The Home Straight Is In Sight

Our time at Instanta is rapidly drawing to a close and the finishing line is almost in view as today marks the last day of our penultimate month of work. With just over four weeks to go this will possibly be my last conventional blog as I intend to devote the next few weeks to those people and businesses that have meant so much to us in our twenty odd years in this industry and some of the good, the bad and the ugly happenings during that time. In the meantime we'll stick with the usual mix of trivia and Instanta news that has been the hallmark of this blog for the last couple of years.

Tomorrow Marion and I are off down to the NEC for the Antiques For Everyone fair. I've mentioned it before but it really is a super fair and the only one that we go out of our way to visit. It does exactly what it says on the label and you can go and buy something for £1 or something for £100,000 and I love it for that. I also love the comfortable layout of wide aisles and the bright stands and the huge variety of things on display ranging from postcards and ephemera to grand paintings and sculptures. The fair is vetted by a committee so you won't find a hidden treasure but you also won't buy a fake. On Sunday I'll be popping out to a new antiques fair at Scarisbrick Village Hall where there will probably be a dozen dealers and maybe only half a dozen genuine antiques between them but the chance of finding a hidden gem will strangely be much higher. I hope that when we retire we'll get more chances to go antique hunting.

Craig is busily working on the figures for the end of October and I am pleased to say that we are, once again, up on the same month last year and there is no sign of a double dip recession here at the moment. I won't say on here who is top of the sales league but it has been a tight run race and we might have a photo finish.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the office we've got some new screens on trial. These are designed to keep noise down and allow people to concentrate on their work without too many distractions but I could see them coming into use for some new office games. We could have an Instanta ping pong tournament for example. Any other suggestions on a postcard please.

Jimmy Carr was extremely funny at Southport Theatre last night. The politically correct side of me says that I shouldn't be laughing at some of his material which could be described as misogynist but the women in the audience appeared to be genuinely amused and Marion was laughing along heartily so I suppose that's the crux of the matter. If we can accept that jokes about violence or being abusive to women are simply that - jokes, then it is funny but if we feel that the comedian is in any way condoning the actions that he ridicules then he may be overstepping the mark. Not a show for the faint hearted and I couldn't repeat any of Jimmy's jokes. Oh yes there was one. What have Alexander the Great and Winnie the Pooh got in common? - same middle name.

 

Now that Marion and I have a lot of free time on our hands perhaps we could go and renew our marriage vows in some exotic location. Or maybe not after watching this. I have put the expurgated version on here but if you search YouTube for Maldives Wedding you will find the full uncensored (and much worse) 14 minute version.

Paranormal Activity 2 Ruined By Subnormal Activity

Our regular Orange Wednesday trip to the local Vue was ruined last night. You could say it was our fault for choosing "Paranormal Activity 2", a film that appeals to young people but there are lots of more mature film fans who enjoy horror films and Marion and I are among them. The cinema was packed as it often is on Orange Wednesday but usually the audience quietens down once the film begins. Not last night however. Despite the cinema manager turning away scores of people below the 15 age rating of the film, if these kids are typical, it seems that those over 15 are no longer able to watch a film without doing something else at the same time. The cinema was alight with mobile phone screens as scores of them appeared to be using them for God knows what. Those who weren't using their phones were either talking and giggling loudly, repeatedly shouting at the screen "don't leave the baby", running out screaming when anything remotely scary happened and then returning en masse a few minutes later and spilling their ice creams, coke and popcorn all over the place - not doubt the second screening was delayed half an hour for the place to be cleaned up. We don't usually complain but we had to speak to the manager to try and save any more viewers from going through this ordeal. He kindly gave us complimentary tickets (which were welcome but unnecessary) but that did not prevent the film being ruined.Was it any good? Being unable to concentrate it's hard to say. I thought it was pretty good but I was not impressed with the ending. If this audience (and it wasn't just one or two of them) is any reflection on today's young people (and I really don't want to sound like a boring old granddad), something has gone wrong. It won't really bother us as we'll be long gone in forty years but who's going to be running the country from this lot?

We are off to see Jimmy Carr at the Southport Theatre tonight. I like Jimmy Carr but it seems that few of our friends do as we were unable to give away our two spare seats. I know that he made an offensive joke about gypsies a few years ago that made headlines and he upset people again when he said that due to the war in Afghanistan we'd have a great team in the Paralympics (the consensus was that the troops actually found it funny) but he's not that outrageous is he? We'll let you know tomorrow.

