Instanta News Blog

So That's It Then

2010-11-30T11:30:00.002Z

We are just a couple of hours away from retirement as I write this but I've still been doing a few figures for head office in Australia and when I finish the blog I'll be helping with a few simple book keeping jobs here in the office.

I'm dedicating my final Instanta blog to my mum and dad. Here they are with our daughter Sarah about 28 years ago which makes them around the same age that Marion and I are today. It's so very sad to think that my dad didn't get to see the end of the family involvement in what he developed although I am pleased to say that Mum is still very much around and not looking that much older than she does here.

The success of Instanta was built upon the "WB" series of boilers which everybody took to be short for "water boilers" but was, of course, William Brassey - a happy coincidence. He and my mum Ann spent most of the seventies and eighties travelling all over the country building the Instanta brand on a shoestring budget and creating the caring ethos towards both customers and staff alike that I hope that we have continued during our stint and I am sure will continue well into the future with our new owners. My parents always bent over backwards to offer the best that they could and took pride in building up a reputation for honesty,quality products, fair prices and excellent service.

So my final heartfelt thanks goes to them. Without their efforts, none of what Marion and I achieved could have happened.

So that's it from me in the guise of the Instanta blog. But I don't think that I can give up this manic addiction to writing and my future posts can be found here. There are no posts yet but I hope to have it up and running in a couple of days.

I'll end with a bit of self indulgence. I've always loved YouTube and it has given me hours of entertainment. Here is my all time favourite video. Nothing beats this for sheer joy and exuberance. Goodbye for now.

Some Final Toasts

2010-11-29T12:10:00.001Z

Here's Marion raising a glass on Saturday evening as we toasted everyone at Instanta using one of the crystal glasses that were amongst the kind retirement gifts given to us by our generous staff. Friends joined us for a meal at home and we used a very fine vintage bottle of wine given to me for my birthday by son Paul and his wife Josephine - thanks it was absolutely fabulous.

Others who we must praise in this penultimate Instanta blog are Simon Smith of Dunk Ink who travelled all the way from Tunbridge Wells to be at our retirement meal on Friday evening at Ho Lee Chows in Southport. Simon has been doing PR work for us since way back in the early 90's and has hundreds of excellent contacts in the catering trade. Thank you Simon, your presence and generosity at the meal was really appreciated by both of us. Best wishes to you and to Sue.

Silverwood Exhibitions who have designed and built all of our exhibition stands for many years must not go without thanks. Barry and Mike are two of the most genial Yorkshire men you could ever wish to meet and their stands promoted the Instanta image to brilliant effect making us look much bigger than we were at first. They are the most professional exhibition stand designers that we have ever worked with and we can strongly recommend them to everyone.

I had hoped to put a photo of the Jackson family from BJ Eurosell Ltd on here as my final tribute for today but unfortunately, as I write, the photo has not arrived. Jim Jackson together with his wife Barabara and son Paul have been supplying Instanta since 1989. They source all of Instanta's boxes and insulation material and you couldn't meet a nicer bunch of people. Paul and Jim are regular fellow sufferers at Anfield and I sometimes see them on the trek up to the home matches. Sorry that your photo was too late to appear here but at least all your packaging always arrives on time. If you need to source any packaging materials BJ Eurosell are a wonderful supplier.

Of course our friends on Saturday had to eat early so that we could watch X Factor. All my money is on Cher Lloyd but her odds have drifted so other punters disagree. Watching this I simply don't understand why she is not favourite. If any of the contestants has the "X Factor" rather than can sing well look no further than this.

Thank You Steve From Kall Kwik

2010-11-26T12:20:00.001Z

It's our final Friday here at Instanta and there has been a steady trickle of visitors, congratulatory cards and gifts arriving in the office and we're starting to feel quite choked up. We've written thanking everyone for their kindness but another special thankyou needs to go to Steve Bibby at Kall Kwik Southport. Steve has been supplying Instanta with all our printed materials like instruction books, letterheads, business cards, promotional material, rubber stamps and other stationery for over twenty years and has been another excellent supplier. Steve, like me, enjoys a flutter now and then but I think that his success rate exceeds mine by some distance (not too difficult I imagine). He has always been extremely helpful in getting our orders to us on time and the quality of our printed material bears testimony to his excellent service.Thank you for your support and your kindness Steve.

I used to work for Barclays and I am still relying on them for some of my pension. Banks are not very high in the popularity stakes with most people but our relationship with our branch and our business managers has been extremely good.From the day that my dad took out a loan from the then Martins Bank to buy the company we have been with the bank for forty years and they have seen us through thick and thin. Having the experience of working for the bank has been a big help as I know what makes a good customer and have tried to fit that bill but I must thank all the staff at Barclays St Lukes past and present including Sheila, Tracey, Kim, Allison, Gina, Rachel, Sue, Judith, Danni and Lorraine for their super friendly and efficient service and past managers Chris Wynne and Rosemary Riley for backing Instanta when we needed them. I must also thank Karen at the Preston Business centre for all her hard work, Paul Matthews who took over from her (good luck with the kids' football Paul)and finally Sharon Harrison our newest Relationship Director who kindly took us for lunch the other day. We have only had a short time dealing with Sharon but she is a great people person and I am sure that, with her help, Instanta's long and successful relationship with Barclays will run and run.

You will have read about the notorious Twitter joke trial. Just in case you didn't, a young man's visit to his girlfriend in Ireland was thwarted by snow closing the airport and he posted a jokeyTweet to the effect that if the airport didn't get its act together he would blow it sky high. Nobody in their right mind would see this as a terrorist threat but somehow the poor bloke, Paul Chambers, ended up with a criminal record and a fine to boot. He took it to appeal and everyone expected that to be the end the matter but, to amazement and total shock amongst Twitter users, the appeal judge failed to overturn the original sentence and Paul's criminal record still stands (and the police haven't given him his laptop back yet). He is now taking his case to the High Court and needs to fund this. Scott Pack, who tweets as @meandmybigmouth, works for Harper Collins and has offered to auction his services to read and honestly critique a manuscipt for the highest bidder. It's a brilliant cause, so I'm going to put in a bid before the auction closes. It will have to be a pretty big bid to compensate Scott for having to read my novel. You can read about his offer and bid against me here . Or alternatively, if you've no manuscript, you can find out more about the case and a link to make a donation to the legal fees here.

We have got our old friends David and Jane Haworth (sorry Dave, young friends who have been friends for a long time) coming round tomorrow evening so we're just off to Coldland to stock up.

Thank you Michael

2010-11-25T12:34:00.000Z

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.

Where Would We Have Been Without KLH Electronics PLC?

2010-11-23T11:15:00.050Z

It was over sixteen years ago that we were introduced to a young John Walkinshaw and his company KLH Electronics by a fellow metal detecting enthusiast and I have to say that this find outweighed any treasure that we have ever dug up as John's brilliance in electronic design transformed Instanta's products from being advanced for the industry to being more than advanced for any industry. With John's help we developed features never before found on water boilers and had the rest of the catering trade scrambling to catch up. Not one to rest on his laurels, John has always been ahead of the game and when the competition caught up and brought out service warning codes and ECO modes we were ready to move ahead again and launch another more advanced generation of boilers incorporating liquid crystal displays, timers and built in filter monitors. The printed circuits designed and developed by John have not only been advanced but also extremely reliable. KLH have invested huge sums in automated production and these robotic production lines ensure that every board is identical and have made Instanta the market leader in advanced water boilers.

Every electronics company needs a brilliant designer like John but we must also thank his fellow director Carol Morris for the efficiency with which she has run the operation ensuring that supplies are delivered on time and dealing with any queries quickly and in a very friendly and efficient manner. We will miss John, Carol and her husband Tom and everyone else at KLH and must thank them for the major contribution that they have made to Instanta's success.

Before we used John's design skills, all our boilers incorporated bulky electro-mechanical thermostats like these. They are good and reliable stats but the bulbs are in contact with the water and can suffer from limescale deposits in hard water areas and they have fairly long differentials when switching.

These tiny thermistors introduced to us by KLH transformed temperature sensing by being extremely accurate and operating on a small differential ensuring constant temperatures and, being fitted externally, less sensitivity to limescale and much easier service.

It looks like Cher Lloyd, my X Factor tip for this year, may struggle to win. She came in the bottom two on Sunday night despite being much better than Wagner and Mary so she may not be as popular as I thought. Mind you, no X Factor winner to date has ever been in the bottom two so there has to be a first time and, in the same week in 2008, KLS were in the bottom two and finished as runners up. Much depends on how big the Wagner bandwagon has become. The anti Cowell brigade managed to knock Simon Cowell's act Joe off the number one spot last Christmas and they could do the same sort of thing again now by voting Wagner to win. But the laugh will be on Simon's face as he's the one who stands to gain the most from all those telephone votes and there's bound to be some sort of get out clause in that prize recording contract. I'm keeping faith in Cher for now and will be interested to see how she performs on Saturday night (if our friends who are coming round for a meal are fans of the show).

Here's another example of the hilarious jokers those great British telephone voters are. They've crucified poor Paige for the benefit of Wagner, kept a leaden lump in Strictly Come Dancing and now they're putting the knife into Gillian McKeith. OK so she's not the world's most popular woman but, after a week of being chosen for those gruesome insect torturing trials, isn't it time to give her a break?

What Next?

2010-11-22T14:58:00.001Z

With less than seven working days left, my mind is finally starting to look ahead and I am starting to think what we are going to do with an extra forty five hours every week. "A bit late now" you might say, but we've deliberately not thought about it before so that we could concentrate on the job in hand and make sure that our departure will be as seamless as possible.

We've been at Instanta almost every day this year and haven't had a holiday for almost thirty months so a holiday has to be the first priority but, with a replacement hip booked in for a week on Monday, overseas travel is going to have to be put on hold for a few more months.

Ebay just isn't profitable in the way that it was when it first arrived in the country. In those days you could put anything up for sale and there would be an eager audience waiting to bid on it. Today there are more items than there are willing bidders and, unless you happen to buy something at a bargain price, the chance of selling for a profit on eBay is slim.

Another novel? I loved writing my novel in 2009. I had twenty copies printed and gave them to friends and family. Feedback was actually very positive but the couple of negatives were so discouraging that I gave up hope of looking for publication. Maybe a writing course and rewrite would be worth thinking about. If you took into account the number of words that I have written on this blog over the last twelve months that could easily fill another book so writing one shouldn't be that big a problem.

Spending more time with the family. Well I couldn't spend much more time with Marion as she has been at my side almost constantly for the past twenty years and that has been great. But perhaps we could see more of our kids Sarah and Paul although as they and their super partners Duncan and Josephine are both involved in pretty tough and time consuming jobs there won't exactly be too much opportunity there. ( I hear sighs of relief in St Andrews and London).

The one thing that I know that I can do well is management accountancy. I don't just mean book-keeping but understanding the books and acting on the information they supply. I think that is the one area that has helped me most in my careers at both Instanta and with Barclays so maybe I should offer my services as a trouble shooter for small businesses who aren't very good with their books.

Or maybe I should just put my feet up,have a well deserved rest and watch some TV. If you get chance try "Raising Hope" the new offering on Thursdays on Sky1 -very funny.

Ony one week of blogging left

2010-11-19T12:30:00.000Z

When compiling my list of thanks to all our wonderful Instanta employees yesterday, I said that Kirk was interesting. He's even getting mentioned on YouTube with this video being created entirely in response to his question.

Marion and I are off to the Northcote Manor in Whalley tonight for a meal out with friends Nita and Mark from Workhouse Marketing. It should be a great evening although I was one mouse click away from disaster as I booked on line and somehow managed to find another Northcote Manor in Devon. I filled in all the credit card non refundable booking but just before clicking the confirm button Marion spotted my mistake. Phew. We are going to make a weekend of it and , weather permitting, we hope to do some sight seeing around rural Lancashire on Saturday and then spend a night in Bolton before going to the big antiques fair at the Reebok stadium on Sunday morning. I'll be missing the match at Anfield but who in their right mind wants to go to a football match at 5.30 on a Saturday evening? Thank you ESPN and Barclays Premier League for putting us fans first.

There again our weekend could be ruined by our new dentist. For as long as we can remember our dentist was John Rostron who somehow managed to make going to the dentist a pain free experience. Sadly John retired recently and, on Marion's first visit to her new dentist, she was given a filling that involved thirty minutes' drilling and almost two weeks later it is still giving her terrible pain. Perhaps a few glasses of wine will numb her jaw for her.

I've been on Twitter for a few months now and I really like it. I find it keeps me bang up to date with all the important stuff that's going on in the world like Jason resigning from The One Show and the very latest virals on YouTube. You even get stuff on trivia like politics and current affairs. But the longer I am on Twitter the more isolated I feel and I am sure that I am not alone. Mere mortals like me can delight in reading the witty conversations going on between, for example, the wonderful contributors @IndiaKnight, @GraceDent and @CaitlinMoran and read the funny musings of @SuePerkins, @KateFlett and @ClareBalding but we are like Ebenezer Scrooge being shown the visions of a Christmas party by the ghost of Christmas present. We watch entertained but will never be part of the party. Like the lonely kid in the playground we laugh at the popular kid's jokes but they never invite us to crack our own. We peer through the toy shop window knowing that we are going to find just a tangerine in our Christmas stocking. And if we do try to join in we face the rejection of being ignored or the worry that we are turning into creepy stalkers. So maybe we should all start following complete strangers who aren't in the public eye and create a group of sub-celebrity tweeters. And maybe we will then all begin to feel wanted.

Last year I managed to lose £200 betting on I'm A Celebrity without watching the programme and vowed never again. But the inveterate gambler in me took hold and when I heard that Jenny Eclair was going into the jungle I bunged £150 on her. She is such a funny comedian that she will surely go down a storm. Won't she? Still can't bear to watch it but I'm rooting for Jenny.

Favourites Perhaps But Favouritism - Never

2010-11-18T13:35:00.000Z

Anybody who has read this blog over the past few weeks will have got the message and known that we are leaving very soon. I have been dedicating my blogging to thanking those who have helped me and Marion in our running of Instanta. And nobody is more important than our staff. This photo was taken for our brochure at the start of the year and includes many of our employees although Liz, Dave B, Barabara, Margaret, Peter Brindle,Nick and Gavin were not here at the time and young Tim,Rob and Haylie hadn't joined us at the time.

Any boss would be a liar if he or she said that they didn't have any favourites amongst their workforce. Who isn't going to like those that give their all and make an extra effort? But there's a difference between favourites and favouritism and I would hope that throughout our time at Instanta we have been totally fair and I would like to thank every single employee individually for their help.Here goes in the order that they come up on the payroll.

So Margaret, thanks for keeping the place spic and span and for keeping us amused with your tales of Elvis fandom and for your happy disposition.

Liz for being such an incredibly nice person and learning all the accounts in such a short time.And for all those times when nobody could keep a straight face.

Craig for your unflappable disposition, your sense of humour and excellent rapport with customers and staff alike and for doing such a great job in sales.

Dave Boutle for your unmatched cleaning skills and for giving me someone to moan about eBay with.

Rob for being an incredibly fast learner and for your extremely interesting take on current affairs.

Haylie for making such a tremendous effort in taking over the credit control from Marion - an extremely hard act to follow.

Barbara you've only been here a few weeks but I can already see that you pick things up extremely quickly and I'm sure that you'll be happy here.

Tim the quiet man of Instanta. You've only been with us a short while and I haven't had time to get to know you but I wish you every success here.

Colin for making light work of all the tasks you are given and for quickly picking up the knowledge of how the boilers work.

Tony Mercer for being Instanta's longest serving employee and for leading such a super efficient assembly line and for helping me and Marion out so much in the last twenty odd years with virtually no absence.

Martin for your impeccable attendance record and your supreme accuracy in our wiring department.

Joey for reminding me what being young was about and for your memorable contribution to our five a side nights and your hilarious stand up at the Xmas party.

Mariusz for all your hard work and effort and for coping so well with all of us foreigners.

Lee for our shared love of the cinema, your incredible ability to remember things and for your efficiency in all the jobs you do.

Rafa for your great attitude to work, your politeness and hard work and amazing mastery of the language.

Craig for running such an excellent welding depart, your reliability and hard work and our shared interest in antiques.

Dave or Aitch for your long service, your friendly disposition and our shared interest in losing money on gambling. And for making my life easier by supporting a team that is no better than mine.

