I Managed To Hit My Last Big Deadline

The new brochures arrived from Workhouse this morning bang on time for the exhibition at Excel on Monday and in time for the launch of the new models on 1st March. It may look like we were cutting it a bit fine but isn't there a law that says that everything expands to fit into the time available (Parkinson's Law I think)? The arrival of the brochure today simply proves the law. It's a great brochure and is my last major project for Instanta before we retire and ride off into the sunset in December. It's printed on very green Eco friendly paper and I'm also quite chuffed that we ran out of our last brochure today so wasted none at all.



The brochure highlights the best things about Instanta.



Like our staff. (Well almost all of them, Nick and Peter Brindle were out on the road, Margaret and Dave are part time and were not around, Peter Barlow and Gavin were on holiday). A handsome bunch I think you will agree.


Then there are our new models for 2010 with their programmable timers that will save users energy. Yet another innovative move. Expect to see it on the competition's models next year.



Lots of ECO features. I had a laugh the other day. One of our competitors who shall remain nameless (Marco)is claiming that their boilers are ECO friendly as they are made from 95% recyclable materials. Wow!! Since when was copper and stainless steel not recyclable? It's a bit like saying a car that does 2 miles per gallon is an ECO model because you can recycle it (when it has finished its CO2 emitting life). I'll have a laugh with Drewry from Marco when I see him and ask him all about his ISO14001environmental accreditation and how he's enjoying driving his Prius.



And a couple of nice case studies including this one from the lovely Marble Hill House on the River Thames. If you want a copy of the brochure email liz@instanta.com or phone the office on 01704 501114. I think it's quite a masterpiece and a fitting parting shot. OK I know we aren't going until December but we won't be doing another brochure and we won't be launching any more new models before we go so you know what I mean.


With retirement on the way it's worth thinking about a holiday. This place looks nice.

Want to feel young? Go to the opera

Marion and I had a great time last night. We went to The Lowry courtesy of Josephine's Uncle Ric who is a director of Opera North to see their performance of Ruddigore. And what a show it was! Colourful and comedic with a stunning stage set and excellent singing to a first class orchestra. Coupled with a fine pre-theatre meal in The Lowry's restaurant it was an extremely enjoyable evening.The company even managed to take liberties with Gilbert's libretto and put in references to MP's expenses (duck houses, moats, adult videos and all) to bring it completely up to date.



One thing struck us however. We must be opera's last generation. Sitting in an audience made up almost exclusively of people who looked as if they were on a coach trip with SAGA or had come using their free bus passes made us feel positively youthful. So if you look in the mirror and feel that you are starting to look a bit wrinkly, book a trip to the opera. It will do wonders for your self image.(Pic from blogger Dan Meth)

Congratulations to a Mr Cronk of Essex. He has just bought some spare parts and his was our 100,000th order since we set up our sales order processing programme some time ago. We have 98,340 boilers in the field since we set up our computerised serial number book so we will be reaching our 100,000th serial number on the system in the near future. Our historic pre-computer records aren't readily accessible but there have probably been somewhere approaching 200,000 boilers made here in Southport in the last fifty three years.



Our Service Coordinator Max is busy preparing our warranty statistics for January 2010. This is a job that has been close to my heart since my brother Peter left eleven years ago. We monitor every problem that arises under guarantee and then take steps to do our best to make sure that they don't recur. We're doing pretty well at the moment and I think that Max's figures will show another decrease although we still haven't got to the level whereby Nick Neal has to buy us all dinner (bet he's sweating on it though).

I'll close today with something important. When we retire we'll have to get some new mobile phones. I quite fancy an iphone but not if I need all these oranges to charge it.

Hotelympia The Final Countdown

Don't forget to make time to come and see me, Marion, Peter, Nick and perhaps one or two of our new Zip colleagues at the Hotelympia show at Excel next week. The show starts on Sunday at 11am and runs until Thursday. We are on stand 1959 and it will be the last opportunity for me and Marion to see some of our customers before we retire at the end of the year. It will be a strange feeling doing our last ever exhibition.



