We had a great evening on Friday when Mark and Nita from Workhouse Marketing joined us for a meal at the Malmaison in Liverpool. It was good to catch up on all their news including the imminent opening of the Whalley Wine Shop in Whalley (where else?)by their son Tom. It's going to be supplying a great range of wines and more and Tom, who once managed the same premises for Thresher, is hoping that his old clients will return and benefit once again from his expertise. With the strength of the Workhouse publicity machine behind him I'm sure that he will make it a great success.
Unfortunately things went downhill the morning after our evening at the Malmaison. Whilst we were having breakfast, a call came through from the factory. Yes I had given Andy the closely guarded secret that is my mobile phone number and told him to phone in case of emergency. We had some of the factory team working overtime to catch up on the backlog of orders that had built up when the circuits were late. So when the phone rang I knew that it was an emergency. Andy told me of a programming problem with the boilers and I couldn't suss it out. So planned day shopping in Liverpool was curtailed as we weren't in the mood for it and we returned early.The nightmare scenario was that three hundred circuits would have to be scrapped. So, after a couple of hours of thinking, I came into the factory and started playing around with the boilers on test. And, guess what? The programme glitch was dead simple, all that was required was for the boilers to be rebooted to accept the new programmes (a bit like when you put a new programme on your computer) and they were all working perfectly. What a relief! I always vowed not to work on Saturdays but now that I no longer own the business, there I was at 6pm.(Chris please note). Thanks to the lads who gave up their time.
I still have a chance to meet Sandi Toksvig. I had a phone call on Friday from a very nice researcher Laura at the BBC and she asked me to come to Manchester for an audition for the show.So tomorrow evening I'm off to the BBC in Oxford Road. I don't really think I stand much chance as, although I know quite a lot about ceramics and Japanese stuff, I don't think I'm up to much on the rest of the antique spectrum.
As part of the audition I have to take a favourite antique with me and talk enthusiastically about it. There are quite a few on a display in the lounge but I'm torn as to which to take as I really like and am enthusiastic about them all.I'll probably take the least valuable as, knowing my luck lately, I'm bound to drop it. And talking of dropped stuff, I just bought a beautiful antique teapot on eBay. The seller said it was in good condition. Now I don't know about you but I don't think that four enormous rivets and a re glued chip on the spout could be defined as "Good condition". The seller was fine and offered a full refund (even saying I could keep the pot if I wanted). I loved the style of his response "hi there ,
to my knowledge [and i m not THE XPERT]it was in good condition.the handle , didn t know , sorry .
to me it s just a teapot .it s eBay .you can t see it , sometimes you are lucky as a buyer , sometimes not .look , i ll send you a full refund if you d b happy that .i m not fussed " sic as they say.
Finally something to shout about at Anfield. I invited my brother Peter to join me but he was unenthusiastic about the prospect of another boring performance so Nick came and saw one of the best goals scored at Anfield for a few seasons.
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