Mike for running an excellent machine shop and for your willingness to always help out and get on with the job. Thanks too for the help with the boxes.

Sean for a great attendance record, friendly nature, helpfulness and for making a genuine effort.

Daz for your reliability and enthusiasm, for learning to weld so well and for your great contribution to our football. Good luck with Blackpool.

Jason for your incredible work ethic, graft, accuracy, attendance record and willingness to help.

Kirk for your excellent welding skills and for keeping me informed of your amazingly wide range of interesting hobbies. I never expected to have an Instanta beekeeper.

Kevin for jumping in when we were at our lowest and taking over the sheet metal work so seamlessly, learning so quickly and running it so efficiently.

Steve for your flexibility and willingness to do whatever is asked of you without complaint and for all those times when there was a problem with the car.

Andy for the conscientious and thorough way that you test the equipment - a truly vital job that you do so well.

Gary for your very helpful nature, great attendance record, hard work and contribution to the quality of our products. Good luck with Blackpool too.

Peter Brindle for truly having Instanta running through your veins and for making such a hugely positive impact on our sales.

Max for taking over my responsibility for tackling warranty work so efficiently that nobody will miss me and for your past company on the kop.

Gav for buying so well and making such an important contribution to our margins and for maintaining our relationships with BSI, impeccable time keeping and great attendance record.

Phil for your jovial nature, great attendance, helpfulness with the customers and I won't forget you packing all those eBay packets for me in the past.

Jenny for being a human dynamo, your encyclopedic knowledge of the spare parts and for running a happy and efficient office and stores.

Peter Barlow for all your hard work and for demonstrating what being a passionate football supporter is all about. I just wish that in all your years with us I had had more opportunities for the bragging rights.

Tony Lowe for your composure and efficiency in our stores, your excellent attitude to customer service and conscientious effort.

Dave Wilson for the incredible thoroughness that resulted in our products being so successful, your dedication to Instanta and your amazing success in our gaining all the standards that we have achieved.

Nick for replacing me so effortlessly as the face of Instanta within the industry and doing a much better job of it than I ever did.

That's everyone I think - no favouritism no back handed compliments. We've been very lucky to have such a great bunch working for us and will miss you all.

Speaking of missing people I missed a visit from Natalie yesterday when she brought in her new baby Isabella. Marion naturally grabbed her first to get in a bit of grandmothering practice. Message to our kids- big hint.

I'll close today with a lesson for anyone parking where maybe they shouldn't. Beware of pensioners.

What if?

2010-11-17T12:03:00.000Z

When the end of a major chunk of your life (working) rapidly approaches you tend to think "what if?" (well at least I do) and a lot of "what if's" have occured in my life. What if one Jack Thompson hadn't invented a steam injector and called it the Thompson Instanta"? If that hadn't happened my dad would not have moved to Southport to work for him and I would not have met Marion and our children Paul and Sarah would not have been born and I would not be sitting here now writing about retiring from Instanta in less than two weeks time. And what if, after leaving Thompson Instanta, my dad had not been interested in buying the business when he was approached? And what if Barclays had not lent him the money to buy it? It makes you realise just how many small things influence what happens in every life - things that may seem insignificant when they happen but result in life changing consequences.

And it wasn't just my life that was affected by some of those "what if's". My brother Peter (pictured above with his wife Val and my mum) had the same life changing result from our parents' one decision to move to Southport and he would not have met Val (and had his kids) and would not have made a career working for Instanta. I've been writing final tributes to customers, engineers , past employees and suppliers over the past few weeks' blogs but must also acknowledge the very important role that Pete played here for many years.

Instanta's fortunes were turned around during the big recession of the 1970's when Peter and our father Bill developed the WB100, WB200 and WB300 water boilers. These models revolutionised automatic water boilers in the catering industry and ran a coach and horses through the price structure making auto fill boilers available to many businesses that had previously had to rely upon manual fill urns. Without Peter's ingenuity in solving some development problems, the range of boilers would not have got off the drawing board and that's a "what if" that could well have resulted in the business failing to survive the recession.

Peter went on to develop the hugely successful Fast Flow and Concept ranges of boilers and recruited an army of first class sub-contract engineers who promoted the Instanta name throughout the country. He built up the production facilities and instilled a sense of pride and quality in the products. If he had not done that it would have made my role in continuing to offer the excellent service that the brand has become known for extremely difficult. He always put the customers first throughout his career and that influence enabled Instanta to gain the respect and position that it now holds within the industry. So thanks for that support Pete and for the groundwork that has helped us to continue in your footsteps. I hope that (hip permitting) we can get together for some metal detecting trips when the weather warms up again. Clapham? What if we find one of those Roman Helmets?

Peter enjoys playing the guitar. I'll close today with a new guitar playing viral video phenomenon. I don't really get the popularity of this bloke but his videos are spreading around the Internet like wildfire.

Thanks for the memories

2010-11-15T13:50:00.002Z

As we start our final couple of weeks before retirement I would like to mention a few of those that we have worked with here in the Instanta office but are no longer working here.

"In no particular order" as Dermot would say on X Factor, I'll start with Lauren Oldfield. Lauren who worked on credit control featured regularly on the blog as she turned her hands to all sorts during the dark days of the recession when there was not much credit to control. She never complained and always mucked in helping out with jobs like decorating the board room, searching the pool table for undated 20p pieces and featuring on our posters. Her boyfriend Darren still works for Instanta so he keeps us up to date with Lauren's progress in her new career where she is now a P.A.

Jan Harbon left us to become a full time foster mum. Jan will be remembered by many customers for her friendly efficiency in running our sales order processing. We bump into Jan from time to time in Tescos and we know how much she enjoys her new vocation. She doesn't have much spare time now but when she does find time she bakes spectacular celebration cakes which would not look amiss on the prize stands at the big catering exhibitions.

Here's Kerry Greig who was with us in our pre-blogging days. Kerry comes from Kirkcaldy in Fife and one of the loves of her life is Rangers FC. She moved back up to Scotland some years ago and I imagine that she now finds more time to go and watch them play. Kerry was a wizard at bookkeeping and did a great job at keeping our purchase and sales ledgers in apple pie order.

Who could forget Natalie Drummond? Nat is a complete one off who left us to have a baby and now has two daughters. She never failed to make me laugh (although I am not sure if that was always the intention) and there was never a dull moment when she was around.

Here's Samantha Wallwork who worked in our sales department before she too left to have a family. Sam joined us on a number of exhibitions and was a great ambassador for Instanta at Hotelympia and ScotHot where she managed to open a number of new accounts. She ran our sales order processing department with great efficiency and was always on top of the job.

And last but by no means least here's the lovely Sue Ebo who joined us for a few months to cover maternity leave. Sue was an office all rounder who slotted in perfectly during her short spell with us and could always be relied upon to have something nice to say.

I'll finish today with my favourite from Saturday's X Factor. Maybe Cher is not the best singer in the competition but when it comes to having something that is an "x factor", she's certainly the one with it. And I have put my money where my mouth is and backed her to win. I was right last year.Will I be this year?

More Praise Where Praise Is Due

2010-11-12T17:38:00.000Z

I am writing this from home so I can't tell you exactly when I first started dealing with David and Amanda Sweeney. Suffice to say it was way back in the 90's when they were very young. They were running a company that specialised in servicing hot drink machines in the London area and wrote to my brother Peter asking if they could be of any assistance. Finding a reliable agent in London had always been difficult but Dave and Amanda sold their company, City Servicing, to us very well and we decided to give them a try. Before long we were not only giving City Servicing all our warranty work in the area but also recommending them to any customers who wanted their Instanta equipment servicing.

We did this because the qualities they offered were everything that we could want from a service company - efficiency, reliability, honesty, sincerity, excellent customer service and fair prices. Dave and Amanda grew their business and took on additional engineers and we were always happy with their services. Earlier this year they decided to change their career directions and decided to move onto pastures new and closed City Servicing but Marion and I will always be grateful to Dave and Amanda, not only for the excellent service they gave Instanta, where they often pulled out all the stops for us and our customers, but also for the help that they gave to us on personal basis having helped our son Paul out several times when he had a problem with the plumbing at his London flat.

They could not have run a business in this way without being the truly genuine couple that they are and whenever we had a major London exhibition we always enjoyed the evenings spent in their company far more than the evening spent at any of the official social events. So thank you Dave and Amanda. We wish you both a very happy and successful future.

And if you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that I am a big fan of YouTube and other viral videos. People often ask how I find the time to discover the videos that I have added to the blog over the past few years. So hats off again to Unruly Media who send me details of the most popular videos every week and save me loads of time trying to find them all myself. Viral marketing is an important selling tool and will continue to grow and will play a huge role in company marketing in the future and I hope that Instanta will one day use it. In the meantime we can just enjoy the videos on a personal basis and wish Unruly all the very best.

And on that note I will close today with not one but two excellent videos that they sent to me.

This one's for our son Paul who loves American Football. What a clever play. I wonder if it will ever be repeated.

And this one's for me. I adore kids and I LOVE Bob Marley.

Where Would We Have Been Without John Ewans?

2010-11-11T16:57:00.000Z

About nineteen years ago I got one of those packs of cards that sometimes arrive in the post. You know the sort, they are mini ads which you sometimes glance quickly through and more often put in the bin. In the pack was an advertisement suggesting that industrial design could add something to the business accompanied by a photo of a very attractive industrial helmet, an item that you would not usually associate with style. The advert struck a chord with me and I contacted the advertiser John Ewans Design of High Wycombe.

Managing Director John came to see me and my brother Peter and we told him that we would be interested in putting design into Instanta products. At the time our boilers, and those of everyone else were, without exception, square but functional metal boxes. We spent some time working with John and with his help we initially developed a pour thru coffee maker. We loved the look of this model and were sufficiently impressed with John Ewan's expertise to decide to ask him to help us to transform our entire range into products that would be functional but would also be pleasing on the eye, easy to assemble and simple to install and service.

As a result, Instanta's image and products moved to a higher plane and, when we showed our boilers at the Hotelympia exhibition in 1996 they received universal acclaim and shortly afterwards we were overall winners in the 1996 Caterer & Hotelkeeper New Equipment Awards for our entire new range - a huge accolade for a small company in a big industry. It is fair to say that at Hotelympia in 1996 Instanta was almost alone in using industrial design in the products and, without it, our boilers would have remained functional but run of the mill. A visitor to Hotelympia this year would have seen that good design is now nearer the norm and we like to think that with John Ewans assistance we helped to blaze that trail in the catering industry. The following are just a few of the many new products that John has helped us to launch.

John is a modest man and didn't send a photo of himself for inclusion in this blog but, as you can see from the products that he has designed, he has no reason for modesty as he is a fantastic industrial designer who has without question been a major contributor to our success. So thank you John and your team for all your hard work and your excellent design. I hope that your relationship with Instanta and our new owners continues to flourish. You can contact John Ewans Design Ltd at their High Wycombe office on 01494 473441.

I knew that I would stir up a hornets' nest yesterday by mentioning immaculate sickness records as I was bound to forget somebody. So here's a mention for Phil Joce in our stores. He joined Instanta in January 1989 and has not had a day off since 1997 although he was five minutes late in 2002 and there was that nose job in 1993. Well done Phil. If there is anybody else I have forgotten I'm sure that I will soon be hearing about it.

All I can really say about Jackass 3D last night is that I have seen it but it was one of those life experiences that I won't be in a hurry to repeat. It was funny in parts but way too long. There are only so many ways that you can watch pain and humiliation being inflicted on people before it becomes tiresome. I liked the mad daredevil stunts but the bodily fluids (and bodily solids) left me cold. As Marion and I were at least thirty years older than everyone else in the packed cinema I suspect that we weren't the target audience.

And it won't be long before another experience that I won't be in a hurry to see hits our screens again.

3D Or Not 3D? That Is The Question.

2010-11-10T14:35:00.000Z

It's Wednesday which, as usual, can only mean one thing - a trip to the cinema using the fabulous Orange Wednesday promotion. We have to get our own phones in a couple of weeks and we went on the Internet to check out our options on one of those comparison sites. We could be tempted to move away from Orange on looking at the figures but they don't mention the Orange Wednesday benefit which is worth a few hundred pounds a year to us and will reduce the real cost of the phones considerably.Anyway,after "Another Year" on Saturday left us feeling a little melancholy and "Let Me In" on Monday was also a bit sad, we're off to see "Jackass 3D" tonight. That should blow away the cobwebs and liven us up a little. I know you're probably thinking what on earth a near pension age couple are doing going to watch what is (according to NME) stupid and puerile but I'm very keen to see the application of 3D to firing of dildos and excrement out of the screen as that must surely be a cinematic first and we've always been what is known as "early adopters".

As "early adopters", we've been having a look at both the iPad and 3D TV lately. I know we've probably missed the boat on the iPad and we would no longer be early adopters if we bought one now but to be honest, whilst it looks great, do we really have any use for one(unlike the fabulous Apple TV which is a fantastic piece of equipment that we've had for years and for which we could still be seen as early adopters as I don't think Apple have sold many)? But with 3D TV we have to ask ourselves do we watch a lot of TV? Yes. Is the 3D quality good? Yes it's very good. Do we need a new telly? Er, not really. Is there much being broadcast in 3D? Er, not really. Was there much HD being broadcast when we got HD? Er virtually none but we still enjoyed it when there was something. The jury is still out on this one. I'm very keen to try it but I know that the prices may soon come down but there again you only live once and might as well enjoy what little there is available now in the knowledge that, like HD, there will soon be more. We'll decide after we've left Instanta.

With just over two weeks left here, our new computer operating system arrived yesterday. I had promised that I would oversee it's installation and get it up and running before I left but that was when I thought I would have four months and not twelve working days. I have launched into it enthusiastically but have been hampered by my right hand getting cold. I don't know what is causing this - perhaps it's coming out in sympathy with my right hip but since I lost almost three stone I've felt the cold much more and have gone from the one who sat sweating pleading with Marion to turn the heating down to the one who does the pleading to turn it up. I'm sitting here in a centrally heated office with an electric heater alongside me and I've GOOGLED cold right hand and found that some associate it with using a computer. Oh dear, maybe I won't be able to input all that data.

Maybe I should throw a sickie. But that would not be in my nature. As I face retirement I've been thinking about my career record. I've been working since I was 18 so that's almost forty years. I think, and I don't want to exaggerate, that I have had at most five sick days in that time that's less than one hour per working year. And it's not simply because I have been self employed as I worked almost twenty years in a bank. Is it that I am extremely healthy and lucky? Maybe. Or maybe it's just that when we grew up it was just the done thing to go to work or school and muddle through. Anyway I know that one or two here at Instanta, including Marion, Martin and Tony have similar records so I'm not in any way unique.

I'll finish today with a video for our son Paul who spends a lot of time thinking of ideas for game shows for TV. I imagine that when the researchers on Wheel Of Fortune set this puzzle they didn't quite expect it to be solved this quickly.

Keeping It In The Family

2010-11-09T15:14:00.000Z

Once Marion and I leave Instanta it will cease to be the family business that it has been for the past fifty or more years although our new owners are still very much a family concern with Michael Crouch at the helm and his son George heavily involved in the business. But one firm that will be continuing the family tradition that it has had for over 25 years is Catershield of Nottingham.

The company was established in 1985 by Dennis Birkinshaw who was soon joined by his son Peter (in light blue above). The business thrived and Peter brought in his brother in law Tony Farthing and more recently Peter's sons Grant and Ashley (front) have joined the fold. Although Lillian is not related to any of them, after twenty years with Catershield I think it is fair to say that she is part of the Catershield family.

In 1986 we opened an account for Catershield who are almost unique in the industry specialising as they do solely in the supply and service of equipment for making hot drinks. Covering a wide area of the East Midlands, South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and some of East Yorkshire and the West Midlands, Catershield have built up an excellent reputation for providing the right solutions for customers who want equipment to make hot drinks and, using their twenty five years' experience, they have also become a first class service provider. Being specialists in their field means that they understand boilers inside out and can quickly diagnose faults that arise. This knowledge, combined with holding a comprehensive stock of spare parts, means that they can usually put things right first time without the need for costly return visits.

Last year the business was split into two distinct parts.Catershield Services Ltd is run by Ashley with him and Grant concentrating on the service side whilst Tony and Peter continue to run Catershield Ltd. I wish them all continued success and hope that their family run business runs on into the fourth or even fifth generation. And if you need service for your beverage equipment you can contact them on 01159 633681.

