Regular blog readers will know that I am a big fan of YouTube and today there is yet another viral video at the bottom of the blog. And once again it's been done by Samsung who are beginning to corner the market for mega viewed virals. Remember the sheep and the awesome computer? They were both by Samsung and today's video is a sort of observation test. I didn't solve it but you can click on the link after watching to see how it was done.What strikes me about these videos is firstly the millions of views that they have had, secondly the short time in which they have had them and thirdly their originality with each being completely different. I hope that they get the success that their energy deserves.






The dire holiday weather continues giving us plenty of time for relaxation. We went to the Tate Modern in Liverpool yesterday to see the new Colour Chart exhibition but I got the dates mixed up and it doesn't start until next week so we had a look at the sculptures instead. As always at Tate Modern you like some, you hate some. I had to smile in one gallery. Before going in you put on a pair of headphones . You then entered the gallery through a curtain to find subdued lighting, loads of interesting statues and...... a dance floor. On switching on the headphones there was a continuous track of disco music. The dance floor throbbed with colour and there was an invitation for visitors to have a dance but no-one was taking the invite up. Instead they were all looking slightly bemused with the odd swayer amongst them. I thought this gallery was brilliant. I think anything that raises a smile is brilliant.



Which would make "In The Loop" which we went to see after the Tate visit, doubly brilliant as it raises a multitude of laughs. Actually I thought it was very very good but not as good as "Coraline" on Monday. I must say that Picturehouse at FACT in Liverpool is a super cinema. This was our first visit and we enjoyed a nice cup of green tea made with an Instanta 1500 boiler before being seated in a 48 seater cinema where the seating comprised twenty four two seater settees all at ground level.Great for couples but I'm not sure I'd be keen on sharing a sofa with a stranger if I went alone. A big screen too for only 48 seats.



As I write, Marion is catching up on "Lost". She's got six episodes recorded so that will keep her busy for some time. I gave up on it several seasons ago as I have never known a more appropriately titled show. I was "Lost" after episode two but I think that everyone must be by now. I can imagine the writers siting round a huge table writing ideas and throwing them into the centre. The directors then collect them all up, throw them in the air and when they land that's it, the finished article.Meanwhile we've still got seven episodes of "The Wire" that we haven't started to watch yet.



For the last 50 years I have managed to convince myself that I have naturally yellow teeth. But that all changed recently with the acquisition of a Phillips Sonicare toothbrush. My teeth are not yet pearly white but are certainly many shades whiter than they were three weeks ago. This toothbrush is amazing. Buy one.

I spoke too soon yesterday when I said Freddie was a good restorer. I picked up the nude this evening to put her in the right place. And the top of her head came off.

An email from Jenny reports a big figure for today's orders and a small figure for today's overdraft or was it the other way around?

Here's that Samsung video I told you about earlier.



Tuesday 19 May 2009

The Future's Bright. The Future's 3D



With a deluge of biblical proportions going on yesterday we weren't able to do any of the gardening we had planned for the holiday so we went to Vue at Bolton as it is probably the nearest cinema that shows the 3D versions of the latest animated films. Coraline was a fantastic stop motion animation that would have been brilliant in 2D but the 3D really did add an extra dimension and all seven of the people in the cinema were totally blown away. Let's hope that Southport's Vue gets the necessary technology to show future 3D offerings as the trailer for "Up" was shown in 3D and looked amazing.



From our holiday bolt hole in the attic I realised that I soon won't be able to see our factory landmark the famous gas tower. The demolition is continuing and the first level has almost gone.



Freddie the garden contractor proved himself a pretty good antique restorer as the headless lady returned to the pond yesterday while we were out. She'll never be the same but nobody will be examining her closely on the rockery.



I read yesterday that ailing firms have started carrying out drug testing their workers and these tests have increased over fivefold in the last 12 months. The reason? To give them an excuse to sack workers without paying redundancy. How could they stoop that low? Which reminds me that those breathalisers we bought are getting past their sell by date.



Another bad weather forecast means that we are off to the Tate in Liverpool this morning to see the colours exhibition and then to the arthouse cinema FACT to see "In the Loop". More culture tomorrow with Brenda Bletyhn at the Manchester Royal Exchange. I'm sure things will be running well at Instanta. I got a message from Jenny last night saying that orders were good and the overdraft was still within the limit.

I'm completely out of this year's Guardian Pick the Score which looks to be going to Tony Lowe. Nick, who led the field for most of the season has faded badly and may struggle to hold on to third place. Meanwhile, 2-0 up with a few minutes to go, it's good to see that my team were still passionate about keeping a clean sheet.


Monday 18 May 2009

Britain's Got Talent? Britain's Got Nutters



Watching "Britain's Got Talent" on Sky Plus last night I couldn't help thinking that the outfit of the old bloke dancing an Irish jig looked familiar. Neil Horan was his name so I Googled him and sure enough there he was disrupting the 2004 Olympic marathon. Horan has attempted to sabotage a number of sporting events and is a defrocked Roman Catholic priest who once wandered onto the track during a grand prix. That ITV gave this lunatic the oxygen of publicity is incredible on its own. That the judges put his dire act through to the next round is totally beyond belief. Whilst on the subject of Horan, when asked his age he told the audience he was 61. This elicited a pat on the head "Ahhhhh" from the audience. Hang on a minute. I'm not that far off 61 and my brother will be 61 in a few months. We aren't at the sympathy stage yet.



At least Britain's kids have got talent with a stunning dance performance by 11 year old Aidan Davis and some fabulous singing from ten year old Natalie Okri a kid who reminds me of the young Michael Jackson. Maybe there's a case for barring anyone over 20 from entering



I've no idea what's going on at Instanta today as me and Marion are on holiday - can't you tell? It's pouring with rain and the forecast is the same for the rest of the week. As Marion's credit crunch campaign continues we are not going anywhere but we have decided to sleep in the spare room for a change of scenery.



