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.