We went to see Let Me In last night. We used the free tickets we got when Paranormal Activity 2 was ruined by a stupid audience. But there was no risk of a rowdy showing last night as there were only six of us in the screening. I loved Let The Right One In, or, to give it its original title, "Låt den rätte komma in" and I didn't know quite what to expect in this remake. Well I have to say that it is truly a remake and keeps extremely close to the original. I picked up a slightly new meaning in a strip of photo booth photos that I missed first time around and I felt that New Mexico, where this new version is set, somehow feels less dark and less cold than Sweden. The flats where young Owen is living with his separated mum are not quite as squalid as in the first film and there are no neighbourhood winos hanging around. That apart, there is little to choose between the two. Obviously no subtitles is a help although the Swedish language did add to the Gothic atmosphere of the original. The young lead actors play their roles extremely well and this new film remains as moving and touching as the first. Well worth a visit, but, if you are a film buff, being able to talk about Låt den rätte komma in does have a certain cachet that Let Me In doesn't, doesn't it?

I've only got about ten blogs left before I pack in so I'll indulge myself with one of favourite videos from the past. Great music and a lot of happy smiling young people - perfect.

In Praise Of Moore Stephens

2010-11-08T14:09:00.000Z

I didn't think that I would see our auditor Alan Finch again after he finished our audit but he's back today carrying out some work on our books. It's always a pleasure to work with Alan. He's a wizard with a calculator and a great accountant. Married to Jan, Alan has two grown up children, Peter and Caroline, who are both involved in archaeology. When he's not working on audits, you can find Alan, who is an ordained Anglican minister, conducting services at his local church. He also supports Everton but we won't dwell on that. I'd like to thank Alan for his support over all the years that he has been working for us and to wish him every success for the future.

I didn't mention machine tester Andy Fyles who had a birthday last week. Apologies Andy but I hope that you had a great day.

I'll have to close now as we have some visitors with us today.

Another Day Another Great Supplier

2010-11-05T11:47:00.000Z

How many fliers arrive in the post on an average day? Four or five perhaps? Maybe ten on a busy day. How many go straight into the bin? If you are anything like me it would be 99.9%. And yet one very simple, very amusing and very straight to the point little cartoon booklet sent by Workhouse Marketing at the end of 2007 not only grabbed my attention but compelled me to do what it suggested and get in touch. I figured that if anybody could get my attention in the seconds betwixt envelope and bin, they must be people worth talking to.

And I figured right. I got in touch and went to see Workhouse MD Mark Jones in his offices in delightful rural Lancashire and was totally impressed by the Workhouse set up. If workhouses conjure up dark images of starving children begging for more, nothing could be further from the truth as the bright design studio was staffed by a happy team of young people working with the very latest technology. I immediately warmed to the Workhouse set up and was confident that they had the skill to take Instanta further.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Our 2008 brochure won plenty of plaudits from our customers and would be hard to match but Workhouse pulled out all the stops again last year and, as I leave the company, I feel that our latest brochure (above)is our best ever. Considering that Instanta is a British manufacturer and that the country has just been through the worst recession in living memory I have to thank Workhouse for their help in providing us with the sales and promotional material necessary to weather that storm and sail through with an increase in sales that went against the industry trend.

They are not a company to rest upon their laurels and have invested heavily in developing their business and now have a purpose built photographic studio and an excellent in house photographer. Their repertoire extends far beyond sales brochures as you can see from their last year's Xmas video which ends today's blog and captures the company's sense of humour perfectly.

It's very rare for me to enthuse so effusively about a company but it is extremely rare to come across a company that has values that are close to my heart. In the end all business has to be about profit, without it the country would grind to a halt, but other things are important too such as ensuring that clients and staff are valued equally. I feel that, in running their business, Mark and his wife Nita have applied similar principles to those used by us here at Instanta. It has worked for us and it works for them and I am happy to recommend them strongly. Sharing many interests and tastes it is no surprise that we have become firm friends away from the working environment and we have enjoyed dining out with Mark and Nita at several excellent North West establishments and are looking forward to meeting up with them again in a couple of weeks.

I don't share Mark's passion for rugby which saw him and Nita flying to South Africa to follow the British Lions last year and has made him a near ever present at Wales Rugby internationals but he also loves cricket and even goes to watch Blackburn Rovers from time to time (although whether that marks him out as a football enthusiast or merely a masochist is open to question).Mark and Nita, who, like Marion, does a hard job in credit control amongst many other things, have two sons Ben and Tom. Ben, (front) who works at Workhouse is just off to Australia on a sabbatical, whilst Tom has opened an excellent wine shop in nearby Whalley named, appropriately, The Whalley Wine Shop. It stocks an excellent range of wines and a big variety of other drinks and is well worth a short detour when you travel along the A59.

Before finishing with that video, a quick word about Steve Gerrard. I have been highly critical of Stevie G over the last few years. It's not that I don't think he's a good player, his ability has always been beyond doubt. It's just that I felt that he had become a scowling prima donna who, instead of inspiring inferior players with his captaincy and leadership, treated them with contempt and limited Liverpool's performances by not involving them in the play. Last night he rose above that, played as part of the team and inspired Liverpool to a win that at half time looked extremely unlikely. Hat's off to him. But come on Steve, can we please see more smiles and less scowling. And supporters, whilst being able to pass the ball forty yards may well be a fine asset what has being big and f******g hard got to do with it?

Let The Accolades Commence

2010-11-04T18:19:00.000Z

I said that I planned to devote my last few weeks here to mentioning those who have helped contribute to Instanta's success over the last twenty years and I would like to start by mentioning local photographer Peter Raymond. Peter has been taking photographs for Instanta for the last five years and many people have commented upon the quality of the shots in our promotional material. Photographing shiny stainless steel boilers is not the simplest thing to do and Peter has been fastidious and a true perfectionist who always strives to achieve the best possible results. Look at any of Peter's photos and you won't find any unsightly reflections, incorrect shadows or smudges anywhere. He is an excellent all round photographer and, as you can see from his business card above, he is not a one trick pony and has far more than just industrial photography in his repertoire. Peter shares my love of The Pogues, The Archers and everything good on Radio 4 and we are on a similar wavelength on the social conscience front.Thanks for your excellent work Peter. I wish you every success for the future and will always look out for your Tweets on Twitter. Follow him @PeteRayUK

I don't know if Peter shares my love of The Apprentice but last night's episode was the best of the season so far. Alex Epstein pictured above with the beautiful but inaptly named Paloma (she's a long way from being a symbol of peace) somehow managed to stay in the show for yet another week despite exhibiting the entrepreneurial nous of a potato and speaking in the best apprentice speak possible (he's a "guru" who will make Lord Sugar billions). Mind you that's probably why he's still there. It is, after all, entertainment.

Which reminds me to remind you not to miss Paul's A League Of Their Own tonight at 10pm on Sky1 and Sky1HD. It's another double billing tonight with Amanda Holden, Kevin Pietersen, Joe Calzaghe and Patrick Kielty. It's bound to be funny although how on earth are they going to top John Bishop in spangly hot pants last week? I'm sure that they'll have a good stab at it.

I got home from work too late for the gym tonight so I'm going to have a go on the Wii fit for an hour. Not sure if I should as it keeps telling me that despite losing almost three stone I am still overweight and should be 11 stone (in which case I would be skin and bones). It also shows my Wii Mi figure as a very rotund fatty and then, to add further insult to injury, tells me that my Wii Age is no less than 73. Wait until I get that new hip, I'll give it 73.

Thought it might be nice to close with a song that Peter might enjoy. I certainly will.

In Praise Of Orange Wednesdays

2010-11-03T13:02:00.003Z

As I wait for recent photos from those whose praises I hope to sing in my final few weeks of blogging I'll spend a few minutes celebrating the wonderful Orange and their outstanding support for the film industry. Since I started writing this blog a few years ago I reckon that we have taken advantage of the Orange Wednesday two for one film offer in the region of ninety times. At about £7 a ticket that's a saving of £630 and that alone must be worth the subscription to their mobile phone network. In addition to the film offer you can also combine it with offers from others such as Pizza Express and make Wednesdays a great night out. And if the local Vue would pull their fingers out and start showing more than just the latest blockbusters we might have made it a hundred visits. Tonight the critics' highest rated film "The Kids Are Alright" about a lesbian couple and their children's involvement with their sperm donor father is not showing whilst "Burke & Hare" which averaged one star in the press is on several times. That means no trip this week.

The subject matter for "The Kids Are Alright" reminds me of the episode of Modern Family that we watched last night. Gay partners Mitchell and Cameron thought that they were bound to get the school of their choice for adopted daughter Lilly because, being gay and having an adopted ethnic child they ticked all the boxes for the school's diversity policy. On arriving for the interview they bumped into other parents competing for the scarce place - gay, mixed race, adopted and disabled - a sort of top trumps for school enrolment. Not very PC but extremely funny. Do try it.

Is that Bruce Willis with Sheryl Crow? No it's Gavin Ford our Assistant Director and Buyer who was delighted to oblige when Sheryl asked for a photo recently. Gavin is on holiday this week and will be jetting off to the Canaries for a well earned break and will be celebrating his birthday today. Gavin has been with Instanta for over twenty three years and, after working in the assembly department, progressed to running the engineering workshop before becoming our buyer and working on R&D and our Quality and Environmental systems. Gavin is engaged to partner Julie and plans to wed in the future. Proud father to son Nick, Gavin enjoys motor bikes and supporting the St Helens Rugby League team. This will be his last birthday before I leave so thank you Gavin for your support over the past twenty odd years, happy birthday and best wishes for the future.

I mentioned political correctness earlier. There is so much going on in the world today that I would love to comment upon here. But we don't own Instanta any longer and it would not be politically correct or respectful of me to do so as I am sure that politics, world issues and my slightly weird left of centre, right of centre mix of thoughts have no place on somebody else's website. However, when we leave, I do hope to continue some sort of "thoughts from a retired bloke" blog in which nothing will be sacred and anything will go. I'll post a link for anybody who may be interested before we go.

In the meantime I'll keep it anodyne. Have you heard about the return of Alan Partridge? Hallelujah.

Public Enemy Number One

2010-11-02T13:32:00.002Z

Does Craig Buckley look like a hardened criminal? Does he look like a threat to the public? If you spotted him walking his dog on a Saturday afternoon would you shrink away in fear? No. Of course not. You really couldn't meet a more mild mannered young man.He's a real asset to Instanta. But on Saturday afternoon he found himself held in a police car for thirty minutes after being stopped by an armed police response unit.

This was the scene near Craig's house after no less than seven cars and a helicopter turned up. Craig was watching TV when he heard the helicopter hovering in the area. The dog was due for a walk so he put on her lead and took her to the local recreation ground. Whilst on the field, an armed forces policeman yelled at him to stand "*******" still - which he did. He then screamed at him to take his "*******" hands out of his "*******" pockets and beckoned colleagues to search him and the area where he had been walking. Whilst this was going on, another young man who was also on the field was being held by more officers. The policeman who first approached Craig then put his face into his and both threateningly and in a foul mouthed way accused him of speaking to the other detainee. Craig was initially bemused by this and smiled when he denied speaking to the other. That was a bad move and only got the policeman more riled. He was fuming at Craig's denial and insisted that the helicopter had CCTV footage of Craig liaising with the other bloke. He repeated this again and again asking (almost telling) Craig to confess to speaking with him. As Craig had not spoken to him he continued to deny it but by now was starting to worry. The police told him to tie his dog to a post and took him to a police car and pushed him inside. They kept him for thirty minutes.

When his ordeal was over, the first armed response officer took Craig out of the car and asked him to walk back onto the field. When on the field he told Craig that he didn't trust him, thought he was a liar and on other days would have arrested him but had bigger things to do. Craig remained silent and went home angry.

On a day when the police armed response unit has been in the news for one of their officers trivialising the recent inquest into the death of London lawyer Mark Saunders by trying to get as many song titles as possible into his evidence, this behaviour sadly does not surprise me. What worries me though is that these officers are believed to have been armed (Craig did not see any guns but the local website has reported other witnesses that did), and if Craig had made a suspicious move he might not have been here to tell the tale. Exaggeration maybe but that's not what John Charles de Menezes found. So here's a few song titles for the police to mull over. "Sorry seems to be the hardest word", "Another One Bites The Dust" "Thick As A Brick" and, of course, this one. Ok it's obvious but hey it's one of my favourites and that's what my last month of blogging here is all about.

The Final Countdown. The Art Of The TV Review.

2010-11-01T16:07:00.001Z

Its November 1st and today marks a major milestone for us. It's the first day of our last working month and the clock is now well and truly ticking down towards our retirement. I'm going to devote the blog for the final month (or at least some of it) to the things closest to our hearts as well as to people and businesses that have meant a lot to us over the last twenty years. I'll probably be including some of my all time favourite YouTube videos too.

Regular blog readers (and yes there are some - hello Mum), will know that Marion and I are big fans of the arts.You might think us a bit lowbrow as we love X Factor just as much as we love Puccini or Piero Della Francesca but we're comfortable with that, unlike those who wouldn't dream of confessing to enjoying the weekly Cowell glitterfest or the daftness of Harry Hill.Our son Paul is often amazed when people he meets in the industry who make shows for the masses proclaim without a trace of embarrassment that they don't watch that sort of TV.

Anyway, to get to the point, if you love entertainment and the arts, you love reading about them and the first page that I turn to every morning after checking on the soap opera that is my football team is the TV review. I've been lucky over the years as The Guardian has employed some of the finest TV reviewers and previewers including the inimitable Nancy Banks Smith , Charlie Brooker, Grace Dent and now Sam Wollaston. Unlike reviews of theatre productions, new albums, concerts, books, films or exhibitions which people tend to read to form a decision on whether to see or buy the product a good TV review is in itself a form of entertainment and I am happy to read about something that was on the box last night irrespective of whether or not I saw it.

A good TV critic will always sell papers. Jim Shelley at The Mirror, AA Gill and now Caitlin Moran of The Times are all talents who must be treasured by their proprietors and kept at all costs - as was the legendary Clive James whose ten years as The Observer's critic resulted in no less than four books of published reviews. In today's Guardian, Sam Wollaston writes a fabulous piece on Return Of The Rhino: A Last Chance To See Special (BBC2). It's not a programme that I would watch but I am always happy to read a good review and speaking of how the white male rhino is taken back to Africa after thirty odd years in a zoo in the Czech Republic Sam writes "He sniffs the warm ground, stirring distant memories maybe, then takes a mouthful of long fresh African grass. Mmm... after 35 years of dumplings and pilsner." Perfect.

Which takes me back yet again to the absence of a good critic in our regular Sunday paper. When Kathryn Flett left the Observer I blogged on here "Heartbroken On Valentine's day" as one of life's pleasures departed. Her TV reviews were full of humour and clever observation and her magazine pieces on life in her home town of "Random On Sea" were a joy and guaranteed that both Marion and I could grab different sections of the paper without arguing who was going to read her contributions first. Since she left in February I have been patiently reading all of her replacements. All are good writers but none has mastered the rare art of the TV review (and it is an art) and this week I couldn't even be bothered to read to the end and that's a first. If the Observer doesn't find a decent replacement soon I'm going to have to break a lifetime's habit and drop the paper. And just to show what a difference a writer makes, I even read and enjoyed the car review in the Guardian recently when Sam Wollaston wrote it and if you know that I drive a Prius you'll appreciate the level of my interest in cars.

I see that a lot of genuine TV reviewers are active on Twitter while the big shows like X Factor and Downton are on so they are genuinely interested and not just reviewing from DVDs. With X Factor I put my money where my mouth was and, having suggested that Cher Lloyd seemed to be a good value bet at 14:1 last week, I was amazed to see her odds on Betfair rise to 15:1 on Saturday before the show started. Backing her at those odds I could now guarantee a profit as they have tumbled to around 7:1 now but I think that she's got a lot further to go and I am not hedging my bets just yet. Remember we both tipped Joe at the audition stage last year although Marion's got a few favourites this time.

Oh well, twenty nine days to go now. That's TV reviewers off my chest, what beckons tomorrow? With the news of Cherie's dabblings recently, eBay might be topical.

The Home Straight Is In Sight

2010-10-29T16:04:00.000+01:00

Our time at Instanta is rapidly drawing to a close and the finishing line is almost in view as today marks the last day of our penultimate month of work. With just over four weeks to go this will possibly be my last conventional blog as I intend to devote the next few weeks to those people and businesses that have meant so much to us in our twenty odd years in this industry and some of the good, the bad and the ugly happenings during that time. In the meantime we'll stick with the usual mix of trivia and Instanta news that has been the hallmark of this blog for the last couple of years.