Before we go to watch Jimmy we're off to Pizza Express for a bite to eat. "Diet well and truly over then?" you might ask. But no. Hat's off to Pizza Express, you can download their full menu from the Internet complete with the calories in every dish. I don't know whether to go for the Grand Chicken Caesar Salad no dough sticks regular dressing at 491 calories or the Leggera Pizza Margherita at 500 but at 1165 calories there's no chance of the Calabrese.

Watching the women on last night's "The Apprentice" arguing about who got each of the orders they took for their body sculpting vests, reminded me of our sales team now that they have individual targets to meet. "I sold that" says one. "But it's my area" says another. "I opened the account" says the third. I think any order in dispute should be given to Craig (who doesn't have a target)or maybe we should use Lord Sugar's wisdom of Solomon method and none of them can have them.

As for TV, don't forget "A League Of Their Own" Sky1 and Sk1HD tonight at 10pm. Marion and I were in the studio audience. Another five seconds of fame beckons.You know how it is when someone has a slight personal problem but you're not sure how to tell them? Well here's a very discreet new method.

No Hiding Place

Young Haylie Vidal thought that she had escaped my attention by taking a holiday on her recent birthday but I'm sorry Haylie, you don't get away that easily. Haylie was 20 last week and I am pleased to offer her our belated congratulations. She joined us in the summer after coming to us highly recommended by our service manager Max and you can't get a better recommendation that that (even if he is her dad).Haylie enjoys nothing more than a bit of shopping especially if it involves shoes and handbags. She is doing very well in the office, where she is involved in dealing with the cash and bank statements and is also learning to run the credit control department. You may hear from her if you are late in paying your account but try and make her life easy and pay us on time.

As we are winding down towards our retirement in just under five weeks I have found a bit more time for my hobby of selling on eBay. I recently listed this great little map of the smaller islands surrounding Great Britain and hope that it sells well. It's a really nice example and, for almost 300 years old, is in good condition.

Whilst it's good to collect old things and buying antiques for use is extremely green, I still don't understand those who collect animal heads as trophies. I know I'm a bit late and it's yesterday's news but I was really saddened to read about the stag known as The Emperor Of Exmoor that has been shot. I have read a lot of the arguments both pro and anti but even if the stag was past his prime, the deer population has to be kept under control and his carcass will be eaten and not wasted, there is something extremely undignified in the mounting of his magnificent head on a board and hanging it on display as a trophy. Such a fabulous animal deserved better than that. Lets hope the Emperor has the last laugh and his head falls off the wall and brains the brainless hunter.

A quick word about "Getting On" the wonderful sit com which is now in its second series - sadly in the wilderness that is BBC4. It's so refreshing to see such a realistic and genuinely funny programme about old people heading towards the oblivion of senility in a medical ward and the hospital team that looks after them. Written by and starring Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan it is beautifully observed and in Doctor Pippa Moore, Vicki Pepperdine has created a character to rank alongside David Brent in the annals of comedy brilliance. Do watch it.


Aplogies if you have a few problems getting hold of Instanta on the phone today and tomorrow. We are having a brand new all singing, all dancing switchboard fitted in preparation for the switch back from the wonders of VOIP to plain old ordinary phones.We are all in favour of the latest technology but VOIP sellers please don't come back to us until it's totally reliable.


I'll leave you today with a pretty awesome film called "People Are Awesome". You will have seen some of this but you won't have seen it all.

Sometimes Identity Theft Is Impossible To Avoid

Marion and I had a painful experience on Saturday. We went shopping in St Andrews for some small gifts but when we tendered our Tesco credit card we had to go through a huge rigmarole and were ushered to one side and asked to speak to the card provider to prove our identities. We proved who we were but then had to call their fraud line to discuss things further. It transpired that somebody had been topping up their mobile phone using my credit card. Fortunately only £30 had gone through to date (at least that's all that Tesco bank told me about)but I told them that I was certain that my PIN had not been compromised.


