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.
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