Tomorrow Marion and I are off down to the NEC for the Antiques For Everyone fair. I've mentioned it before but it really is a super fair and the only one that we go out of our way to visit. It does exactly what it says on the label and you can go and buy something for £1 or something for £100,000 and I love it for that. I also love the comfortable layout of wide aisles and the bright stands and the huge variety of things on display ranging from postcards and ephemera to grand paintings and sculptures. The fair is vetted by a committee so you won't find a hidden treasure but you also won't buy a fake. On Sunday I'll be popping out to a new antiques fair at Scarisbrick Village Hall where there will probably be a dozen dealers and maybe only half a dozen genuine antiques between them but the chance of finding a hidden gem will strangely be much higher. I hope that when we retire we'll get more chances to go antique hunting.

Craig is busily working on the figures for the end of October and I am pleased to say that we are, once again, up on the same month last year and there is no sign of a double dip recession here at the moment. I won't say on here who is top of the sales league but it has been a tight run race and we might have a photo finish.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the office we've got some new screens on trial. These are designed to keep noise down and allow people to concentrate on their work without too many distractions but I could see them coming into use for some new office games. We could have an Instanta ping pong tournament for example. Any other suggestions on a postcard please.

Jimmy Carr was extremely funny at Southport Theatre last night. The politically correct side of me says that I shouldn't be laughing at some of his material which could be described as misogynist but the women in the audience appeared to be genuinely amused and Marion was laughing along heartily so I suppose that's the crux of the matter. If we can accept that jokes about violence or being abusive to women are simply that - jokes, then it is funny but if we feel that the comedian is in any way condoning the actions that he ridicules then he may be overstepping the mark. Not a show for the faint hearted and I couldn't repeat any of Jimmy's jokes. Oh yes there was one. What have Alexander the Great and Winnie the Pooh got in common? - same middle name.

Now that Marion and I have a lot of free time on our hands perhaps we could go and renew our marriage vows in some exotic location. Or maybe not after watching this. I have put the expurgated version on here but if you search YouTube for Maldives Wedding you will find the full uncensored (and much worse) 14 minute version.

Paranormal Activity 2 Ruined By Subnormal Activity

2010-10-28T11:56:00.001+01:00

Our regular Orange Wednesday trip to the local Vue was ruined last night. You could say it was our fault for choosing "Paranormal Activity 2", a film that appeals to young people but there are lots of more mature film fans who enjoy horror films and Marion and I are among them. The cinema was packed as it often is on Orange Wednesday but usually the audience quietens down once the film begins. Not last night however. Despite the cinema manager turning away scores of people below the 15 age rating of the film, if these kids are typical, it seems that those over 15 are no longer able to watch a film without doing something else at the same time. The cinema was alight with mobile phone screens as scores of them appeared to be using them for God knows what. Those who weren't using their phones were either talking and giggling loudly, repeatedly shouting at the screen "don't leave the baby", running out screaming when anything remotely scary happened and then returning en masse a few minutes later and spilling their ice creams, coke and popcorn all over the place - not doubt the second screening was delayed half an hour for the place to be cleaned up. We don't usually complain but we had to speak to the manager to try and save any more viewers from going through this ordeal. He kindly gave us complimentary tickets (which were welcome but unnecessary) but that did not prevent the film being ruined.Was it any good? Being unable to concentrate it's hard to say. I thought it was pretty good but I was not impressed with the ending. If this audience (and it wasn't just one or two of them) is any reflection on today's young people (and I really don't want to sound like a boring old granddad), something has gone wrong. It won't really bother us as we'll be long gone in forty years but who's going to be running the country from this lot?

We are off to see Jimmy Carr at the Southport Theatre tonight. I like Jimmy Carr but it seems that few of our friends do as we were unable to give away our two spare seats. I know that he made an offensive joke about gypsies a few years ago that made headlines and he upset people again when he said that due to the war in Afghanistan we'd have a great team in the Paralympics (the consensus was that the troops actually found it funny) but he's not that outrageous is he? We'll let you know tomorrow.

Before we go to watch Jimmy we're off to Pizza Express for a bite to eat. "Diet well and truly over then?" you might ask. But no. Hat's off to Pizza Express, you can download their full menu from the Internet complete with the calories in every dish. I don't know whether to go for the Grand Chicken Caesar Salad no dough sticks regular dressing at 491 calories or the Leggera Pizza Margherita at 500 but at 1165 calories there's no chance of the Calabrese.

Watching the women on last night's "The Apprentice" arguing about who got each of the orders they took for their body sculpting vests, reminded me of our sales team now that they have individual targets to meet. "I sold that" says one. "But it's my area" says another. "I opened the account" says the third. I think any order in dispute should be given to Craig (who doesn't have a target)or maybe we should use Lord Sugar's wisdom of Solomon method and none of them can have them.

As for TV, don't forget "A League Of Their Own" Sky1 and Sk1HD tonight at 10pm. Marion and I were in the studio audience. Another five seconds of fame beckons.You know how it is when someone has a slight personal problem but you're not sure how to tell them? Well here's a very discreet new method.

No Hiding Place

2010-10-27T12:38:00.000+01:00

Young Haylie Vidal thought that she had escaped my attention by taking a holiday on her recent birthday but I'm sorry Haylie, you don't get away that easily. Haylie was 20 last week and I am pleased to offer her our belated congratulations. She joined us in the summer after coming to us highly recommended by our service manager Max and you can't get a better recommendation that that (even if he is her dad).Haylie enjoys nothing more than a bit of shopping especially if it involves shoes and handbags. She is doing very well in the office, where she is involved in dealing with the cash and bank statements and is also learning to run the credit control department. You may hear from her if you are late in paying your account but try and make her life easy and pay us on time.

As we are winding down towards our retirement in just under five weeks I have found a bit more time for my hobby of selling on eBay. I recently listed this great little map of the smaller islands surrounding Great Britain and hope that it sells well. It's a really nice example and, for almost 300 years old, is in good condition.

Whilst it's good to collect old things and buying antiques for use is extremely green, I still don't understand those who collect animal heads as trophies. I know I'm a bit late and it's yesterday's news but I was really saddened to read about the stag known as The Emperor Of Exmoor that has been shot. I have read a lot of the arguments both pro and anti but even if the stag was past his prime, the deer population has to be kept under control and his carcass will be eaten and not wasted, there is something extremely undignified in the mounting of his magnificent head on a board and hanging it on display as a trophy. Such a fabulous animal deserved better than that. Lets hope the Emperor has the last laugh and his head falls off the wall and brains the brainless hunter.

A quick word about "Getting On" the wonderful sit com which is now in its second series - sadly in the wilderness that is BBC4. It's so refreshing to see such a realistic and genuinely funny programme about old people heading towards the oblivion of senility in a medical ward and the hospital team that looks after them. Written by and starring Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan it is beautifully observed and in Doctor Pippa Moore, Vicki Pepperdine has created a character to rank alongside David Brent in the annals of comedy brilliance. Do watch it.

Aplogies if you have a few problems getting hold of Instanta on the phone today and tomorrow. We are having a brand new all singing, all dancing switchboard fitted in preparation for the switch back from the wonders of VOIP to plain old ordinary phones.We are all in favour of the latest technology but VOIP sellers please don't come back to us until it's totally reliable.

I'll leave you today with a pretty awesome film called "People Are Awesome". You will have seen some of this but you won't have seen it all.

Sometimes Identity Theft Is Impossible To Avoid

2010-10-26T11:27:00.000+01:00

Marion and I had a painful experience on Saturday. We went shopping in St Andrews for some small gifts but when we tendered our Tesco credit card we had to go through a huge rigmarole and were ushered to one side and asked to speak to the card provider to prove our identities. We proved who we were but then had to call their fraud line to discuss things further. It transpired that somebody had been topping up their mobile phone using my credit card. Fortunately only £30 had gone through to date (at least that's all that Tesco bank told me about)but I told them that I was certain that my PIN had not been compromised.

It appears that a PIN is not needed for mobile top ups and all that is used is the cardholder post code,the three digit number from the back of the card and sometimes the cardholder's date of birth. My address and date of birth are not exactly state secrets although the three digit number could only be taken by someone who had seen my card or someone working for a business I had paid using the card. The result was that the card that we planned to use for the weekend was cancelled. Fortunately we had other cards with us but the fraudster has caused a huge amount of hassle. We have had to change Internet orders that we placed last week but had not yet been charged, my PAYPAL account had to be altered,we lost all the Tesco clubcard points that we would have gained both on the weekend's spending and for the period before the replacement card arrives and we also felt really uncomfortable being given the third degree in a busy shop.

None of this could be classed as a huge problem but a few weeks ago I was also told that I had borrowed £500 from a payday loan company and they wanted the money back. Again it seems that the loan company relied upon post code and date of birth alone before handing over the money and paying it into someone else's account.

Some, including the perpetrators, may see these frauds as victimless crimes as it's only the banks that lose out and they are fair game (not my opinion I hasten to add). Marion and I are fairly competent at managing our affairs. We shred virtually everything that could provide a fraudster with usable information and we are careful whenever we receive phone calls from financial institutions and always phone back to check the calls out. But it's by no means victimless. It's horrible thinking about people using your personal details, you have to go on Experian or another credit checking agency to make sure that nothing else has been taken out in your name. An old or insecure person could be seriously spooked by it all. In addition we were lucky to have had another card to pay our hotel bill with but I know plenty of young people with just one card and they could have ended up unable to pay the bill and had their break ruined.

As another family member received a message from their mobile phone provider the other day advising them that their billing address had been changed and asking for confirmation that this was correct it is obvious that identity fraud like this is rife and it's time that action is taken to eliminate it. I really don't know how I could have avoided either of these incidents so it has to be time that any financial transactions that rely upon remote identity are made more secure. Barclays use this code number generator for their online banking and if everyone used one of these handy little gadgets for all transactions where they were not present this type of fraud could be decimated. The code generator can only be activated by a PIN and the identity code is used once only (presumably using some sort of algorithm involving dates and card numbers). Just a thought.

Having said all that I am somewhat reluctant to wish Mike Chubbs from our machining department a happy birthday on here but I will thwart the fraudsters by not telling you how old he is today. Mike has been with Instanta for almost as long as I have and has risen from the assembly department to being in charge of our engineering and two CNC lathes. Mike is a keen Evertonian and tells me that he recently took his son Jamie along to a match with him and hopes that that will soon be a regular outing. He was a regular in our five a side football sessions and is a handy central defender. Anyone who has seen the quality of our engineering will be impressed by Mike's standards and I hope that he has a great day today.

I'll close with a mash up of Billy Connolly made up by the brilliant Cassetteboy. Captures the essence of Connolly perfectly. Do not watch if bad language offends.

Cordon Bleu Arrives In Norfolk

2010-10-25T12:07:00.000+01:00

Nick Neal our sales and marketing director hails from deepest Norfolk - a county not known for its culinary delights. So Nick was fascinated when a relative invited him to dinner on Saturday evening and asked him if he liked waffles. This was quite an adventurous change from the normal fayre on offer at the family home and it was explained that his hostess was taking a cookery course. Duly impressed Nick waited in anticipation for the dessert to arrive and he was salivating when an attractive dish made with a white chocolate base topped with fruits and surrounded by golden waffles arrived at the table. Nick's wife Collette took a spoonful and the table looked on expecting glowing praise. "Well?" asked Nick's relative smiling. "I'm sorry" said Collete "but it tastes of potatoes." .....yes that's right. The dish had been made with potato waffles to which the host's response was "are there any other types?" As Nick says, Norfolk has some way to go to catch up.

While Nick was going without pudding on Saturday, Marion and I had slightly better luck as we spent a very nice weekend at Rufflets Hotel just outside St Andrews where we had a relaxing time and enjoyed some excellent food. We were there visiting our daughter Sarah and her partner Duncan who have spent the last fifteen months renovating their house which they bought in July 2009. It is hard to believe it is the same place as Duncan has been working flat out and it has gone from being a fairly rundown bungalow with a loft space to a fabulous house. There's still some work to be done but the light is definitely shining at the end of the tunnel and Duncan has done an amazing job. Sarah has taken after her mum and her interior design ideas are working very well and the couple's cooking on Friday was great.

The wonders of Sky Plus were apparent again when we got back from Scotland last night and managed to watch both Saturday's two and a half hour X Factor extravaganza and the Sunday show in just over eighty minutes without really missing anything (apart from the great IKEA ad of course). It just goes to show how much padding there is in Cowell's domination of ITV's weekend schedules. The standard of the contestants this year is very high and I am still struggling to pick a winner although Matt Cardle's odds are dropping fast and he'll be odds on before long. My long shot picks of Treyc and Katie don't look too hopeful with Treyc finding herself in the bottom two being inexplicably pipped by Wagner (has the Stephen Fry YouTube video boosted his popularity?) and Belle Amie but I still think that Cher at 14:1 is a good bet.

I couldn't read Craig's daily email at the hotel on Friday evening as his report on the sales is in a spreadsheet and the hotel Internet didn't have Excel and I didn't want to start messing around with memory sticks. You might wonder why I am still interested in how we are doing as we're off into the sunset in under five weeks now. I suppose that it will always be with us and even in the future we will be looking at the beverage equipment in cafes and restaurants and seeing if they are Instanta. I managed to open Craig's form on Sunday evening and the sales showed yet another good week. It's quite obvious that we won't be missed as everything seems to be running like clockwork.

Monday is always the time when we start thinking ahead to what to go and see for Orange Wednesday. Halloween this week so it's a no brainer

Instanta Gremlins Strike Again & A Visitor From Down Under

2010-10-22T06:35:00.000+01:00

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.

It's Starting To Sink In

2010-10-20T16:00:00.001+01:00

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.

A Very Quick Happy Birthday To Dave Boutle

2010-10-19T16:20:00.000+01:00

Been in a big meeting all day today so haven't had time to update the blog. However I didn't want to miss wishing Dave Boutle a very happy birthday. Hope your day goes well Dave. More to follow tomorrow (don't think you can get away that lightly).

We Start The New Week With A New Office

2010-10-18T13:16:00.000+01:00

We arrived today to a sparkling new office. After the desks arrived on Thursday, the decorators came in on Saturday and spruced everywhere up with a lick of paint. All the cracks have gone now and everywhere is looking bright and fresh. The carpet is next and then we can start putting things back up on the wall and mess it all up again.

We've got a big meeting tomorrow. It is most likely going to be the last business meeting of our working careers and Marion and I will be giving official notice of our resignation as directors of the company due to our retirement on 30th November. I've just done some figures to report at the meeting and I have to say that they look pretty good and we can go out on a positive note in the knowledge that the business is going from strength to strength and growing healthily and that our new owners made a good buy when they bought our shares.

I'm off to the doctor today for a check up. Thanks to the wonders of the NHS our local surgery carry out regular checks on blokes who are over fifty. It seems that we are in the category that is most at risk from high blood pressure, heart disease and weight problems. I had all the blood tests last week and my weight is now at a healthy level. As for the blood pressure, I've been treated for this for about eight years now and it's very much under control. In fact when I took my reading on Saturday is was 95 over 65 which seems to be on the low side. Mind you I worried about the reading and a couple of minutes later it was 111 over 65. It would be nice if I could reduce the medication as with blood pressure tablets, cholesterol pills, sleeping pills and painkillers for the bad hip I go to bed rattling.

Last year I tipped Joe to win the X Factor and had a small win on Betfair. This year's competition is much harder to predict as there are a number of likely candidates. I have had a flutter on Treyc and Katie as I think that their odds are too high and there will be a chance to lay the bets in the next couple of weeks as they stay in the competition.At the moment I don't think that either will win. I feel that the best price is Cher (above) who is 13-1 on Betfair today. I don't particularly like her music but if the same people who watch YouTube are those that vote on X Factor there may be a clue there. At the time of writing, Matt's performance from Saturday has had 352,000 hits on YouTube whereas Cher has only had 281,000 with One Direction trailing in as a poor third at 173,000. But if you scroll down the YouTube chart you will find that Cher's performance has been uploaded four times and she holds four of today's top twenty most watched slots taking her total to 398,000. Just a thought. I struggle to look at her with a straight face after Grace Dent likened her to Mrs Overall on Twitter.