Sunday 17 May 2009

Headless Nude Found In Garden

Regular readers may recall how we returned home one day a couple of months ago to find that our local garden contractor had managed to dig up an ivy that we wanted trimming and trim a bush that we wanted digging up. The dust eventually settled and yesterday we asked Freddie (not his real name) to return and put up some trellis. I've known Freddie for thirty years now and I'm not one to let one little mistake sour our relationship. I went into the garden to inspect the finished job which was great. But near to the trellis was an unrecognisable terracotta lump. Well, unrecognisable for a split second that was. It was an antique art deco nude sculpture that had sat serenely by the pond for years and was now sitting serenely minus her head. "What happened to the statue?" I asked "Oh sorry John I caught her with the drill cable. Can I replace her for you?" I smiled whilst inside I was screaming. Said statue was worth twice as much as the work he'd just carried out. "No. Just stick her head back on please Freddie." Let's hope he sticks it back on the right way round. With a £250 excess on the insurance it's not worth a claim.



The pond with nude in left foreground before her "accident"



Speaking of insurance, our household renewal papers came from our brokers a couple of weeks ago. The excess had risen to £500 and the monthly premiums to almost £200 an increase of over 15%. Now I'm usually pretty passive on this sort of thing and would have just filed it away but at the moment Marion has her credit crunch crusade going and started shopping around. Eventually she got the same cover for almost £90 per month less on the Internet. And what's more she got if from THE SAME INSURER! This was a huge lesson for us both.



Apart from enjoying a fine meal that Marion cooked and the company of our old friends Dave and Jane Haworth, yesterday was altogether a bit of a disappointment. What with the lady losing her head,Manchester United winning the Premiership, no numbers on the lottery and non stop torrential rain in the garden. At least we had Eurovision to look forward to and the magnificent rainbow that appeared just before it started raised the spirits.



But sadly for a big Eurovision fan like me, it only added to the day's catalogue of disappointments.Apart from the girls splashing around in transparent paddling pools suspended from the ceiling which looked as if it had been designed for alternative entertainment at a lap dancing venue, there was very little in the Eurovision spirit. The occasional comedy interludes kept up the comedy interlude tradition by not being remotely funny whilst the runaway winning song from Norway wasn't even hummable. At least the Turkish entry Num Tek Tek had enough bare flesh to keep it high on the leader board (God knows how the Muslim politicians who wanted bikinis banned from billboards in Turkey will have reacted) and Germany's burlesque number was visually entertaining (shame about the song). My douze points would unquestionably have gone to the Ukraine for the incredible set, wonderful dancers' costumes and the singer who looked like she had taken fashion tips from some ladies of the night - and the song about "sexy boms" wasn't bad either. Of course this means that we haven't see this week's "Britain's Got Talent Yet".I wonder if there is a rival to our Greg yet.

I'll leave you today with the song that should have been a worthy winner.




Friday 15 May 2009

Who Needs McV's When We've Got Max V's



Max Vidal proved to be more than a first class Service Manager yesterday when he turned up with his own home baked cookies to go with our afternoon cuppas. The hand crafted oat, toffee and apple confections proved a huge hit and had everyone looking for more and asking Max for recipe hints and tips. Even Lauren, who can rustle up smiley faces with chicken nuggets that would put Jamie Oliver to shame, was impressed. She has promised to make us all one of her speciality burgers next week.



Yesterday's slightly political slant on the blog raised a few comments and I was accused of historical inaccuracy when I stated that we were a nation of immigrants. But Britain's earliest political leaflet which was unearthed recently by archivists at the Bodleian Library proves my point. It was written in Olde English but Marion, who studied the language at university and still uses it today with a smattering of Anglo Saxon, has translated it for me. Here are a few excerpts. "The Romano British National Party calls upon all citizens to vote RBNP in next month's election. Lets put an end to Angle immigration. Fed up with Saxons taking your jobs (and torching your hovels)? Sick of all that Viking raping and pillaging. Any time you feel the pain hey Jutes refrain and Vote RBNP and together will make Britain great again like it was before we were taken over by the er Romans."



Did you see Barack Obama's stand up speech at the White House Press Correspondents dinner? A great and very funny turn from Mr President but the best lines of the night came from Wanda Sykes (above)."This is amazing, you're the first black president. I'm proud to be able to say. But that's unless you screw up. And then it's going to be, 'What's up with that half-white guy? Who voted for the mulatto? "



After bouncing into Graceland recently, Gav's mum Margaret Quinn seems to have been bouncing off a chair, landing on a shoe and ending up in A & E with a severely bruised leg. Sorry to hear about it Margaret. Gavin suggests that you were dancing on a table with your toy boy at yet another Elvis do but I'm sure that your explanation is far more plausible.



I am indebted to our local ace photographer Peter Raymond who kindly commented on the photos on my eBay sales listings and showed me how I had got the colour balance wrong. Thanks Peter. You are spot on. Lets hope that none of the buyers send the stuff back because they were expecting it to be yellow.



We're all Arsenal supporters for ninety minutes tomorrow. It would be absolutely brilliant if Liverpool could start the final game of the season next week knowing that a Premier League Championship was still a mathematical possibility. Before that can happen Arsenal have to beat Man United at Old Trafford. So no pressure there then Arsenal. I'll end the week with a footballer who doesn't respond well to pressure. And don't forget Eurovision tomorrow night. Jade's a brilliant singer but I'm pretty sure it won't be "Her Time" with a Lloyd Webber dirge like that.