Before I started working for Instanta I would take a week's holiday from the bank and help my mum and dad out on the Instanta stand at the original Hotelympia. In (of all places) Olympia. I can remember in the seventies when times were hard in the catering industry and, in order to save on exhibition costs, I shared a room with my dad and my sister in law Val who, for her modesty, had part of the room in a B&B partitioned off with a curtain. We could not have dreamed then that thirty years later we would actually have a hotel room with its own en suite bathroom.



Then the show moved from Olympia to Earls Court.We had moved up in the world by then and could actually afford to stay in a nice hotel in Kensington and even go out into London one night. But exhibitions were still a grind in those days as, on the day before, my poor dad and I would be lugging heavy boxes and exhibition materials up flights of stairs to get the stand ready and then when the show finished we would have to do it all again in reverse. No fun at all.




Now, thanks to the wonderful Barry and Mike of Silverwood Exhibitions, we arrive to a fully set up and ready stand.I can't stress what a difference this makes as, instead of starting day one exhausted and fed up, we are relaxed and ready to meet the customers. We can also leave the minute the show closes and Mike and Barry dismantle the stand and take everything away.I can't recommend them highly enough.

One thing I am not sure about is how I will cope this time in view of my need for a hip replacement. We don't have any seats on the stand so I may be skiving off from time to time to take the weight off my hip.


We met Paul's bride Josephine's uncle Ric at the wedding. He is operations director for Opera North and he has kindly invited us to see their performance of Ruddigore at the Lowry tomorrow.Here is the audience reaction from when it was performed in Leeds.

Unashamedly Name Dropping Today

We had a great weekend with a visit to Pinewood Studios to watch the recording of two episodes of Sky 1 HD's new panel show "A League Of Their Own". Son Paul devised this show and kindly got us onto the guest list for the recordings which meant that we found ourselves in the green room afterwards with a host of stars including James Corden, Jamie Redknapp (and Louise), John Bishop, Freddie Flintoff, Georgie Thompson (with Dec), Neil Morrisey and Abbey Clancey. I'm sure that none of them will be blogging today about meeting me and Marion but it was a fascinating experience. The show itself was extremely funny. James Corden is an outstanding host and the only problem I can see is what they choose to edit out to reduce the show to its half hour format as there was a good ninety minutes of genuinely funny material in each recording.

I got chatting to Malcolm Corden (James' dad). He is a genuine and devoted father who was proud of James and equally proud of his two daughters (who were also at the recording). As we discussed our kids, I realised what a close and loving family the Cordens are and I can see them as part of the inspiration behind Gavin and Stacey which , after all, has a great deal of family values in it. Malcolm knew Southport from his job which involves travelling to bookshops around the country.

I did my best to keep Marion under control but she was determined to have at least one photo as a souvenir of the evening and James Corden, the star of the night, very kindly agreed to have his photo taken with her. (Apologies for the blurred image). Tune in to watch the show when it airs on Thursday evenings in March. I'm sure that you will find it a lot of fun.

As someone "who appreciates the finer things in life" I got an invite to an exclusive showroom event being held at the local Mercedes dealership next week.As Mercedes Benz Finance have my account in the hands of a debt collector at the moment I was a bit surprised to get the invite. Maybe I should turn up with a placard " Mercedes Benz Finance 0% interest in their customers". Meanwhile my dispute with them continues. They insist that I owe about £500 for returning the car with a couple of scratches despite it having almost £1,000 worth of optional extras fitted and thousands of miles less than the contract mileage on the clock. Show me a three year old car without a couple of blemishes.