Now that we are only six weeks away from retirement We're going to have to think about buying ourselves some mobile phones. Dave Wilson and Nick have been dealing with phones here at Instanta and every now and then a new one will turn up on my desk and I'll spend the next couple of weeks trying to work out all the features. I haven't done a great deal of research yet but no doubt Marion will find a website on the lines of comparethebestmobile.com and try and persuade me to get the most economical option but I've always fancied one of those iPhones. If I don't get any phone calls I can always do a bit of performing. Remember to double click if it doesn't fit on your screen in the blog.

All Change In The Office

2010-10-15T15:58:00.000+01:00

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.

Tonight's Orange Wednesday - The Social Network

2010-10-13T12:14:00.001+01:00

I'm happy to say that we're back into our regular Wednesday evening trips to the cinema after the summer drought in which very little worthwhile arrived at Vue. We've actually got a choice this week with our multiplex showing "Made in Dagenham", "The Other Guys" and "Wall St Money Never Sleeps" all of which got passable reviews. But we're opting for "The Social Network" as, being about a geeky bloke who spends a lot of time on computers, it has a certain resonance with me. As the reviews on this won't be in the papers until Friday we can go with an open mind. I'll let you know if we "Like" tomorrow.

Speaking of geeks, Andrew Marr has gone on the record to state that bloggers are usually single, spotty and balding blokes living with their mothers and blogging from their mums' basements. I don't know why the normally rational Mr Marr has taken such a vitriolic stance against we poor souls who attempt to while away a few minutes putting our thoughts online. I doubt that much has ever come from my blogs but they have given Instanta an online presence and there's no harm in that. I think that Marr's underlying displeasure stems from Internet users' ability to be abusive and worse whilst hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. I've never blogged anonymously and any postings that I make elsewhere are always under my eBay user name lfcchampions and it would take seconds to find out who I was.

I do share Marr's distaste for the anonymous side of the web. Our son Paul and his wife Josephine work in a creative capacity in television. We are always keen to read about the television shows that they create and search online for comments. Whilst these are usually positive there have been times when we have been sickened by the extent of bile and ridicule heaped anonymously upon stuff that has taken months of hard work. OK people are entitled to an opinion but would they say this stuff to their faces. And whilst promoting the family, look out for Josephine's "Perfection" with Nick Knowles which is due to air soon on BBC2 and Paul's "A League Of Their Own" tomorrow at 10pm Sky1.

Just got a tweet to say that the judge in the RBS Liverpool trial has found in favour of RBS and the sale to the Red Sox boss can now go ahead. Don't really know what my feelings are about this. The whole things has a very grubby feel to it. I'll be glad when things return to being about football and not money.

I wrote on Monday about the Yeo Valley ad that turned up during the X Factor on Saturday and ran for a massively expensive 2 minutes. I didn't like it although plenty of others apparently did. However, it seems that the ad lacked something as far as originality is concerned. Take a look at this which came to my attention via Twitter @mediaguardian .

Welcome Barbara

2010-10-12T16:40:00.000+01:00

With the clock ticking down towards our retirement, it's time to make sure that the office continues to be adequately manned and we are delighted to welcome Barbara Banks to Instanta. Barbara will be helping out with the bookkeeping and other office jobs and will be here from 1pm from Tuesday to Friday. Barbara once worked for my old employer Barclays Bank and her banking experience should stand her in good stead to help with our ledgers. Married to Bob and with a grown up son David, Barbara lives in the nearby village of Hesketh Bank. She enjoys going to the gym but I don't thinks she'll be trying out the exercise equipment in the shed at the back of the factory. It hasn't had a lot of use since we installed it and it's pretty cold down there. Anyway welcome Barbara, we all hope that you have an enjoyable time working here at Instanta.

Here's our super new pocket brochure. Printed in house by our parent company, it arrived today hot off the press. Nick calls it a DL but I don't know what DL stands for. Maybe we could offer a prize for the best suggestion. It's all Nick's own work so in the unlikely event that there are any spelling mistakes for once it won't be me that carries the can.I missed a glaring mistake on one output figure in our super main brochure in February. Mind you that mistake was so big I don't think that anybody could possibly take it as correct.

Orange Wednesday tomorrow and this week's choice is "The Social Network". If you aren't familiar with it, it's a film about the birth of Facebook and by all accounts it's a fascinating story about geeky computer students and the legal battles that arose over who actually created the site. I used to be quite active on Facebook but haven't logged on for quite a while now. I wonder if we will be giving it the Facebook thumbs up on Thursday. I'll let you know what we think of it here.

And speaking of Thursday don't forget "A League Of Their Own" on Sky1 at 10pm. See how well you can do by playing the game by clicking on this link. http://tiny.cc/zl6qm

Another big Sky favourite is "The Simpsons". The show has been all over the internet this week due to an intro to the show baing done by the famous street artist Banksy. Here's a brief news article about it and below that is the intro itself. Unfortunately it seems that every time it goes up on YouTube somebody takes it down so if the video has gone by the time you read this, sorry.

The Hidden Cost Of Dieting

2010-10-11T01:00:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm happy to say it's all over- the diet that is. In the twenty weeks of dieting I have lost 2st 10lbs and almost six inches off my waist. But, as you can see above, the diet has its downside and nothing fits me anymore. And strangely enough I never considered myself to be really fat just a little overweight. So yesterday morning I emptied the wardrobe and tried on all the trousers.

And ended up with this lot in the charity shop pile. Then I thought that I had better check out the shirts and jumpers.

I can only say that it's a good job that I won't be needing any suits following retirement in a few weeks time or I would have to pile the weight back on or risk financial penury. Nobody mentions this aspect of dieting when they sell you the idea. Even shopping at Debenhams or M&S where trousers and shirts average around forty or fifty quid there would be well over £1,000 replacement value in this pile and, as a lot of them were from Hugo Boss and Farhi, if I returned to those shops you could double that figure. If you happen to be a "slightly overweight" fifty something bloke pop into Oxfam Southport and grab yourself a bargain - some of these (bought haf way through the diet) have only been worn a couple of times

Here at Instanta the Safan engineer is busy installing the new press brake that arrived on Friday in time for the lads to start learning how to use it tomorrow.It seems that once they have programmed it properly it will do the job perfectly every time. No change there then. Just like we did with the old manual one eh lads?

I am indebted to the Guardian Guide on Saturday for drawing my attention to this great ad from Thinkbox TV. It advertises the power of TV advertising and does so quite brilliantly in my opinion.

And to prove Thinkbox's point, here's the latest IKEA ad that I saw during X Factor on Saturday night. Excellent. Much better than 100 cats.Oh and by the way, some people say these videos don't show properly in this blog layout. If they don't fit, double click and they will open in a new window.

But I think that this one, which took up a massive two minutes during another X Factor break fails to hit the mark. I love Yeo Valley yogurts but rapping farmers?

A New Machine For The Future

2010-10-08T14:46:00.000+01:00

Here's our new SAFAN CNC press brake arriving at Instanta. Our metalwork has been excellent over the past years but we always reached something of a production bottleneck when it came to the cut and punched metal being folded as our old press brake was pretty unsophisticated. With this new machine we can guarantee more accuracy, make neater and sharper folds and speed up the production lines. We chose this model after a comprehensive survey by Operations Director Dave Wilson and Gavin Ford which involved a huge amount of research and even a visit to the Dutch factory where the press brake was built. In keeping with our environmental management system we have gone for this machine on its green credentials. Being electric it is much greener than the hydraulic alternatives which produce volumes of waste oil and use energy when not in use. I look forward to seeing it up and running and to seeing the improvements in the boilers which though probably not visible to the customer will certainly be noticed by our assembly team.

Did you read about the Roman helmet found by a young metal detector user? Being a detectorist myself I always love to see fabulous things turning up and live in hope that I might find something like this myself one day. I used to go out with my brother Peter pretty often but since he retired and spends much of his time abroad we don't get as many opportunities. Perhaps we'll get more chances when I retire and after my hip operation has been carried out (now planned for early December). This helmet sold yesterday for £2 million. It was found at a site that has no real Roman connections other than a nearby Roman road and is in an area where we spent many holidays in our childhood. Perhaps it will encourage farmers to be more ready to grant permission to detector users as the farmer has benefited to the tune of £1 million. I think that the very best item that we ever found would not pay for the cost of a new detector.

And whilst on the topic of treasure, I emailed John Sandon of Antiques Roadshow and head of ceramics at Bonhams' Bond St with details of the bowl that I highlighted on yesterday's blog. John is one of the most charming people I have ever dealt with and he kindly confirmed that I had got my age estimate for the piece right although I had suggested that it was manufactured at the Liverpool Gilbody factory whereas John knew straight away that it was made by the nearby Chaffers pottery. So the bowl is now on it's way to Bonhams for their December specialist sale with John's initial thought on price at the £600-800 level subject to him seeing it. It's not £2million but it's better than a kick in the teeth.

I enjoyed Paul's show "A League Of Their Own" last night. Jimmy Carr was a great guest and was extremely game in allowing himself to be immersed in a bath of near freezing water in the final round. We're going to see Jimmy when he comes to Southport Theatre when he appears here in a few weeks. I bought four tickets but somehow can't find anyone to take the spare two. It seems that he isn't as popular up here as I imagined. I've still got a couple of friends who are getting back to me but we may end up having to return them. It's a pity. I think he's an extremely funny guy.

I'll finish today with one of the odious Jeremy Kyle's interviewees turning nasty on Kyle this morning. It's a great pity that it wasn't something heavier that he threw.

Winter's Bone Has Real Oscar Potential

2010-10-07T13:56:00.000+01:00

Our late night trip to the cinema did not disappoint and Winter's Bone proved well worth staying up late for.

Whether the sparse attendance at Vue was vindication of the multiplex chain's decision to give the film just one showing or the result of that showing being scheduled at 10.30pm, there's no denying that those who contributed about thirty quid in total to the cinema's coffers certainly got their money's worth.

A cast of unknowns is led by Jennifer Lawrence (surely an Oscar nominee) as teenage daughter Ree, abandoned by a neer do well father and left to look after two young siblings and her dementia suffering mother. The errant dad has used the family shack and adjoining land as surety for bail and when he goes missing the family is faced with eviction and homelessness. The film charts Ree's attempts to trace her waster father and save her home in the bleak cold of the Ozark mountain region. There's another fine performance from John Hawkes as her drug addicted uncle "Teardrop".Hawkes puts such malice into an off screen warning "I've told you once"...."with my mouth" that you know pretty well that you wouldn't be pushing the point any further.

The cast are, without exception, totally convincing and any viewer would be forgiven for thinking this was somehow for real. The Ozarks' hillbilly inhabitants live in such squalor that trailer park trash would consider themselves royalty and stay at home mums on the higher tax band might think twice about moaning about the potential loss of their child benefits. The film moves with pace and has an excellent country soundtrack (shades of Deliverance) and I can heartily recommend it to anyone who gets the (slim) chance to go and see it. Five stars for me.

Before Winter's Bone we went to see "Buried". This is a highly unusual film set entirely within the confines of a coffin. Paul, an American truck driver working in Iraq (Ryan Reynolds), is the only actor on screen with the rest of the cast appearing in voice only. Paul wakes from concussion to find that his assailants have buried him alive leaving him with just a cigarette lighter for light and a mobile phone through which to channel their ransom demands and instructions. It's not a film for the claustrophobic but it manages to hold your attention throughout the entire ninety or so minutes. I could see this drama working well as a stage play as the audience gets drawn into the shocking reality of the situation. Reynolds plays the character well although he has too much rage for my liking but as a study in cynical corporate personnel relations it will make anyone thinking of a spell working in one of the world's hotspots such as Iraq or Afghanistan think more than twice before signing on the dotted line. Whoever pitched this "It's one man in a coffin for ninety minutes" and managed to sell it, is a genius but his or her genius is rewarded with a very watchable and thought provoking drama.

After weeks when things seemed to be constantly going wrong I finally had a bit of luck yesterday when this fine porcelain bowl purchased on eBay for £9.99 plus p&p turned up. Trawling through eBay for wrongly identified pieces is a little like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack and for every gem there's a thousand or more items that are either correctly catalogued or over priced. It's a bit like traipsing around a muddy field at a car boot sale where week after week turns up zilch but once a year there's something good. Anyway, this super bowl looks brand new and consequently was not listed as the 250 year old antique that it is. I would feel uncomfortable if the seller were an amateur but as it came from a ceramics specialist I have no such qualms. Ten years ago this might have fetched a four figure sum but collectors of antique porcelain are a dying breed today and its value is now probably less than half of that. None the less a nice find for a change.

I'll finish today with a mention of the new series of son Paul's show "A League Of Their Own". Starring James Corden, Freddie Flintoff, John Bishop, Jamie Redknapp and Georgie Thompson plus guests it airs at 10pm tonight on Sky1. Sky have a great line up this evening with "The Simpsons", "Modern Family" and "An Idiot Abroad" leading into "League". The show has a later slot this time around as some of the humour is pretty adult. We went to two recordings and it's guaranteed to raise a smile. Here's a clip from the last series.

Say It Ain't So Joe

2010-10-06T13:34:00.001+01:00

I woke up this morning to the news that the team that I have been supported since I was a boy is being sold to the owners of the Boston Red Sox. I am not one of the histerical "Yanks Out" brigade, I love the USA and one of my favourite relatives is American but after the debacle that has turned a once great football club into a laughing stock, more American interest will be as welcome as Sir Alex Ferguson on the Kop. Having watched "The Town" recently I can see some connections in twinning Liverpool with Boston - it's difficult to understand what people are saying and there's a fair bit of gang warfare going on - but if the present owners had wanted to depart with some miniscule level of respect from the fans, another US connection is hardly the way to go about things. Judging from the boardroom battles going on at present it is perhaps unlikely that Hicks and Gillette will get their way on the sale but will someone who has the final say on it please veto this madness? I grew up with the club being owned and run by the parochial and philanthropic Moores family and it had the air of a family club for decades.The heart was torn out when the Moores' heir sold the business and I can't ever see it coming back. Today's a sad day.

Thursday 7 Oct. NB SInce first writing this yesterday I have read more and understand that the prospective purchaser is not Hicks and Gillett's choice and that they will lose a fortune if the sale goes through. It doesn't change my sentiments though. There's no chance of us ever getting our club back and this is my last season as a fan. Another sad day.

At last, a photo of the newest Instanta baby, Alfie. Andy Fyles and his partner Claire came into the office with the latest addition to the family and he slept like a er baby? throughout the visit. He was exactly six pounds when he was born and Andy tells me that Alfie's big sister Bethany has taken ownership of her new brother.

I said on here a couple of weeks ago that I was fast approaching the target weight in the diet and I would write about it when I did so. Well, I hit the target of 12st 3lbs on Saturday and was going to write a long glowing endorsement of tescodiets.com. Having lost 35lbs (that's almost six Alfies at birth) I was delighted but then I logged onto the site the following day and found that the goalposts had been moved and my target weight was now 11st 13lbs. That's a bit scary as even my new clothes are starting to feel loose so I think I will give the new target a miss and try and stay at on or around 12st 2lbs. I can't really knock Tesco's online diet though. It's not too expensive (about £79 for six moths but there are discounts available) and if you stick to the menus it works. I've eaten (and really enjoyed) better breakfasts and lunches than I have ever eaten and enough organic chicken to empty a battery farm and enough fruit to clear Covent Garden. The only real drawback is that the evening meals are pretty small and my alcohol intake has gone from three or four bottles of wine a week to one or less. Tonight we're off to a chain restaurant near the cinema to celebrate - we'll probably be back to square one after that.

There are less than eight weeks to go now before Marion and I retire and this afternoon I have the daunting task of trying to explain to two very competent but untrained people here at Instanta how to do the monthly management accounts. Everything else in the business has been delegated and the transition has gone smoothly but this is an area that you can't really pick up in an afternoon and I think that we may have to look at getting in outside or parental company help. I know that Craig and Dave will have a real stab at it but it's not going to be easy for them.

When we retire we'll have plenty of time to catch up on all those TV series like "Mad Men", the last series of "The Sopranos" and "The Wire" that we missed. We'll also be able to watch some kids' TV which, judging from this, will be well worth watching.