It appears that a PIN is not needed for mobile top ups and all that is used is the cardholder post code,the three digit number from the back of the card and sometimes the cardholder's date of birth. My address and date of birth are not exactly state secrets although the three digit number could only be taken by someone who had seen my card or someone working for a business I had paid using the card. The result was that the card that we planned to use for the weekend was cancelled. Fortunately we had other cards with us but the fraudster has caused a huge amount of hassle. We have had to change Internet orders that we placed last week but had not yet been charged, my PAYPAL account had to be altered,we lost all the Tesco clubcard points that we would have gained both on the weekend's spending and for the period before the replacement card arrives and we also felt really uncomfortable being given the third degree in a busy shop.


None of this could be classed as a huge problem but a few weeks ago I was also told that I had borrowed £500 from a payday loan company and they wanted the money back. Again it seems that the loan company relied upon post code and date of birth alone before handing over the money and paying it into someone else's account.


Some, including the perpetrators, may see these frauds as victimless crimes as it's only the banks that lose out and they are fair game (not my opinion I hasten to add). Marion and I are fairly competent at managing our affairs. We shred virtually everything that could provide a fraudster with usable information and we are careful whenever we receive phone calls from financial institutions and always phone back to check the calls out. But it's by no means victimless. It's horrible thinking about people using your personal details, you have to go on Experian or another credit checking agency to make sure that nothing else has been taken out in your name. An old or insecure person could be seriously spooked by it all. In addition we were lucky to have had another card to pay our hotel bill with but I know plenty of young people with just one card and they could have ended up unable to pay the bill and had their break ruined.

As another family member received a message from their mobile phone provider the other day advising them that their billing address had been changed and asking for confirmation that this was correct it is obvious that identity fraud like this is rife and it's time that action is taken to eliminate it. I really don't know how I could have avoided either of these incidents so it has to be time that any financial transactions that rely upon remote identity are made more secure. Barclays use this code number generator for their online banking and if everyone used one of these handy little gadgets for all transactions where they were not present this type of fraud could be decimated. The code generator can only be activated by a PIN and the identity code is used once only (presumably using some sort of algorithm involving dates and card numbers). Just a thought.

Having said all that I am somewhat reluctant to wish Mike Chubbs from our machining department a happy birthday on here but I will thwart the fraudsters by not telling you how old he is today. Mike has been with Instanta for almost as long as I have and has risen from the assembly department to being in charge of our engineering and two CNC lathes. Mike is a keen Evertonian and tells me that he recently took his son Jamie along to a match with him and hopes that that will soon be a regular outing. He was a regular in our five a side football sessions and is a handy central defender. Anyone who has seen the quality of our engineering will be impressed by Mike's standards and I hope that he has a great day today.


I'll close with a mash up of Billy Connolly made up by the brilliant Cassetteboy. Captures the essence of Connolly perfectly. Do not watch if bad language offends.

Cordon Bleu Arrives In Norfolk

Nick Neal our sales and marketing director hails from deepest Norfolk - a county not known for its culinary delights. So Nick was fascinated when a relative invited him to dinner on Saturday evening and asked him if he liked waffles. This was quite an adventurous change from the normal fayre on offer at the family home and it was explained that his hostess was taking a cookery course. Duly impressed Nick waited in anticipation for the dessert to arrive and he was salivating when an attractive dish made with a white chocolate base topped with fruits and surrounded by golden waffles arrived at the table. Nick's wife Collette took a spoonful and the table looked on expecting glowing praise. "Well?" asked Nick's relative smiling. "I'm sorry" said Collete "but it tastes of potatoes." .....yes that's right. The dish had been made with potato waffles to which the host's response was "are there any other types?" As Nick says, Norfolk has some way to go to catch up.

While Nick was going without pudding on Saturday, Marion and I had slightly better luck as we spent a very nice weekend at Rufflets Hotel just outside St Andrews where we had a relaxing time and enjoyed some excellent food. We were there visiting our daughter Sarah and her partner Duncan who have spent the last fifteen months renovating their house which they bought in July 2009. It is hard to believe it is the same place as Duncan has been working flat out and it has gone from being a fairly rundown bungalow with a loft space to a fabulous house. There's still some work to be done but the light is definitely shining at the end of the tunnel and Duncan has done an amazing job. Sarah has taken after her mum and her interior design ideas are working very well and the couple's cooking on Friday was great.