We've been running low on stock recently as we wanted to clear out all our old models before launching our new range next week at Hotelympia. Unfortunately we have sold more of the old units than we envisaged and poor Tony in the factory has been carrying out a juggling act to try and keep the customers satisfied whilst at the same time not building too many of the current range. Our electronics supplier John Walkinshaw from KLH Electronics PLC is coming round tomorrow to demonstrate the new programmes for us so that we will know what we are talking about when we stand on the exhibition next week.

I'll finish today with John Bishop. A really nice bloke. I think you will be seeing a lot of him in the near future.

Another Instanta Birthday

Following close on the heels of welder Kirk Harrison yesterday,more birthday congratulations go out today to Assembly Worker Steve Eyres. Steve will be 32 on Sunday. He joined Instanta half a lifetime ago upon leaving school. In 2007 he had a spell as an entrepreneur and ran his own welding business briefly before returning to the Instanta fold in November 2008 when we were delighted to welcome him back. With my retirement on the horizon I will miss Steve.He is an expert on cars and always spots when tyres are not inflated properly and is a whizz at getting cars with flat batteries started.Cars apart, Steve tells me that he has recently taken up sea fishing. He enjoys this very much although he hasn't caught anything yet. Wishing you a very happy day Steve. Have a great one.



Marion and I are off down to Pinewood Studios tomorrow to watch the filming of a couple of episodes of A League Of Their Own. This is a new panel show with an emphasis on sport that has been developed by our son Paul for CPL Productions. He has managed to get us tickets for the recordings. The show is to air on Sky 1 in the near future and ten episodes are being filmed. Hosted by James Corden, there are two regular captains Jamie Redknapp and Andrew (Freddie) Flintoff together with regulars John Bishop and Georgie Thompson. A number of high profile guests have been lined up and by all accounts the shows recorded to date have been very funny. Hope tomorrows' shows are as good.I just spotted that Sky Creative have issued an ad for the show. You can watch it by clicking here




The clock is clicking down towards Hotelympia 2010. And for once we are all pretty well set and ready to go. Two years ago poor Dave Wilson was frantically attempting to get things finished on the night before the show started but this time he's done it with a week to spare. Well done Dave. We've just got to work out how to cover a tiny blemish in the stainless steel in one of the display models. I reckon a sticker will do the job.

Remember when you were a kid and you would draw stick men on the bottom corners of pages of notebooks and then flick them to make simple animation? Here's one that a student called Jamie Bell did for his AS art course. Makes my stick people look a bit lame.

Happy Birthday Kirk

Happy birthday today to welder Kirk Harrison. Kirk turns 32 today and is in his eleventh year at Instanta. Real Ale enthusiast Kirk runs the biggest real ale group on Facebook with over 1500 members to date. He has plenty of other interests and is planning to start bee keeping on a friend's allotment in the near future. Apiary aside, 2010 promises to be a big year for Kirk as he tells me that there are also wedding bells in the air. He plans to marry Gillian his girlfriend of three years later this year. Congratulations to them both for that and congratulations to Kirk for today. Kirk is planning to celebrate quietly at home with a nice meal and a bottle of wine? (Wine Kirk! shouldn't that be Old Peculiar?)



Jen from Workhouse has just phoned to say that she has instructed the printers to start the press rolling on our new brochure. Phew. What a relief. It's been months in preparation and, although I thought we had loads of time our takeover caused a few late changes which have left me sweating on the deadline. I really didn't want to turn up at Hotelympia at Excel next week without any.Thanks to Marion, Liz and Jenny here. I asked if anyone wanted to proof read my finally approved proof of the brochure and they managed to spot several things that I missed. It must be a woman thing or maybe I simpy can't read properly.



Speaking of Workhouse, I had to chuckle at their MD Mark Jones' blog the other day (you can check it out here).Mark was commenting on how people he doesn't know address him as "Mate", "Pal" or even "Dude".Mark suggests "Mr Dude to you!". I couldn't help but agree (with a knowing smile) after the teenage checkout assistant in Tesco yesterday kept referring to me as "Hun". "Hun!" what does that mean. Do I look like a fierce horse riding warrior (the Wikipedia definition)? And for that matter why do people keep telling me that they are going to give me a bell? I get this all the time and yet none of these bells has ever arrived as promised.



