Thursday 25 November 2010

Thank you Michael



No time for blogging yesterday as Michael Crouch came to visit Instanta and take me and Marion out for lunch. I must express my sincere thanks to Michael for taking the time and for travelling so far out of his way to see us. Michael is the Australian owner and founder of the Zip Group which he created over fifty years ago and which he has developed into the runaway success that it is today.




And speaking of runaway success leads me seamlessly to last night's Orange Wednesday offering at the local Vue. With the cinema foyer heaving with Harry Potter fans, we went in the other direction and watched the new Wesley Snipes film "Unstoppable". It's a classic old fashioned disaster movie starting with the introduction of the characters and then quickly throwing them all into the disaster mix. But there's nothing wrong with old fashioned and the film had this viewer on the edge of his seat throughout. It's filmed with great pace and everything about it looks very real which is a refreshing change after the glut of CGI in all the recent blockbusters. If you wanted to be critical you could pick plenty of holes in the film but, if you just want to enjoy yourself,  simply sit back and enjoy 98 minutes of great entertainment. Instead of watching in our staid British silence, we would have loved to see this in an American cinema as I am sure that the showing would have been enlivened even more by the unrestrained,  whooping and cheering that you get in the USA .



Although we don't retire officially until Tuesday, the staff at Instanta are giving me and Marion a send off at a popular local  Chinese restaurant tomorrow evening. We're looking forward to it. It will be very strange attending our last ever Instanta do. Please don't expect any speeches. I'm not sure that we could find the words too easily.


Although Factory Leader Tony Mercer did tell me a story yesterday that would go down well in an after dinner speech. He has saved this for now when we are retiring. Tony is our longest serving employee but tells me that he got the job entirely by accident. It seems that he was playing truant from school when his dad spotted him in Southport. "What are you doing out of school?" asked his dad. Always a quick thinker, Tony spotted the nearby Employment Office and, in a flash, said that he had been given time off to visit the labour exchange and look for a job. Doubting the veracity of Tony's claim, his dad insisted on accompanying him into the office where they saw the Instanta job advertised. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I'll leave you today with an ode to Gillian McKeith.




No comments:

Post a Comment