The wonders of Sky Plus were apparent again when we got back from Scotland last night and managed to watch both Saturday's two and a half hour X Factor extravaganza and the Sunday show in just over eighty minutes without really missing anything (apart from the great IKEA ad of course). It just goes to show how much padding there is in Cowell's domination of ITV's weekend schedules. The standard of the contestants this year is very high and I am still struggling to pick a winner although Matt Cardle's odds are dropping fast and he'll be odds on before long. My long shot picks of Treyc and Katie don't look too hopeful with Treyc finding herself in the bottom two being inexplicably pipped by Wagner (has the Stephen Fry YouTube video boosted his popularity?) and Belle Amie but I still think that Cher at 14:1 is a good bet.

I couldn't read Craig's daily email at the hotel on Friday evening as his report on the sales is in a spreadsheet and the hotel Internet didn't have Excel and I didn't want to start messing around with memory sticks. You might wonder why I am still interested in how we are doing as we're off into the sunset in under five weeks now. I suppose that it will always be with us and even in the future we will be looking at the beverage equipment in cafes and restaurants and seeing if they are Instanta. I managed to open Craig's form on Sunday evening and the sales showed yet another good week. It's quite obvious that we won't be missed as everything seems to be running like clockwork.

Monday is always the time when we start thinking ahead to what to go and see for Orange Wednesday. Halloween this week so it's a no brainer

Instanta Gremlins Strike Again & A Visitor From Down Under

Half way through writing the blog yesterday my computer packed in and I was unable to complete it so for today in the following read "yesterday" and for last night read "Wednesday night. Those nice young people from Mainframe Computer Services were round like a shot and diagnosed a failed hard drive and took my PC away for surgery. We've had so many computer glitches recently that the MCS lads are starting to be part of the Instanta family . Hopefully it will be back today and I mean today this time.

Today we were pleased to welcome Chris Poole the production manager of Zip Australia who is currently on a European visit sourcing plant and machinery for the Sydney factory. Chris is a Brummie by birth but moved down under a few years ago and is very happy in his new life in the southern hemisphere. He paid a surprise visit to his family in the Midlands earlier this week and they were delighted to see him. Chris had a good look around Instanta and told me that he was impressed with what he saw (well done everybody). Married to Samantha, Chris has three children, Josh who is 21, Cody 18 and Kieran 14. Chris is off to mainland Europe next week and doesn't get back to Oz until early November.

We went to see Wall St Money Never Sleeps last night. I have to say that it wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe by the reviewers but it wasn't brilliant. I found all the financial talk pretty difficult to grasp (and I once worked in a bank)and the plot was pretty complex and slow moving. But on a positive note Michael Douglas played the slimy Gordon Gecko very well and the cinematography with the sweeping helicopter shots of NY was stunning.

Marion and I are off to visit our super daughter Sarah in St Andrews this weekend. We haven't seen her a lot this year and we hope that once we have retired we will get more opportunities. She's cooking us a meal while we are there. It's a good job we've finished the diet as she's a great cook.

The office is finally taking shape with the fitting of the carpet. Now the place doesn't echo any more and it's a lot warmer. It's a pity it wasn't all done before our visitors from Australia and our Norfolk head office arrived as I think that they would have been pretty impressed.


It was a double bill of Paul's "A League Of Their Own" last night (and I mean last night now). I couldn't promote it on the blog with the computer being down but I hope that everyone enjoyed it as much as we did. Another very funny show and a double bill to boot. Looking forward to the X Factor on Saturday. I still haven't got a real favourite but I see that Stephen Fry is going for Wagner.

It's Starting To Sink In

We had a big meeting here at Instanta yesterday and one of the items on the agenda was our giving notice of our resignation from the Instanta board. Even though we have known about our retirement for over ten months now it still felt quite strange reading out a letter of resignation to the company that has been part of our lives for so long. But it's all done and dusted now and the letter is on file and we will officially have nothing to do with the company with effect from 30th November.

I only had time to briefly mention our office cleaner Dave Boutle's birthday yesterday. I wished him a happy birthday and he told me today that he had a pleasant night out at a Formby restaurant although he felt that their prawns defied the Trade Descriptions act being smaller than shrimps. I will miss Dave when we leave as he always has a good tale to tell. He is interested in antiques and, like me, he is a bit of an eBay fan. He trades under the name Lydiate_Boutie and is widely regarded as a world expert in hostess trolleys which are far more saleable than you might think. He also has a specialist interest in fenders and has sold some fine examples.He is fiercely proud of his 100% feedback record and goes out of his way to maintain it even if it means taking a loss.I'm sure that our paths will cross again at various auctions and antiques fairs.