Welcome Back Jenny

2010-10-05T14:32:00.000+01:00

We've missed Jenny Buckley here in the office as she has been off sick for a couple of weeks but normal service was resumed today as she felt well enough to make a return.It's been an eventful couple of weeks and Jenny missed our weeks without broadband and the disaster when our computer server went bang. Fortunately Tony Lowe and the spares team made a huge effort to keep her work up to date for her whilst she was away and I am sure that she will find everything in apple pie order. Welcome back Jenny we are all glad to see you.

We've decided on something of a marathon for our regular Orange Wednesday cinema trip. We've wanted to see "Winter's Bone" since it was released but it's one of those non-blockbuster offerings that tend not to find their way into the multiplex cinemas such as our local - Vue. However, Vue has decided to give this one an airing - hooray. When? 10.30pm boo.

I don't really feel like going out at 10.30pm so we've decided to go and see "Buried" at 7pm and then pop out for a bite to eat and come back at 10.30pm. Hopefully we'll be able to keep awake and I hope that the films are as good as they've been billed. The film industry is weird. Nothing worth watching for months and then loads in the same week. I suppose it makes sense as there's no point in releasing your best offerings in the quiet of summer.

I wasn't alone in falling for the X Factor hype and blogging about the injustice done to Gamu. The blogosphere,Twitter and Digital Spy went into meltdown but I suspect that there's going to be a twist in the tail and I've already read reports of "Wild Card" entries being introduced which might explain the anomalies in the live finals line up. And with such a blatantly wrong choice the producers have gained the maximum possible publicity.

I am enoying being on Twitter even if I do have no followers. Some of the celebrities I follow were complaining the other day that their follower numbers had dropped to zero - I thought that was normal. One of the most active Tweeters is Lord Sugar ( @Lord_Sugar ). At the moment he's conducting a survey on the most hated newspaper and feels that he will get a realistic response. But as a statistician I have to differ as, instead of being the view of a cross section of the nation, it will be a cross section of people who use Twitter and follow one of three (Sugar, Jamie Oliver and Jonathan Ross) of the thousands of celebrities on the site. As one of only two who use Twitter at Instanta as far as I am aware, my response is bound to be unrepresentative and to prove it I just asked everyone in the office for their choice and none was the same as mine and three chose the same paper.

And here's one of the benefits of Twitter. How else would I have found this if @IndiaKnight had not mentioned it.

Losing My Memory

2010-10-04T12:25:00.000+01:00

One of the fears of growing old is losing one's memory and with retirement rushing towards me like an express train, getting old is something that often dwells on my mind. This morning I arrived at work without the memory stick that contains many important documents that I have been working on recently so I went back home to get it. After searching high and low without success a mild degree of panic began to set in but I knew that it had to be in the house as I had put it in my pocket at work and driven straight home on Friday afternoon. Putting my Sherlock Homes hat on I retraced my steps and eventually discovered the lost memory in the tumble drier where it had ended up after a cycle in the washing machine. Fortunately it hadn't yet got into the ironing or that would have been the end of it and as this is the second time that it has been through a wash cycle and survived intact I think that it is turning into something of a lucky charm. Congratulations Kingston for making such a robust product.

My X Factor predictions on yesterday's blog were somewhat off the mark as Cheryl Cole and Danni Minogue went from the country's sweethearts to Britain's Most Wanted inside half an hour and Twitter went into meltdown calling for the nastiest things to happen to them. Why? For some obscure reason Danni rejected the cinema worker Paije in favour of the annoyingly self obssessed Nicolo (OK it's only an act but it's not one I can endure for too many weeks) and even worse Cheryl rejected the best female singer Gamu in favour of another self promoting attention seeker Katie. I hope that Gamu and Paije aren't asking themselves what must have crossed many a mind last night (with apologies to Sacha Baron Cohen) "Is it cos I is black?". I won't go any further down that route and have to remember that we are watching a television programme that is designed to create interest and attract viewers and if a decent singer wins then that will be a plus for Simon Cowell and controversy fuelled viewing figures will be far more important.

Yesterday's defeat at home to Blackpool must have surprised only those armchair supporters who have not seen Liverpool in action this season. I went to the match fully expecting a difficult game and enjoyed watching a talented Blackpool side who together probably earn less than Steve Gerrard (earn being a debatable choice of word), make the once Mighty Reds look like relegation material. I feel sorry for Sotirios Kyrgiakos who, once again, was the only Liverpool player who looked like he could give a damn about the outcome and came close to single handedly salvaging a point that we did not deserve. There was a time when every player who pulled on the red shirt played with the passion exhibited by Sotirios but those times are long gone. All together now "We all dream of a team of Kyrgiakos's , a team of Kyrgiakos's, a team of Kyrgiakos's".Wonder if it will catch on. In Daz and Gaz Rodwell we've got Blackpool fans here at Instanta. They sent me a good luck text before the game and were gracious enough to send another at the end saying that Blackpool "held on". If coming close to winning 3-1 is "held on" then I suppose they did.

Today I was hoping to include a photo of Assembly Worker Andy Fyles and his partner Claire with the latest addition to their family Alfie John who was born on Thursday but I haven't had the chance to get one yet. Congratulations to Andy and Claire. I have reported lots of Instanta babies on here over the past few years but boys have been a rarity. Let me have a photo when you have a minute.

Happy Birthday Rob

2010-10-03T12:48:00.000+01:00

Today (Sunday) we're sending our best birthday wishes to Rob Lowe who is responsible for our machine sales processing. Rob, whose dad Tony works in our stores, joined us in May and his presence in the office has certainly broadened our outlook on life. University educated Rob's interests range way beyond our usual comfort zone of X Factor and football and we now have wide ranging debates on topics as diverse as religion, politics and history and I will miss that when we retire in eight weeks' time. Rob is extremely conscientious in his attitude to work and I am sure that he will have a great future at Instanta after Marion and I have gone.If you get time to read this on your birthday Rob I hope that you have a wonderful day.

And Rob was not the only conscientious one here at Instanta as we recovered from the complete computer failure that hit us on Wednesday morning. It appears that when we moved a shelf in the computer network cabinet a box was knocked over. But it wasn't just a box, it was something to do with the power supply and it caused a power spike that took the server out. After thirty six hours sans computers we were back up and running late Friday morning and I would like to thank everyone in the office and stores for going out of their way to get things back on track and for working flat out throughout the day without any breaks in order to return us to normality. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed and were greatly appreciated. Every cloud has a silver lining and ,whilst I was not exactly overjoyed at the accident that caused £5,000 worth of damage, I was relieved to see that our insurers advise us that we are covered. Our first claim of any size for as long as I can remember.

Whilst Rob's arrival in the office has certainly increased our range of conversation there's no escaping the fact that X Factor is still the number one TV show to debate - Strictly comes nowhere near. And with costumes like that worn by Sinitta on Saturday's show it's hardly surprising. Dressed as some sort of Barbarella/warrior queen character from a teenage comic strip I imagine that the young boys in the groups that she was judging had difficulty in concentrating on their singing whilst Diva Fever were dying to know where they could get an outfit like it. We find out the final twelve tonight. At this point last year I had already tipped Joe as a likely winner but this year's choice is going to be much more difficult. I think that we can rule out all of the groups and most of the over 28's but there are three or four amongst the girls and boys who look good. Cher Lloyd,my favourite from the auditions, went down with a sore throat in last night's show and would not make the cut if judged on that performance alone but, as her auditions had more hits on YouTube than all of the others put together, I think that she will survive. I think that the top four will be Cher (most original girl),Gamu (best voice girl),Paije (best voice boy) and Matt(most original boy). I won't be putting any money on until the first live show.

On a more serious note, have you noticed the proliferation of suicide in the news recently? A couple of weeks ago there were the strangers who killed themselves after meeting on the internet and then two sex workers who apparently set up copycat deaths together soon afterwards. Yesterday I read of the director of the company who gave Northumbria Police the taser that was used on Raoul Moat, and later found not to be approved resulting in the company's license being revoked. And in the news last week was talented eighteen year old musician Tyler Clementi who leapt to his death from the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly taped a video of the young man indulging in gay sex with another student and then posted the tape on the internet. I spent a couple of years as a Samaritan so know a little bit about the mindset of the suicidal. It is a hugely complex subject but what struck me about each of these cases was the impact of the media - both digital and traditional. The two strangers met via the internet and the copycats discovered the chemical recipe online. The director's company was all over the press and the young mans private life was broadcast for all at Rutgers University to see. Without the web would some of these at least still be alive? I have said on here that the internet is the most important tool in life today but it is time that we all think very very carefully about the potential consequences before we press the publish button. And is there not a good case for an increased Samaritans presence on the web? I notice that there are a fair number of Samaritan branches on Twitter but perhaps a worldwide permanently manned Twitter account might benefit those who have suicidal tendencies and are internet aware.

And I can't end with a jolly video after that although I hope to brighten things up tomorrow with news of a new Instanta baby if I get a photo.

It Never Pours But It P****s Down

2010-09-30T23:05:00.000+01:00

After three weeks in the broadband wilderness I thought that things couldn't get much worse until Instanta's computer network server collapsed and died yesterday just to rub it in. But things were looking positively rosy by comparison this morning as Marion and I set off in bright sunshine to a lunch appointment with old customers who had invited us to see them before we retire. Three miles outside Southport the car started to drive noisily and I realised that we had a flat. I thought it would be a minor inconvenience until I discovered that the Prius does not have a spare tyre but an emergency repair kit that comprises an electric compressor which pumps sealant into the tyre and inflates it sufficiently to get you to a garage. Sadly this innovation, which I assume is designed to cut weight in the car, failed to do the job and I ended up several hours later with the very pleasant and capable AA engineer, Imran, who kindly took off the wheel and drove me to Kwik Fit to replace the tyre and then back to the car to refit it. Fortunately Tony drove out to us and took Marion back to the office where, minus computers, she helped everyone to prepare for the madness that will arise tomorrow when the new computer server arrives. At least I have been told that the computer data has been saved.

Most people have an urge to go an a cruise when they retire. We wouldn't mind doing this but it is not our top priority and our only holiday plans are to drive down to Ille De Re in France next spring for a cycling holiday. I really don't fancy going through that puncture rigmarole again in a foreign country on unfamiliar roads so, to hell with the fuel efficiency, I'm going to buy a spare wheel to take with us on longer journeys. Today we were only three miles from home and it was late morning. The same scenario at midnight on a French country lane doesn't bear thinking about. I believe that Toyota are not alone in not supplying a spare. I don't think that it's a great idea as I don't think I've owned a singe car in the past thirty years that hasn't had at least one puncture. Until now I've been happy with the Prius and this is the first negative but it's a big one.

We went to see"The Town" last night. I had very high hopes for this film as it has received almost universally positive reviews. Now it's certainly a film worth watching and if you enjoy crime movies you will probably love it but we just felt that it didn't quite live up to the fulsome praise that came before it. The film centres around star and director Ben Afflek and his gang of bank robbing hoodlums attempting to outwit the FBI's finest (in the form of John Hamm "Mad Men's" Don Draper). There are some great car chases and several violent and audacious heists including a final showdown at Fenway Park home of Boston's famous Red Sox. But for me the action was too reminiscent of old gangster movies and the Wild West style gun fights,the underlying love story and the sinister Irish mafia family led by Pete Postlethwaite failed to convince. Don't be put off, it's an entertaining film but, in my opinion, not quite the five star movie that it's been billed as.

Thanks to the well wishers who sent me birthday greetings yesterday. I had some great cards and presents (including enough cash to pay for the new tyre). But in keeping with the overall tone of the week I got home today to another card and a letter in the post. The letter was from the Inland Revenue saying I had underpaid £700 and the card? From some old friends (I recognised the writing) but the envelope was empty. Let's hope that next week sees an upturn in our fortunes.

Dave Wilson's back from two week's management training in Australia. He's picked up some great ideas on productivity. Here's the proposed new working speed for Instanta assembly workers as demonstrated by an Asian workforce.

It Never Rains But It Pours

2010-09-29T15:22:00.000+01:00

The saga of the Freezone internet finally came to an end yesterday and the Instanta broadband was back online after almost three weeks of being down. During the three weeks, the lads from MCS (our local computer company) have been regular faces here in the office in their attempts to reconnect us to the outside world and when they were not waiting for Freezone to answer the phone they made a few suggestions for improvements to the current network. A new shelf in the computer tower would make sense and take strain off some wires that were a bit overstretched. So Tony arranged for said shelf to be fabricated this morning and when Kevin put it into place he managed to do something to one of the wires which resulted not only in us no longer having any broadband but no computer network. So, having gone from being without email and internet we went to having no computers at all. As I write (on my own laptop) one of the MCS lads is taking our server back for inspection and I can only hope that the problem isn’t fatal. I sometimes think that we are reliving a Charlie Chaplin, Norman Wisdom or M Hulot film here.

Speaking of Norman Wisdom, Marion and I returned to Preston on the train from Euston on Sunday evening. After running over Marion’s toes with his wheeled suitcase, a young man settled into a seat at the adjacent table. It was soon clear that he had consumed rather a lot of alcohol before boarding as he sat down beaming inanely from ear to ear. He proceeded to unpack a large rucksack. The first item to come out was a small electric kettle which he plugged into the computer point. He then knocked the kettle over and soaked the table. Changing his mind about a nice cup of tea he delved back into the rucksack, belched heartily and opened a can of beer. A laptop came out of the bag next quickly followed by a pile of sandwiches and a DVD which he started to play on the laptop. He put headphones on to listen but then asked everyone in the loudest voice imaginable if it was too loud. It wasn’t, he was. Apart from his constant chuckling at his film the rest of the journey was uneventful but the announcement of his stop was pretty late and the scene as he repacked the rucksack with soaking kettle, laptop, soggy sandwiches a couple of hats and his DVD taking each out at least twice and putting them in another section was memorable. As he left he dropped one of his hats and another passenger had to chase after him. Fortunately he was a harmless drunk but if he had been an aggressive one the journey would have been extremely uncomfortable.

So that’s put an end to today’s blog. It’s my birthday today. We’re going to see The Town at the cinema tonight but before then I am going to have to go and work on some accounts at home. Maybe I’ll get a chance to get back to normal when the server is back.

It's Supposed To Be Entertainment

2010-09-28T10:27:00.000+01:00

It was August 1967 when I first handed over my four bob (20p in today's money),pushed through the turnstile and gazed in awe at the steep staircase ahead of me. At the top of the stairs was a dark tunnel through which a tumultuous noise was coming. I entered the tunnel to see the mighty Kop in all its glory and I was hooked. In the forty three years that followed I have been a regular on the Kop and a season ticket holder for the majority of those years. Why? Well the main reason is that I loved the whole thing, the game the noise, the spectacle - the tremendous atmosphere. I was happy to hand over my cash even when it escalated from a few shillings to twenty and then thirty quid and is today pushing forty. Because I was being entertained.

On Saturday I couldn't make it to Anfield as I was celebrating in London with Marion. A couple of years ago I wouldn't have considered missing a match but sadly my whole reason for going to Anfield - to be entertained - is evaporating in an acrimonious cloud of poison. There was a time when the players would beam out from the photos in the programmes with smiles on their faces but today there's a near universal hard man scowl. It was nice if we won but no big deal if we didn't as long as it was a good match. After all it was entertainment, like going to the cinema or a concert.

Last Saturday a supporters' group demonstrated before, during and after the match at Anfield and staged a sit in. More is planned for this Sunday. I sympathise with the group. I understand their hatred at the way that the club became big business and was taken over by soulless money men looking to make a quick buck and I share their frustration at seeing the one time colossus shrinking towards oblivion. But what are the demonstrations going to achieve? What is their purpose? To tell the owners we don't want them there? Well I would have thought that was pretty obvious to them by now. All they are achieving is distracting the players and distracting the crowd from what, after all, they are paying (through the nose) to see. Staying behind after the match to vent spleen at the owners who most likely are not even there is only going to get the protestors hoarse with shouting. The only people being damaged by the protests are those who want to watch an entertaining game and then get home in a decent time. Everyone knows that the ownership of the club is a disaster, the demonstrations will achieve zilch other than perhaps a burnt Sunday dinner. Until the club is either repossessed by RBS or sold to a new owner we'll just have to take it and hope that someone on the pitch gives us cause to smile. Here's hoping for Sunday.

As you make your sandwiches tomorrow spare a thought for the bloke who bought this loaf from his supermarket. He though that the bread looked a bit of a funny colour at one end and then saw it was a mouse. Oh well, at least he spotted it and found it was complete - except for the tail.

I'm away from the office today but I hear that the broadband is back up and running after three weeks. Normal blogging should return shortly.