Off to Anfield tonight to watch the not so mighty reds in their Europa League tie against the near unpronounceable Romanian side Unirea Urziceni. I signed up for the season ticket for Liverpool's games in the Champions League but it seems that in the small print I also signed up for this in the event of them getting knocked out of that competition. Fingers crossed we might get knocked out tonight to save me many more trudges to Liverpool to watch the European equivalent of the League Cup. Mind you, it give me a chance to see my old friend Dave Haworth who joins me on European nights.

It's a pity that tonight won't involve a penalty shoot out. They can be good fun.

It's Over

After months of excitement in the run up to son Paul's wedding, it's all over now. But what a lovely day it was for everyone involved. I was so taken with the proceedings that I took very few photos (and only this one of the bride and groom) but hopefully there will plenty of official photos in the next couple of weeks when the happy couple return from honeymoon in Cuba.Over a hundred guests attended the event and it was a great success. Here are a few of my snaps from the day.




Here's Marion with our close friend Jane.



Daughter Sarah with partner Duncan.



Paul's Grandmothers Flo and Ann.



My sister Julie and daughter Natasha.



My brother Peter and his wife Val.


Peter and Val's daughter Lisa with partner Brad.



Friends David and Janet.



Marion with Josephine's mum Jenny.



Being away at the wedding meant missing Northern Area Sales Manager Peter Brindle's 49th birthday. Keen golfer Peter has worked for Instanta for 19 years and is a key member of our personnel having worked his way from the factory floor where he once ran our sheet metal department through a stint as buyer and on to sales.Married to Linda, Peter is a dedicated dad. His eldest, John, married last year whilst daughters Lucy and Katie are still at primary school and are doing extremely well. A very popular man with the customers,Peter has taken on the challenge of our takeover by Zip with great enthusiasm and is determined to make a big success of it.Apologies for the delay Peter but, better late than never, I hope that you had a brilliant day.



Heartbroken on Valentine's Day.

I was really down when I read yesterday's Observer. As always, I turned first to the magazine to read Kathryn Flett's brilliant column. (I used to turn first to her equally brilliant TV review and was disappointed when that ended recently). And what did I read? Yesterday's was her last column. Why has she gone? Where is she going to? Sunday mornings won't be the same again without the humour that she injected into the day. I do hope that her writing continues. If she moves to another Sunday I'll be moving with her (as long as it isn't the Mail or Express of course).

As our retirement is approaching I had better start to think of things to do next year. How about this?

A bus man's holiday

Marion and I are on holiday at the moment but it is turning into a bit of a bus man's holiday as our new brochure is its final phase now and our print deadline is approaching very quickly. I could ignore the emails and say "I'm on holiday" but what's the point in that? This is my last Instanta brochure and I want to go out with a bang and make it the best ever. And it is looking very good indeed. Jen Hill our Senior Account Manager at Workhouse has put in a huge effort and I think we will be able to press the "print" button very soon.




I am writing this from our room in the City Inn in Westminster. Last night we stayed at the Days Inn on the M1 which, for less than £40 per night, was good value. We managed to get the City Inn on a very good deal on the Internet and for a central London hotel it is very impressive. Very close to Parliament and the Tate it is clean, spacious and comfortable and the staff are extremely helpful. The Internet is free (you even get a Mac computer to use so you don't have to bring your own) and the restaurant prices are probably better than last night's on the M1 so, pound for pound it's better value for the improved comfort level. We will certainly give it another try next time we are in London. Tomorrow we are staying in the RAC club. We aren't members but a friend in the wedding party is and he has kindly booked the rooms for us.