One thing that struck me at yesterday's meeting was how well the sous vide machines are doing. They are really outside our core business as we are well known for water boilers but the lateral thinking behind the range is that water boilers = catering equipment creating hot water = sous vide. Simple really. So in future think Instanta = Catering Equipment and see what we think of next. As a very large proportion of our customers are catering equipment dealers it's all pretty logical.

Being in the office all day I haven't had much time to read about George Osborne's cuts but my son Paul, who is a fierce Labour supporter, asked me at lunchtime what was wrong with running a deficit. It's a bit like when I was a bank manager really. There was nothing wrong with customers running an overdraft as long as it was within their means and it's something that Instanta has had no problems in using over the past fifteen years. The problem comes when there is an overdraft,no profit and no prospect of paying the overdraft back.That's when the business has to take real steps to economise even if it means painful redundancies. The alternative is to face up to defaulting. As a dyed in the wool Guardian reader I am a bit out of sync with most of my fellow readers and indeed virtually everyone I follow on Twitter who are all dead against the Tory cuts. But let's face reality. If Instanta had spent more than its income year after year after year I would not be leaving to a hopefully comfortable retirement and our staff would not be facing the secure future that they do now. So I do think that it is essential to reduce the deficit and I can't really think of a more sociable alternative much as I would like to do so. And as for the French? Striking over a proposed retirement age of 62 ils vivent dans la terre de coucou de nuage.

Orange Wednesday today. Not a massive choice tonight so we've opted for Wall St Money Never Sleeps which has the most convenient showing time. Reviews are poor so we don't have great expectations but with the Orange two for one offer it's a cheap night out. I just hope that Orange will come up with a new ad soon. I'm really sick of seeing Jack Black doing his Gulliver Travels puppet joke. Bring back the old pitch ads. I could watch them time and again.

A Very Quick Happy Birthday To Dave Boutle

Been in a big meeting all day today so haven't had time to update the blog. However I didn't want to miss wishing Dave Boutle a very happy birthday. Hope your day goes well Dave. More to follow tomorrow (don't think you can get away that lightly).

We Start The New Week With A New Office

We arrived today to a sparkling new office. After the desks arrived on Thursday, the decorators came in on Saturday and spruced everywhere up with a lick of paint. All the cracks have gone now and everywhere is looking bright and fresh. The carpet is next and then we can start putting things back up on the wall and mess it all up again.

We've got a big meeting tomorrow. It is most likely going to be the last business meeting of our working careers and Marion and I will be giving official notice of our resignation as directors of the company due to our retirement on 30th November. I've just done some figures to report at the meeting and I have to say that they look pretty good and we can go out on a positive note in the knowledge that the business is going from strength to strength and growing healthily and that our new owners made a good buy when they bought our shares.

I'm off to the doctor today for a check up. Thanks to the wonders of the NHS our local surgery carry out regular checks on blokes who are over fifty. It seems that we are in the category that is most at risk from high blood pressure, heart disease and weight problems. I had all the blood tests last week and my weight is now at a healthy level. As for the blood pressure, I've been treated for this for about eight years now and it's very much under control. In fact when I took my reading on Saturday is was 95 over 65 which seems to be on the low side. Mind you I worried about the reading and a couple of minutes later it was 111 over 65. It would be nice if I could reduce the medication as with blood pressure tablets, cholesterol pills, sleeping pills and painkillers for the bad hip I go to bed rattling.

Last year I tipped Joe to win the X Factor and had a small win on Betfair. This year's competition is much harder to predict as there are a number of likely candidates. I have had a flutter on Treyc and Katie as I think that their odds are too high and there will be a chance to lay the bets in the next couple of weeks as they stay in the competition.At the moment I don't think that either will win. I feel that the best price is Cher (above) who is 13-1 on Betfair today. I don't particularly like her music but if the same people who watch YouTube are those that vote on X Factor there may be a clue there. At the time of writing, Matt's performance from Saturday has had 352,000 hits on YouTube whereas Cher has only had 281,000 with One Direction trailing in as a poor third at 173,000. But if you scroll down the YouTube chart you will find that Cher's performance has been uploaded four times and she holds four of today's top twenty most watched slots taking her total to 398,000. Just a thought. I struggle to look at her with a straight face after Grace Dent likened her to Mrs Overall on Twitter.




