84 Not Out

Here's Marion's mum Flo celebrating her 84th birthday with us at the Ramada Hotel in Southport yesterday. We booked afternoon tea for Flo and eight family and friends and I think everyone enjoyed the afternoon even though the hotel managed to serve us with the cheap afternoon tea when we had wanted the posh one. It probably wasn't their fault as we only booked "afternoon tea" but we assumed we would be offered a choice when we arrived. Mustn't grumble I suppose as nobody seemed to mind and we saved a few quid. It's Flo's birthday on Thursday and I think that you will agree that for someone who has overcome two major cancer treatments she's looking pretty good.



Whilst still on the subject of birthdays, here's assembly worker Sean Johnson who today celebrates his 31st. I had hoped to put a new photo of Sean on here but he was on holiday last week and is off today so I will have to update it tomorrow. In the meantime here is how he looked at 30.Sean still likes to keep himself fit and spends his free time at the gym. Now that we have our own gym here at Instanta I am hoping that he can give me a few tips. He also enjoys running and swimming and in the last twelve months has become one of our regular Tuesday five a side soccer players with a number of "man of the match" performances. Congratulations Sean. Have a wonderful day.



A few weeks ago we reported that assembly worker Lee Moore (left) was trying out life in the office and, now that Lauren has departed, he has taken the plunge and is here with us today learning the sales desk duties. Craig Buckley(right)is going out on the road in four weeks and is busily preparing Lee for a smooth switchover.



It's quite unusual to see a literary prize the subject of gambling stories in the press but today's Guardian front page reports that money has been flooding onto Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" for the Man Booker prize for fiction. Bookies have reported that they have never seen anything quite like it and have slashed her odds from 12-1 to 2-1. Let's hope that the erudite intellectuals who form the judging panel haven't got together in a match fixing scam. Seems unlikely but I'll stick to betting on Big Brother and X Factor and a bit of soccer. This year's BB sees me with a win of between £5 and £90 at the moment. Just can't get very excited about it at all as nobody here is watching it so I haven't had any tips. Speaking of books I have started rewriting my novel and have added 2,000 words to the first five chapters. If I continue at that rate I should get to my target of 70,000 words. Don't think I'll be nominated for the Man Booker though.

And speaking of gambling. Here's Paddy Power's new advert with------- Bruce Grobbelaar????!!! WTF