Before driving from the M1 to London this morning we had to go to Dorking to collect this beautiful little Japanese Satsuma vase that I bought at a live Internet auction. I thought that the auctioneer might post it for me but he felt that it was too valuable to take the risk. Good job we were in London for the wedding or it might have been ages before I got to see it. Very pleased but I have to sell something from the collection to pay for it. I now have three pieces by this artist Yabu Meizan in my collection.




Holidays mean time to read. So I just read "For Richer For Poorer" which I got as a birthday present from a friend. This autobiographical book about her life as a poker player is by Victoria Coren the Observer columnist and daughter of the wonderful but sadly late Alan Coren.I love Victoria's columns in the paper. They are always witty and well written. I never understood her poker columns in the Guardian but after reading her book it's a bit clearer now. The whole world of poker seems somehow sleazy and, however finely Victoria dresses it up with her brilliant writing, an air of grubbiness seeps from the book and permeates every chapter. Having read it though I do feel that I must give the game a try (at least once).



In the meantime I'll finish today with a self improvement video for you. Now you can all become a Navi.

Liz Iz Back (Again)

Nothing could give me more pleasure than telling you about the return of Liz Clayton to the Instanta fold. Liz first worked for Instanta six years ago and was a very popular member of staff here until she left us to take maternity leave. Liz stayed off work for a couple of years while son Sam was a toddler and she then returned to help us out part time when Natalie took her maternity leave. Now that Sam is at school and Marion and I are making plans for our retirement we felt that it was time to find another part timer to ensure a smooth transition and we immediately thought of Liz and were delighted to hear that she was in the job market. So here she is again. Liz will be working from 9.15 until 2.15 and we are all looking forward to her company. She will be involved in answering the phones and dealing with both the sales and the purchase ledgers.



We will be on the way to London for Paul's wedding on Wednesday so we won't be able to go to the local Vue for the Orange Wednesday promotion. So we went last night to see "Youth in Revolt" starring Michael Cera. Cera has been typecast as the dorky teenager in Juno, Superbad and now in this but it is a role that he carries off superbly and the film is great fun. I assume that, at 22, Cera will have to give up these roles soon but until he does, just enjoy them.




Things are running smoothly with our new colleagues at Zip. There is no real change here in the office and now that the phone has stopped ringing with all the congratulatory messages we are back to normal. We are in daily contact with Norfolk as we are getting the brochure and exhibition together and are looking forward to meeting Zip's sales force and service engineers in the near future.



One of the things that is necessary for when we retire is to have cover on the service desk. At the moment when Max is not in I man the pumps but with me going at the end of the year we need an alternative and Lee Moore has stepped into the breach. At the moment Lee and I are answering calls on speaker phone which is great for Lee but not so great for everyone else in the office. Mind you, perhaps they are all learning too so instead of having just one person to cover for Max we will now have three.

I'll finish today with Charlie Brooker's lesson on how to present the news.

Too busy to blog

It's been so busy this week with all the developments following the takeover that I didn't get a chance to write the blog yesterday. But I've just managed to take a quick break to catch up on some of the important things like blogging and completing my predictions for the Guardian Pick the Score Competition.

I've fallen behind in the league recently. I'd like to put it down to the distractions here at work but that would be a bit of a fib. It's really down to lousy forecasting. Mind you whilst my Pick the Scores predictions have been poor I actually managed to win my 8 team accumulator on Betfair last Saturday. It was an extremely cautious one but it paid off and has taken my kitty to almost £900 which is not bad as I started the year at only £100.



Tomorrow Liverpool are entertaining our neighbours Everton at Anfield. It's a 12.45 kick off and I just hope that we can move away from the poisonous atmosphere that has ruined the derby games in recent years. I can remember when reds and blues could go to the game together and enjoy a bit of banter. I would love that to happen tomorrow but somehow I just don't see it.