Now that we are only six weeks away from retirement We're going to have to think about buying ourselves some mobile phones. Dave Wilson and Nick have been dealing with phones here at Instanta and every now and then a new one will turn up on my desk and I'll spend the next couple of weeks trying to work out all the features. I haven't done a great deal of research yet but no doubt Marion will find a website on the lines of comparethebestmobile.com and try and persuade me to get the most economical option but I've always fancied one of those iPhones. If I don't get any phone calls I can always do a bit of performing. Remember to double click if it doesn't fit on your screen in the blog.

All Change In The Office

When I arrived at Instanta this morning it looked like a bomb had dropped. The place was a mess. We gave Jenny the challenge of reorganising the office by Christmas and she set about the task with her typical energy and efficiency and last night the local office furniture people came round with a load of new desks. It didn't take long for the place to start to take shape and by late morning the office was back up and running. There's still some decorating to be done and I think that a new carpet is on the way but it's starting to look good. We need a new phone system next as, although the VOIP system is very economical, it's not very good and we frequently lose calls or have terrible line quality. I am all for new technology but it's only good when it works properly.

Back up and running in a couple of hours.

If you wacthed "A League Of Their Own" on Sky1 last night you might have caught a glimpse of me and Marion with our son Paul. We were in the audience for the recording and were required at one point to blow vuvuzuelas. We couldn't hear the noise as we had to wear ear plugs but it sounded pretty loud on the show last night. The show was very funny. Watch out for next week when Sky are broadcasting two episodes back to back - 10pm Sky1 and Sky1 HD.

I was too busy to find time to complete the blog yesterday as I was working on the final audited figures for our year end. It's that time when all the final journal entries need to be posted on our computer and balanced to the accountants' figures. Being something of a nerdy pedant I have to get this right to the penny so it takes a lot longer than it should. Anyway I said that I would report back on "The Social Network" which we went to on Wednesday night. The cinema was packed but the vast majority of the audience was under twenty five and we looked like a couple of grandparents gatecrashing the grandchildrens' trip to the pictures. However, the film was certainly not a juvenile one. It told the story of the setting up of Facebook by a couple of Harvard university misfits and the claims and counterclaims that ensued after other students alledged that Mark Zuckerberg (brilliantly portrayed by Jesse Eissenberg ,above left) had stolen their ideas. The film is set in the lawyers' offices where the claims are being heard and comprises a series of flashbacks to 2003 and onwards.Whilst the subject of lawsuits sounds very dry, the film  moves with great pace. All of the cast are strong and Justin Timberlake (centre) puts in a fine performance as Napster creator Sean Parker and Andrew Garfield plays the most sympathetic role as Zuckerberg's co-creator Eduardo Saverin very convincingly.


It's a very good film and well worth going to see. My only difficulties were knowing that the Winklevoss twins were both played by the same actor Arnie Hammer which made me keep looking for the join in the film when they were on screen together and the fact that the film is based on a book by Eduardo Saverin which makes you question the partiality of the storyline. As I said above, Saverin is the most sympathetic character but he wasn't going to depict himself badly was he? A good four stars from us. It's quite fascinating to see that the world's biggest social networking site was set up by a young man with virtually no social skills whatsoever and whose Facebook business card read "I'm CEO Bitch".


I'lle leave you today with one of this week's mosty popular videos on YouTube. Rumour has it that this newscaster was fired for this. If that's true I wonder does anybody in authority have a sense of humour any more? And don't forget, if the video doesn't fit in the screen, double click and it will open in another window.

Tonight's Orange Wednesday - The Social Network

I'm happy to say that we're back into our regular Wednesday evening trips to the cinema after the summer drought in which very little worthwhile arrived at Vue. We've actually got a choice this week with our multiplex showing "Made in Dagenham", "The Other Guys" and "Wall St Money Never Sleeps" all of which got passable reviews. But we're opting for "The Social Network" as, being about a geeky bloke who spends a lot of time on computers, it has a certain resonance with me. As the reviews on this won't be in the papers until Friday we can go with an open mind. I'll let you know if we "Like" tomorrow.