Tesco Cards? You'll Be Rolling In The Aisle

2010-09-24T00:01:00.008+01:00

Buying a birthday card used to be a pleasurable experience. A visit to the card shop would present the customer with a wide range of cards for all occasions - birthdays, marriages, deaths and anything else that one might consider worthy of celebrations or condolences. Cards would be funny, sometimes clever, sometimes corny. Sincere thoughts might be found alongside more dubious messages. There are fewer card shops around today as the big supermarkets continue their inexorable rise to retail denomination. So,yesterday, in search of a birthday card for my daughter's partner Duncan I found myself in Tesco. The card aisle should be given an x rating. Rows of cards offered me the opportunity to insult poor Duncan by suggesting he was old,flatulent,balding or alcoholic (or often a combination of all four) or to amuse him with jokes that Roy Chubby Brown might consider too near the knuckle. Duncan is a scuba diver so my eyes were drawn to a card depicting a diver in full diving gear only to find a crude joke about cunnilingus no less. Another depicted an old man hiding his genitals in a popcorn bucket he was about to share with an old woman(so original - a joke made in Diner in 1982) and one hilariously made a connection between a girl and a crab.I don't want to sound like disgusted of Tunbridge Wells - I can laugh at any joke if it's funny - but sorry Tesco, your (huge) card selection stinks. And if you are reading this Duncan, don't worry I left the superstore empty handed - you aren't old, flatulent balding or alcoholic.

As the saga of the lack of internet rumbles on for yet another day, yesterday turned out not to be "today" as Freezone had hoped and I finally gave up and on 29th September we should be back up and running with Be There who have been recommended to us by our friendly IT Crowd at Mainframe Computer Services. We have managed with a dial up connection for the past week but it's painfully slow and means that we haven't been able to send emails with attachments of any size and downloading orders from web based ordering systems has been extremely difficult. If you run a business you might learn from our experience. Imagine how you would manage without broadband for a day. Now think about three weeks. Doesn't bear thinking about does it? If it happened to us it could happen to you so maybe the insurance of a second broadband line and provider would make business sense. That's what we're going to do and a few hundred pounds a year is not much for peace of mind.

We're off down to London tomorrow to celebrate my birthday. We've got a busy weekend ahead of us and are going to a matinee performance of The Railway Children at Waterloo Station theatre and then a dinner with Paul and Josephine at the Dorchester Grill. We're staying at the County Hall Park Plaza (above). I mention all of this as each of these bookings was made after following recommendations on the internet. Trip Advisor members rank the Park Plaza 44 out of 1058 London Hotels, 1654 Top Table members have given the Dorchester Grill a massive average score of 8.6 out of ten and The Railway Children has glowing reviews on many websites. So when it's working like it is here at home (thanks BT), broadband is now perhaps life's most important and most useful tool.

As we are travelling by train I'll have plenty of time for the Saturday papers. I've started buying the Times on Saturday as well as the Guardian as the Times has a superb quick crossword that will guarantee to keep me quiet for the journey. I've never been into cryptic crosswords but these puzzles are really entertaining with the challenge not being whether or not you can finish them but how long it takes to do so. This is one area where the internet can't beat printed media.

And where would the internet be without YouTube? Here's a little film for the weekend.

Samsung have done it yet again.

The Customer Is Always Right

2010-09-23T12:52:00.004+01:00

We’ve always accepted that age old cliché here at Instanta but an incident this week has left me questioning its truth. A few days ago a customer phoned up to place an order. We quoted a price to him upon which he blew a fuse and said that the price was not the one that he had on his price list. We courteously told him that we had sent him a new price list in July and that he was on our mailing list and should have received it. Instead of calmly saying that he had not received it (in which case we might have come to a fair agreement and perhaps split the difference with him or even honoured the old price), he continued with such a tirade of abuse that our (totally innocent) employee on the receiving end was visibly shaken. There’s no place in business (or in any other part of life) for bullying, especially when the victim is relatively junior, has no say whatsoever in our pricing policies and is a totally innocent party. So, is the customer always right? Certainly not in this case and I would like to suggest a saying for him to take on board in future. “Do as you would be done by”.

I trudged up to Anfield last night to witness another nail being hammered into the coffin of the football club that I have followed since I was twelve. I know it was only the Carling Cup and Liverpool put out an under strength side but they were playing what equates to fourth division opposition and at least six of the team have plenty of Premier League experience .It was an opportunity to show the depth of the squad. The depth was shown to be severely lacking and it soon became clear that Pacheco (much heralded as one for the future) will soon be one for the past and Jovanovic demonstrated that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys (if you call a few million quid peanuts). You can’t blame every Liverpool player for the debacle. Captain for the night Kyrgiakos gave his all in a swashbuckling attempt to salvage something from the game and inspired the team to a late extra time equaliser and I felt sorry for Wilson the new signing from Rangers who demonstrated a fine passing touch that has been severely lacking but at the end of the day the once Mighty Reds were pretty well outclassed and we had to endure a huge crowd of Northampton fans singing “Can we play you every week?” and then walk back to the car in monsoon conditions. We play Blackpool in about ten days. I’m feeling nervous about the headlines already.

Going to Anfield meant that I sacrificed the opportunity to watch the groundbreaking new reality TV show Seven Days and I even forgot to record it. As far as I can tell, this is an original concept (although Paul will no doubt tell me that it’s been done somewhere else – nothing TV related escapes his attention).It certainly raised plenty of comments on Twitter #SevenDays so it must have had a sizeable audience. It seems that Joe Public can offer advice to the real participants in the show, via the show’s website, on how to handle their problems although I doubt that the difficulties encountered by inhabitants of Notting Hill will provide as much interest as those facing sink estate dwellers in Glasgow. “Just doing the Ocado order online Jemima. Ciabatta or Focaccia?”

Still no Broadband service here at Instanta. I’m starting to feel like a donkey with a carrot dangling on a stick before me as our providers keep telling me it will be back on today. At least today they are saying “today” whereas on every other day they have been saying “tomorrow”. So will today be the day? Today they acknowledged my request for a MAC. Seems that they have a legal obligation to provide one within five days but I requested it over eight days ago. But did I get an acknowledgement of my request they ask? I think that their email says that I did but they interpret it differently. Do I want to get lawyers involved? Always a difficult decision when that carrot appears to be so close.Until then no photos and no YouTube on this blog.

We need a MAC and it's not even raining

2010-09-21T08:41:00.011+01:00

The saga of the failed broadband will be into its third week tomorrow and, whilst we have been promised that it will be back on Thursday, we aren't exactly confident. This sorry situation has highlighted a number of serious problems in the broadband system. Somewhere down the supply chain a company called Aspire Internet had a "contractual dispute" which resulted in their broadband supply being switched off.You can't run a business today without broadband so we contracted with a new supplier. But you can't move to a new supplier without a code known as a MAC from your current supplier. But as the current supplier Freeezone can't get a MAC from Aspire, the new supplier BE can't switch the broadband. I have spoken to OFCOM, Freezone and the new suppliers and nobody can get around this problem. Short of getting BT to install a new line there's not much we can do other than accept Freezone's assurance that it will all be back on Thursday at which point we will be off like a shot to the new company. We also need to get a back up supplier as it is intended that all our accounting system will be run on broadband via our Australian group offices one day in the future and this episode would have left us with no book-keeping for two weeks. Time for OFCOM to sort this MAC situation out as hundreds of Aspire customers have been without broadband for a fortnight.

I'm following Kirsty Allsop on Twitter.I've always enjoyed her property shows with co-presenter Phil and it seems that they are working on a new travel programme at the moment.She's currently campaigning on Twitter against homework for young school kids and I have to say that I totally agree with her.Our children had no homework other than reading until they were into secondary school and it didn't do them any harm.They were encouraged to enjoy themselves after school and given as many books to read as they wanted and allowed to watch telly too although they tended to enjoy playing and reading more and only tended to watch the programmes they loved.It was before computers really took of so I don't know how different it would be today but who can forget the enjoyable times we had with books and audio books to quote "The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark" - "That was nice - what's next?"

We went to see Tamara Drewe at Vue last night. A break from the usual Wednesday night routine as Liverpool are playing at Anfield then and I somehow subscribed to buy tickets for League Cup games. The film is based on Posy Simmonds graphic novel in The Guardian and it was a very Guardian sort of comedy based around a literary retreat full of middle class aspiring writers. It was a bit of a rom(p) com and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Posy Simmonds observes the British middle classes with uncanny accuracy and of course,as always with her,there is much more to it than just straightforward comedy with an underlying Thomas Hardy theme (echoes of Far from The Madding Crowd and Tess of the D'Urbevilles)running throughout.The cast is very strong and there is a brilliant performance from young Jessica Barden playing tearaway teenager Jody.Do catch it if you can.

A dog plays a big part in Tamara Drewe. I've never been a dog owner and people sometimes think I am a dog hater although that is not true. I like other people's dogs very much as long as I don't have responsibility for them for 365 days of the year. Who could resist a dog like this who gets a little bit confused about a trip down an escalator?

Taking the dogs theme one step (ok fifty steps) further are the wonderful OK Go. You will all know OK Go as the group who made the famous treadmill video on YouTube and then the paint video last year. Here's their latest. I hope that one day they will record a song that gets played on its musical merits alone but until then let's all marvel in the wonder of their videos. Thanks to Glinner on Twitter for pointing me in the direction of both of these little canine wonders.

No Room At The (Days) Inn

2010-09-17T08:01:00.002+01:00

We went down to Teddington Studios on Wednesday to watch the recording of two episodes of the new season of "A League Of Their Own". We had a great time and enjoyed the shows immensely. Along with the four regulars, the guests were Chris Evans, Dermot O'Leary, Tim Henman and Phillips Idowu and each of them added a very different flavour to the proceedings. It is going to be a very hard job for the editors cutting several hours of footage down to two chunks of thirty minutes or less. Paul took us to the green room after the show but this time Marion was under strict instructions not to ask for her photo with any of the celebs so we left them in peace and I had a chat with James Corden's dad who is a really nice bloke. "What has this to do with today's blog headline?" I hear you ask. Well, as we were unsure of timings and whether we would be taking Paul back to Limehouse we didn't bother booking a motel as I thought that we would be able to choose the most convenient on the way back up north. We started heading towards South Mimms but a quick call informed us that the place was full so a change of direction was in order and it was back through central London and London Gateway on the M1 next. Same story there so on to Luton where the bloke in the service station newsagents told us there was no motel on site only for us to spot one when it was too late and we were back on the slipway and on our way to Milton Keynes.By now it was 1.30 a.m and surely we'd find somewhere to get our heads down there. But no it was the same story. Fortunately the receptionist directed us to somewhere else and at around 2 a.m we finally got to sleep.In future I'll get a confirmed booking before I set off and congratulations to Days Inn, no sign of any recession there.

At the recordings we were extremely impressed with Dermot O'Leary who has real presence and confidence and oozes professionalism and with the always funny John Bishop but I liked Freddie Flintoff best of all. He announced his retirement from cricket the day after the recording which is a pity but he has a very natural way of telling a story, is very self deprecating and naturally funny. It's sad that injury has forced premature retirement but I'm sure that he will have a very long TV career.

Teddington studios back onto a weir behind which are the famous navigational locks. We arrived early and had a walk. I was amazed to see a bright green parakeet in the trees on the river bank and thought that it was an escaped pet. But then we saw another and another and realised that there was a colony of them. I remember reading recently that Ring Necked Parakeets had become naturalised in the south of England but certainly didn't expect to see so many. It was obvious that the locals were used to them as they were given no more attention than the many wood pigeons that shared the tree tops.

The phone started ringing earlier in the week as news broke about a commercial coffee machine exploding in a Sainsburys store in Hampshire. I have been in the business for over twenty years and my family has been involved in producing pressure boilers for most of the past fifty years and this is the first instance of a pressure related accident that I have ever come across. The machine was sold by a reputable Italian firm although I don't know if they still manufacture in Italy or like many have contracted to the Far East. There are tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of expresso machines in use throughout the world and I can't help but think that something highly unusual must have happened to this piece of equipment as most pressure vessels have more than one fail safe device. Our only pressure boilers, the WB2 Supreme models have a safety valve, an operating pressure switch, a safety pressure switch and cut out and taps that would open long before dangerous pressure levels built up so an explosion is well nigh impossible. I am sure that the machine in question would incorporate similar safeguards.I read on the internet that a stuck safety valve was the cause but this alone should not be sufficient and I await the results of the inquest into the cause of the terrible accident.

If all goes well I should hit the target weight at the weekend. I've always wanted to be in one of those slimmer of the year photos, preferably one with a cardboard cut out of the earlier me. Well I haven't got a cardboard cutout so I'll have to make do with that other staple - holding out the waistband of the trousers that once fitted snugly. More on this next week if successful.

A big thank you to Jenny Buckley who, with the help of MCS of Southport (Mainframe Computer Solutions), our very own IT Crowd, has managed to get us back up and running with emails. We've got the internet too after a fashion but it is very slow and I am still trying to get the broadband back up. So thanks again Jenny and Steve and your team. You can't imagine how bad it has been without it - I had no idea what's been happening on YouTube and Twitter for almost a week. We'll soon put that right

Off To Teddington

2010-09-15T08:18:00.006+01:00

Marion and I are travelling down to Teddington studios later today to watch the recording of a couple of shows in the forthcoming series of A League Of Their Own. I pinched this photo from Jimmy Carr's Twitter feed. Hope he doesn't mind. We're looking forward to the recordings. Guests include Tim Henman and Chris Evans ( I think) so listen out for us shouting "Come on Tim" when the shows are aired in the autumn. It also gives us an opportunity to see our son Paul who has been heavily involved in the show from the outset. As he lives in London we don't get enough chances to see him and it's a pity that this will be a flying visit as we are back in the office again tomorrow.

And in the office we are still trying to survive without broadband. We have found a new supplier but they can't get us up and running without something called a MAC code from our old supplier who haven't come up with it yet. This one could run and run. Fortunately we have a temporary email server set up but it's expensive and it is not very fast. At least we aren't as cut off from the world as we were last week.

When we get back tomorrow I've got a lot of work to do on the accounts for August. I did the preliminary figures yesterday and they look good. I've just got to complete the VAT return and do some final double checks to finish them off. Then I've got to somehow train someone else here to do the figures when I have retired in a few months time. It's a lot to do but we'll manage- we'll have to.

With no Broadband I have to write this before I get to work. So time has run out now and I'm off. The blogs will have to be short until normal service resumes (unless I start getting up even earlier) by which time I will have probably lost my growing number of readers which will be a pity - mind you when I retire in about ten weeks time the blog will have to retire with me.

Beyond A Joke

2010-09-14T08:12:00.008+01:00

I'll start by saying that I am not blaming our broadband service provider Freezone Internet for the mess that we currently find ourselves in. They have been victims of problems upstream of themselves but unfortunately, as they are the people who supply our service, it is up to them to sort things out and yesterday, after four business days in which normal service has failed to return, they have been unable to do so and we lost patience and have switched to a new provider. But before we can get the new service we have to get a MAC code from our current provider and at the time of writing they have been unable to provide us with one. So if you have been emailing Instanta without response please accept our apologies. We know that there are almost 1,000 emails stashed away somewhere in Cyberspace and our IT people have been working flat out to retrieve them. I am hopeful that they will be on our PC's when we get into work this morning but please don't email us if at all possible until we report that normal service has resumed - best guess at the moment is that it will be some time next week before the broadband is back up and running.

Taking a break from the mayhem that is a business without email and internet running properly, Marion and I had a great weekend at the Bell in Skenfrith down on the Welsh Borders. We were joining old friends in celebrating their wedding anniversary and fortunately the weather was kind although, as you can see, it was extremely windy. Our friends are very keen ramblers and, not wishing to spoil things, I joined them on a three mile walk. Fortunately they chose an easy path and my hip held out although I am glad that it was three miles and not four or five.

Last night we went to see Stephen Fry's show at the Royal Festival Hall. But we didn't go to the Festival Hall. Instead we watched as it was relayed live by satellite to the FACT cinema in Liverpool. It was an interesting event. There were a couple of glitches in the transmission but only for a matter of seconds and watching the event in a packed cinema was somehow more like being there than watching on TV at home. It was a fascinating show and we could only marvel at Fry's ability with words. His nostalgic take on a sixties childhood rang very true with us as we are just a couple of years older than him and we could empathise with everything he said.