Marion and I actually found the time to go to Orange Wednesday this week. We went to see Avatar. We felt that with all the fuss we really had to go and see it but I am sorry to say that we just didn't see what all the fuss was about. Yes it is spectacular and yes it is good to look at and very colourful but I have to admit to nodding off a couple of times as it runs for almost three hours and it is little more than an old fashioned cowboys and Indians movie with the cowboys (the humans) as the baddies. If it had been about an hour shorter it would have been OK.

Being at Anfield tomorrow means that I won't be able to watch the wonderful Gillette Soccer Saturday. With pundits like Dean Windass, the show just goes from strength to strength.

Happy 59th Tony

Here's Tony Lowe from our stores. Today Tony is celebrating his 59th birthday.Tony joined Instanta almost nine years ago after a number of years in the fire service.Very much a family man, Tony, who is married to Janet,has five children Lisa, Steven, Rick, Rob and Kim who range in age from 33 to 18 and this has been a very busy year in the family as three new grandchildren have arrived since he was 58 making four in total.Tony is a keen computer fan and tells me that he is getting the computer game Napoleon Total War for his birthday.He supports Burnley FC (well nobody's perfect).Regular spares customers will know Tony well for his polite and friendly service and I am sure that they will join me in wishing him the very best for today.



It looks like a good game. How things have changed since I first played the computer game Pong which consisted of a couple of white blocks bouncing around a screen. Boy did we feel cool in the pub at 18 playing it all night.



I introduced Chris, David and Nick (some of our new colleagues from Zip) to the staff here yesterday.For once I forgot my camera so I will have to put a photo up next time they visit. The day went extremely well and I think both parties learned a great deal from it. The dust from the merger is just starting to settle. Marion and I are totally relieved to have been able to make the announcement.Several months of clandestine discussions and secret meetings are not easy but we think that the final result will be good for all parties involved.



Here are some of our new Australian owner's team. Bottom left, alongside his son George, is the charismatic and dynamic Michael Crouch AO who founded Zip and who has been heavily involved with me and Marion during our negotiations. Michael has been an excellent person to deal with and we are really looking forward to introducing him to everyone at Instanta. Top left is Michael Lee who we have also met.He is the Chief Operating Officer and Group Finance Director (and a Spurs fan).Also on the top row are Alan Butler Group Director (Sales and Marketing) and Brian Chertkow (Manufacturing Director).We have not met them or George yet but are again looking forward to welcoming them to sunny Southport.

I'll close today with the trailer for Tony's birthday present. It's a long way from Pong.

Instanta and Zip - - The unbeatable team in boiling water solutions

Dear Blog Reader

You’ve always known Instanta for teamwork whether it is in conjunction with our suppliers, our customers or our staff. We love working with others. We’ve got a great track record and have built up some wonderful relationships in our fifty three year history.

We are delighted to announce that we now have a new relationship. With immediate effect Instanta is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zip Industries (AUST) Pty.

Established in Australia in 1945, Zip is a world leader in instant boiling water technology and mirrors the ideals that are so near to our hearts, working closely with staff, customers and suppliers to provide exceptional quality and service. Together our two companies share over a hundred years experience in supplying boiling water solutions throughout the world – a level of experience that is unparalleled in the industry.

So what changes will you notice at Instanta?

Although we aim to retire in 2011, I will continue as Managing Director and Marion will remain in the office working as a Director and our brief is to carry on as we were. There will be no staff changes and your contacts will remain the same. So there are no sweeping alterations planned, you can still phone me up on my direct line 01704502900 or Skype either of us via our website and we will be here helping to steer the company forward on the same principles that we have done for the last twenty two years.

We know that this is an extremely positive step forward for Instanta and are sure that you will join us in supporting this move, which sees the brand - and our team - become strategically important parts of the Zip Group.

Yours faithfully


John Brassey


Now. We like Zip boilers and we like Instanta boilers. But which is better?

There's only one way to find out.