Speaking of geeks, Andrew Marr has gone on the record to state that bloggers are usually single, spotty and balding blokes living with their mothers and blogging from their mums' basements. I don't know why the normally rational Mr Marr has taken such a vitriolic stance against we poor souls who attempt to while away a few minutes putting our thoughts online. I doubt that much has ever come from my blogs but they have given Instanta an online presence and there's no harm in that. I think that Marr's underlying displeasure stems from Internet users' ability to be abusive and worse whilst hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. I've never blogged anonymously and any postings that I make elsewhere are always under my eBay user name lfcchampions and it would take seconds to find out who I was.






I do share Marr's distaste for the anonymous side of the web. Our son Paul and his wife Josephine work in a creative capacity in television. We are always keen to read about the television shows that they create and search online for comments. Whilst these are usually positive there have been times when we have been sickened by the extent of bile and ridicule heaped anonymously upon stuff that has taken months of hard work. OK people are entitled to an opinion but would they say this stuff to their faces. And whilst promoting the family, look out for Josephine's "Perfection" with Nick Knowles which is due to air soon on BBC2 and Paul's "A League Of Their Own" tomorrow at 10pm Sky1.


Just got a tweet to say that the judge in the RBS Liverpool trial has found in favour of RBS and the sale to the Red Sox boss can now go ahead. Don't really know what my feelings are about this. The whole things has a very grubby feel to it. I'll be glad when things return to being about football and not money.


I wrote on Monday about the Yeo Valley ad that turned up during the X Factor on Saturday and ran for a massively expensive 2 minutes. I didn't like it although plenty of others apparently did. However, it seems that the ad lacked something as far as originality is concerned. Take a look at this which came to my attention via Twitter @mediaguardian .

Welcome Barbara

With the clock ticking down towards our retirement, it's time to make sure that the office continues to be adequately manned and we are delighted to welcome Barbara Banks to Instanta. Barbara will be helping out with the bookkeeping and other office jobs and will be here from 1pm from Tuesday to Friday. Barbara once worked for my old employer Barclays Bank and her banking experience should stand her in good stead to help with our ledgers. Married to Bob and with a grown up son David, Barbara lives in the nearby village of Hesketh Bank. She enjoys going to the gym but I don't thinks she'll be trying out the exercise equipment in the shed at the back of the factory. It hasn't had a lot of use since we installed it and it's pretty cold down there. Anyway welcome Barbara, we all hope that you have an enjoyable time working here at Instanta.

Here's our super new pocket brochure. Printed in house by our parent company, it arrived today hot off the press. Nick calls it a DL but I don't know what DL stands for. Maybe we could offer a prize for the best suggestion. It's all Nick's own work so in the unlikely event that there are any spelling mistakes for once it won't be me that carries the can.I missed a glaring mistake on one output figure in our super main brochure in February. Mind you that mistake was so big I don't think that anybody could possibly take it as correct.

Orange Wednesday tomorrow and this week's choice is "The Social Network". If you aren't familiar with it, it's a film about the birth of Facebook and by all accounts it's a fascinating story about geeky computer students and the legal battles that arose over who actually created the site. I used to be quite active on Facebook but haven't logged on for quite a while now. I wonder if we will be giving it the Facebook thumbs up on Thursday. I'll let you know what we think of it here.

And speaking of Thursday don't forget "A League Of Their Own" on Sky1 at 10pm. See how well you can do by playing the game by clicking on this link.  http://tiny.cc/zl6qm

Another big Sky favourite is "The Simpsons". The show has been all over the internet this week due to an intro to the show baing done by the famous street artist Banksy. Here's a brief news article about it and below that is the intro itself. Unfortunately it seems that every time it goes up on YouTube somebody takes it down so if the video has gone by the time you read this, sorry.

The Hidden Cost Of Dieting

Well, I'm happy to say it's all over- the diet that is. In the twenty weeks of dieting I have lost 2st 10lbs and almost six inches off my waist. But, as you can see above, the diet has its downside and nothing fits me anymore. And strangely enough I never considered myself to be really fat just a little overweight. So yesterday morning I emptied the wardrobe and tried on all the trousers.