Another (convoluted) Instanta brush with fame last week as Laurence Llewellyn Bowen breezed into Southport to record a TV programme. Our store keeper Peter Barlow's wife Angela and daughter Heidi bumped into Laurence and he was happy to have his photo taken with them. Nice one Laurence - true celebrities always have time for the public who have made their celebrity.

I'll finish now. Got to get to the office. No more contact with the cyber world until we get home tonight.

Belated Birthday Wishes Mr Aitch

2010-09-10T00:01:00.000+01:00

It may look like I forgot about metal worker Dave Horrock's thirty fourth birthday yesterday but Dave will assure you that I didn't. Sadly our broadband provider, who on Wednesday became a broadband non-provider, failed to get the service up and running again for the whole of Thursday and, I am worried that it will be same again today (I am writing this at home). It's a bit frightening how dependent things now are on the internet. All our consignments are arranged on the web and many of our invoices are sent by email and orders received in the same way. We have done our best to tell customers about the situation (by fax phone and, of course, this blog) but there are bound to be some important emails floating around in cyber space. Anyway, as I write this (Thursday night) Dave should be celebrating with a well earned pizza. Dave has been with Instanta since shortly after leaving school as a sixteen year old and has been a stalwart of our metalwork department for many years now. A devoted dad, to Jack and Cameron, Dave enjoys a flutter on the football and the horses and,like me, has a tendency to keep being let down by favourites (when will we learn eh Dave?). Dave is a keen Everton fan and I hope that his team do well this weekend when they entertain Manchester United and the Rooney circus.I hope you enjoyed your birthday and that pizza Dave and I wish you all the very best for your future with Instanta.

Hats off to Debenhams who had a sale on yesterday. We are going away for the weekend and now that the diet is almost at an end, I have very little to wear that fits. So we went after work and I managed to kit myself out with two pairs of trousers, two jumpers and a shirt for less than the cost of one jumper that I looked at in a shop down the road and less than one night in the pub we are staying in. And no I don't look like Worzel Gummidge. Ever since Gok's being doing that programme where he dresses models in high street stuff and an American woman fits others out in designer labels costing ten times as much I've realised that the only benefits of designer clothes are being able to show off how much you have spent and not wearing the same as everyone else. I still think that there's nothing to beat a top quality jacket but jumpers and shirts are just jumpers and shirts and I looked pretty much the same in Debenhams cheap cashmere as I did in Paul Smith's expensive wool.

We're getting excited about a trip to Teddington studios next week to see the recording of two shows for the new series of son Paul's show "A League Of Their Own".Of the last series,Duncan Gray, Head of Entertainment at Sky, said "From the moment it aired," A League of Their Own" was an instant hit with our viewers and we can't wait to have all new episodes to play this Autumn. "A League of Their Own" first teamers James Corden, Jamie Redknapp, John Bishop and Georgie Thompson will be joined by big new signings from the world of comedy, celebrity and sport as they set out to sweep all before them in the new season." We'll be seeing some big names in the recordings and plenty of laughs are guaranteed.

The consultant told me on Wednesday that I won't be able to fly for four months after the hip replacement. No worries, we can always take a cruise. Or on second thoughts, maybe not.

He also told me about the potential problems involved in hip replacement surgery. Obviously I had to do some investigation into these and found this unsettling video. What gets me is the poor bloke's daughter's reaction. We dad's are so funny aren't we.

Apocalypse Now

2010-09-08T19:24:00.005+01:00

Imagine a world without Broadband. That’s what we have had at Instanta today. So how come there’s this blog you might ask. Quite simple, my home Broadband is still working. But at Instanta (whose lack of connection appears to be a BT problem) the internet disappeared at about 11.15 and did not return. Considering that ten or so years ago it did not exist, it is amazing how much the business world has become reliant upon it. So what will be the result? No doubt tomorrow (if it’s back up and running) we will receive urgent emails that asked for overnight delivery of boilers and perhaps a service breakdown that needed urgent attention, which will be bad for our customers but completely beyond our control. Our bosses in Australia could be wondering where our daily reports are but enterprising Craig has given me the reports to send from home as well. So how could our customers have insured themselves against this inconvenience? By asking for email “read receipts” and, in their absence, phoning us up. I noticed one of the people I follow on Twitter having a dig at those who request “read receipts” but here’s one very good reason that they do. The problems for Instanta have been relatively small but if we were completely reliant upon internet orders it could have been an extremely expensive day.

What has one leg shorter than the other and squeaks? No it’s not a joke. Having gone to the hospital this morning, this was the scenario drawn up by my consultant as he explained to me the possible downside of having a hip replacement operation. It appears that he has to have a bit of a guess when he is sawing my femur and does it by sight. “But don’t worry” he added “if we get the length wrong we can always shorten or lengthen the other one when that needs doing”. As for the squeak, it seems that some hip replacements make a noise like a rusty hinge. Unfortunately I can’t be giving my hip a quick burst of WD40 or a drop of oil and if I am one of those unfortunate enough to be fitted with a squeaker I’ll be like one of those cats with a bell and you’ll hear me coming. These side effects apart, there’s always the chance of heart attack, stroke or infection. Happily the percentage risk of these is low but I suppose that’s what the 2% of people that it happened to said too. Oh well I’m on the waiting list now and I have told them that I can come any time after 30^th November.

A young couple arrived in reception. “We’re from Monster Energy” they said. Although the young man had a T shirt and dreadlocks and his colleague was in torn jeans, Marion thought they were selling power and told them that we were with E-ON. But it seems that they were selling a new energy drink and gave us thirty free samples. I took one look at the calories and caffeine levels and gave them a miss but was happy to let the lads in the factory give them a try during lunchtime and the production line was hyper all afternoon.

You have to hand it to those witty headline writers in the British press. I was in the waiting room for quite some time this morning so amused myself reading the back of everyone else’s newspapers. Are “ROONEY THE PRO” or “ROONEY SHOWS HE’S A PRO” or “A PRO PERFORMANCE FROM ROONEY” a case of great minds thinking alike or, as I thought, pretty sloppy nudge nudge wink wink journalism? The thing that shocked me the most about last weekend’s stories is not that Rooney might have paid for sex (let’s face it he’s not exactly Brad Pitt) but that he shelled out £200 on a packet of fags.

Alexandra Burke's new single is now out. After her great performance on Magic Numbers the other week, there's now a video out. This is how I'll be after the diet and the hip op.... Honest

One Step Beyond Retirement

2010-09-07T03:25:00.000+01:00

Marion and I retire on 30th November and the first step we take will be a rush to the car and a drive to Manchester to see Madness perform at the Apollo. Truly a case of One Step Beyond and quite an appropriate one I think. We've always loved them and they have many similarities with that other favourite of ours ,UB40, being a big group with a lot of instrumentalists and ,whilst it's not reggae, another stomping beat. Roll on November.

As we came out of the cinema last night the air was thick with smoke. It was clearly a big fire so we had to go and have a look what the source was. When we saw that local roads were cordoned off, the size of the blaze became apparent and the huge number of blue flashing lights on the Promenade pinpointed the conflagration to the old Kingsway club which, still firmly ablaze, looked to be now just a shell. I read recently that the owners had applied to demolish the building. No need now. That will save them a packet and all that tedious beaurocracy too. It's strange how a number of derelict local buildings have gone up in smoke recently - not that I am pointing any fingers. The Kingsway was famous for being the venue where Ringo made his first ever performance with the Beatles, where my brother used to splash two shillings on roulette and where, as a teenager I once managed to get in but discovered to my disappointment that it was called a "night" club because it was pitch black inside and apart from shirts lit up with UV lights I couldn't see a thing.

The scene last night taken by Jenny's friend.

And the morning after.

As for the film, "The Last Exorcism" was a pretty scary horror movie although it was spoilt for me and Marion by four juvenile morons (older than teenagers) in the row behind who managed to talk (talk might be too generous- grunt might be better) for large chunks of the screening completely oblivious to those around them, rushing out to answer their mobile phones and rocking our whole row by putting their feet on the seats - and no I didn't do anything about it, I just hoped that something as nasty as what was happening on the film befell them on their way home. That nastiness included gruesome mutilation (which would have been just fine by me). A good film but not a great one. It moves with pace. It is filmed in the style of "The Office" as a film crew trails a preacher who was once an exorcist on one final exorcism. He is now coming clean and wants to show that he was just a fake and nobody is ever really possessed - or are they? A great premise and a good story well filmed until the final five minutes. I won't tell you the ending but it takes the themes of more than one famous horror - "Rosemary's Baby", "The Wicker Man" and "The Blair Witch Project" all spring to mind - and mixes them all up into something of a disappointing mess.

Finally I would like to wish our factory leader Tony Mercer all the very best for his birthday today. Tony is Instanta's longest serving employee having been with us for around thirty six years. As usual he is holidaying on his birthday but I hope that he finds five minutes to see what I have written about him. As this is the last time that I will be at Instanta for one of his birthdays I would like to offer Tony my sincere thanks for his support over my past twenty two years here. His time keeping and attendance records have been exemplary - I can't recall him ever being late and he has struggled into work many times when others would be shivering beneath their sheets. He hardly appears in our sickness records going year after year with 100% attendance. He must be doing a good job as our productivity figures sometimes slip when he is on holiday (factory please note) but targets tend to be met when he is not. So enjoy your well earned holiday Tony. Marion and I wish you a very happy birthday and a continuing successful career at Instanta.

I'll close today with a clever promo for "The Last Exorcist" using ChatRoulette.com. Bad language warning.

Like The Proverbial Bus

2010-09-06T10:48:00.009+01:00

Life can be odd can't it? One minute Marion and I are bemoaning the fact that we've got nothing on and the next we get a glut of activity all at once. This is happening in the next few days as, after a period of inertia, our free time has suddenly sprung into life. So much so that we are going against the grain and paying for two cinema tickets tonight instead of taking up the usual Orange Wednesday offer. Yes, after a potter around the gym we are off to see "The Last Exorcism". Will let you know what we think tomorrow.

And on Wednesday it's the local hospital for a check on my hip and back again in the afternoon for Marion's mum's annual check after her successful cancer operation five years ago and then Marion's off out to a charity food evening. Then on Friday we're travelling down to near Haye on Wye to celebrate close friends' wedding anniversary. Back late on Sunday and on Monday off to see Stephen Fry's show being beamed live to FACT in Liverpool and on Wednesday off to Teddington to watch the recording of two episodes of Paul's "A League Of Their Own". And then back to normal and staying in watching the telly.

Which is not always a bad thing as ITV1's "U Be Dead" proved last night.One of those fact is stranger than fiction stories, it told the tale of a successful psychiatrist and his fiancee whose lives were ruined by a stalker. From the text message of the title "U Be Dead" I guessed that the stalker would be a west country type like that archaeologist in "Time Team" or Phil in our stores. But she turned out to be a lunatic Argentinian woman who bombarded the couple with sinister and threatening text messages, cancelled their wedding reception and, when the doctor became involved with another woman, took a used condom from the bin and used the contents to frame him for rape almost wrecking his career - you couldn't make it up. A great couple of hours drama from ITV and, although when you Google the show, photos of David Morrissey and Tara Fitzgerald come up, the true star was Monica Dolan who was chillingly convincing as the stalker Maria Marchese. Well done ITV drama.Five stars.

And speaking of convincing performances, we watched "Couscous" at the weekend. Hasfia Herzi (above) plays Rym, retiree Slimane's girlfriend's daughter. The story tells the tale of Slimane trying to realise his pipe dream of opening a boat restaurant on a quayside in a southern French port - a simple premise but one that is wrapped in a multitude of layers. These layers - family,age,immigration, bureaucracy, retirement, love, infidelity and much more unwrap beautifully before us but rarely do you see as powerful a contribution on screen as that of Herzi who manages to instill her character with such feeling that she makes you feel that you know her. A wonderful film.Look out for it on DVD. Here's a taster.

Well That's Next Wednesday Night Sorted Then

2010-09-03T11:23:00.007+01:00

At last a film with decent reviews arrives at the local Vue. "The Last Exorcism" is right up Marion's street as she loves nothing more than a bit of horror - she married me! And it was reviewed with no less than four stars in today's Guardian which means that it should be passable at least. So that's Orange Wednesday sorted and, as I am going to see the specialist about my hip on Wednesday morning it will be a chance to get the horrors of the impending operation off my mind.

The Guardian devoted an entire page of the G2 section to sous vide cooking yesterday. The writer expressed surprise at how delicious the food that he cooked in the water bath was, although it was no surprise to us at all having seen the benefits of this method of cooking several years ago and acting upon our taste buds and developing our prize winning SV25 and SV38. Our sous vide water baths were developed in close consultation with leading chefs and are built with all the features that they demanded including our unique internal water agitation system.

With the prospect of a holiday next year after two years without one we have been planning carefully and are thinking of a return to Ile De Re. Looking at the photo you might wonder what the attraction is of a flat featureless French island but we hope to get back on our bikes and Ile De Re is perfect being criss-crossed with miles of purpose made cycle tracks with two or three lovely little towns on pretty harbours and the flatness should be a big help with bedding in the new hip. Only problem was that last time we went the weather was so (uncharacteristically) bad that we christened it Ile De Rain.

A week on Monday Stephen Fry is performing his one man show at the Royal Festival Hall.It is being used as promotion for his autobiography and as an experiment the show is being broadcast live at cinemas around the country so we bought a few tickets to see it at FACT in Liverpool. Problem is we might have something else on that evening so, if anybody out there is interested get in touch. We may still be able to go but we won't know for sure until Wednesday next. As it is almost sold out, we should have no trouble finding someone to take them off us.

Have a good weekend. I was going to embed the brilliantly innovative new YouTube video for Tipp-Ex but it can't be embedded. But you can check it out here. So instead I'll embed the now famous dancing dog. If you haven't already seen it, have a look it's a brilliant dog.

Off to Oz

2010-09-02T10:29:00.010+01:00

One of our Operations Director David Wilson's responsibilities is staff training. But now and then the trainer needs to become a trainee and our parent company decided that Dave would benefit from seeing how manufacturing is carried out Australian style and have booked him into a manufacturing course down under in a couple of weeks. It will be a hugely exciting and interesting couple of weeks for Dave and I look forward to hearing what he has learnt when he gets back. With a twenty two hour journey each way lets hope that fellow film fan David has plenty of viewing choices on the way.

I was saddened to see the extent that William Hague had to go to in rebutting the gay affair accusations that had been heaped upon him. To feel that it was necessary to bring his wife's unfortunate string of miscarriages into the open in order to put his point across shows just how much pressure public figures are put under by today's media. My feeling is that, if you were a senior public figure and powerful politician conducting a clandestine gay affair, the last thing that you would do is openly book a twin room in a hotel with your handsome young aide. I am sure that this was simply a case of economics and those responsible should be brought to book if their allegations prove to be untrue. Nick and Craig often share twin rooms when on exhibition duties for Instanta and football teams regularly do the same without any hint of scandal being raised.

This is a photo of me presenting Max and Jenny with their prizes in our Pick The Score competition in May. It is the last photo of me taken before I started on the diet and, as you can see, I had a double chin and was not exactly svelte. I got on the scales on Sunday to see that I am now two stone and two pounds lighter. My waistline has shrunk by almost five inches and none of my clothes fit properly. All of this has resulted in me being constantly asked about my health and being treated in some cases like an invalid. Honestly, I know that my face is a bit thin but my BMI is still only on the borderline of healthy at 25 (down from 29) and the target weight is still a few weeks off. It's going to be expensive then as I will need a lot of new trousers.But thanks for the concern and no I am not ill.

Were you amongst the 5.4 million people who tuned in for Sunday's final ever "Last Of The Summer Wine"? Being a regular fan I, of course, was watching but, however much I loved that longest running sit com - and I often found myself a lone positive voice in a roomful of haters, I could not say that this was its finest hour. In fact, it was dreadful. There were plenty of laughs but only on the canned laughter sound track as, apart from the trouserless police officers, the whole half hour episode failed to raise even the semblance of a smile and I realised that the decision to axe the show was one that should have been taken several series ago. In those days I loved the Sunday evening escape to a land where the sun always shone and the stories did not centre solely around Marina and Howard. I would like to see the BBC bring back "Jam And Jerusalem" as a slightly more edgy replacement.

I'm off for lunch but before I go, here's a brilliant video brought to my attention by The Guardian sports pages. How to overtake when there's not much room.

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