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.