And ended up with this lot in the charity shop pile. Then I thought that I had better check out the shirts and jumpers.

I can only say that it's a good job that I won't be needing any suits following retirement in a few weeks time or I would have to pile the weight back on or risk financial penury. Nobody mentions this aspect of dieting when they sell you the idea. Even shopping at Debenhams or M&S where trousers and shirts average around forty or fifty quid there would be well over £1,000 replacement value in this pile and, as a lot of them were from Hugo Boss and Farhi, if I returned to those shops you could double that figure. If you happen to be a "slightly overweight" fifty something bloke pop into Oxfam Southport and grab yourself a bargain - some of these (bought haf way through the diet) have only been worn a couple of times

Here at Instanta the Safan engineer is busy installing the new press brake that arrived on Friday in time for the lads to start learning how to use it tomorrow.It seems that once they have programmed it properly it will do the job perfectly every time. No change there then. Just like we did with the old manual one eh lads?

I am indebted to the Guardian Guide on Saturday for drawing my attention to this great ad from Thinkbox TV. It advertises the power of TV advertising and does so quite brilliantly in my opinion.





And to prove Thinkbox's point, here's the latest IKEA ad that I saw during X Factor on Saturday night. Excellent. Much better than 100 cats.Oh and by the way, some people say these videos don't show properly in this blog layout. If they don't fit, double click and they will open in a new window.





But I think that this one, which took up a massive two minutes during another X Factor break fails to hit the mark. I love Yeo Valley yogurts but rapping farmers?

A New Machine For The Future

Here's our new SAFAN CNC press brake arriving at Instanta. Our metalwork has been excellent over the past years but we always reached something of a production bottleneck when it came to the cut and punched metal being folded as our old press brake was pretty unsophisticated. With this new machine we can guarantee more accuracy, make neater and sharper folds and speed up the production lines. We chose this model after a comprehensive survey by Operations Director Dave Wilson and Gavin Ford which involved a huge amount of research and even a visit to the Dutch factory where the press brake was built. In keeping with our environmental management system we have gone for this machine on its green credentials. Being electric it is much greener than the hydraulic alternatives which produce volumes of waste oil and use energy when not in use. I look forward to seeing it up and running and to seeing the improvements in the boilers which though probably not visible to the customer will certainly be noticed by our assembly team.

Did you read about the Roman helmet found by a young metal detector user? Being a detectorist myself I always love to see fabulous things turning up and live in hope that I might find something like this myself one day. I used to go out with my brother Peter pretty often but since he retired and spends much of his time abroad we don't get as many opportunities. Perhaps we'll get more chances when I retire and after my hip operation has been carried out (now planned for early December). This helmet sold yesterday for £2 million. It was found at a site that has no real Roman connections other than a nearby Roman road and is in an area where we spent many holidays in our childhood. Perhaps it will encourage farmers to be more ready to grant permission to detector users as the farmer has benefited to the tune of £1 million. I think that the very best item that we ever found would not pay for the cost of a new detector.

And whilst on the topic of treasure, I emailed John Sandon of Antiques Roadshow and  head of ceramics at Bonhams' Bond St with details of the bowl that I highlighted on yesterday's blog. John is one of the most charming people I have ever dealt with and he kindly confirmed that I had got my age estimate for the piece right although I had suggested that it was manufactured at the Liverpool Gilbody factory whereas John knew straight away that it was made by the nearby Chaffers pottery. So the bowl is now on it's way to Bonhams for their December specialist sale with John's initial thought on price at the £600-800 level subject to him seeing it. It's not £2million but it's better than a kick in the teeth.

I enjoyed Paul's show "A League Of Their Own" last night. Jimmy Carr was a great guest and was extremely game in allowing himself to be immersed in a bath of near freezing water in the final round. We're going to see Jimmy when he comes to Southport Theatre when he appears here in a few weeks. I bought four tickets but somehow can't find anyone to take the spare two. It seems that he isn't as popular up here as I imagined. I've still got a couple of friends who are getting back to me but we may end up having to return them. It's a pity. I think he's an extremely funny guy.

I'll finish today with one of the odious Jeremy Kyle's interviewees turning nasty on Kyle this morning. It's a great pity that it wasn't something heavier that he threw.