A Sad Farewell

3rd March 1998 was an historic day here at Instanta. It was the day that a letter from a young David Sweeney dropped onto my desk. The letter told how Dave and his wife Amanda's business, City Servicing, based in Essex might be able to help Instanta. Having engineers permanently within Central London every day, Dave went on to promote the benefits of his firm. These included fully trained engineers with comprehensive stocks and vans linked with Radio Control. Not only that, he was offering Instanta a very competitive rate. And the rest, as they say, is history. I liked the letter, we gave City Servicing a try and before long they were part of the Instanta family.

In the twelve years that we have used them, this family run business has offered us an unbeatable service. Working in one of the most expensive and difficult areas in the country they have always been prepared to put in that extra effort that makes the difference between service and excellent service. We have put hundreds of customers in touch with them and they, in return, have promoted Instanta with confidence. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with them and consider Amanda and Dave as true friends. Like us, their ethos is to treat people as they would like to be treated themselves and this has worked perfectly. They even put themselves out to help my son Paul when he had problems with the plumbing in his London bedsit.

All of us who have had regular contact with Dave and Amanda (including me, Marion, Max, Craig and Jenny) were devastated to hear that they had decided on a change of career and have chosen to wind the business down. Today is their last day and we are so sorry to be losing them from our network of service engineers many of whom are similar family run businesses. If you read this Dave and Amanda, we will miss you very much. Please know that you will always be welcome here in Southport and we wish you the success that you so richly deserve. Good luck.

I'm all choked up now. I'll have to pull myself together. Ahem. Right. How do I follow that. Perhaps I shouldn't. I'll finish with a song just for Amanda and Dave .

Blogger's Block

It's a bit like writer's block I suppose but at least when you are writing a book or an article or something to go in the next super Instanta brochure you can walk away for a couple of hours and seek inspiration. But a blog? It's supposed to be a daily thing, something immediate and vital. "Since when has the Instanta blog ever been vital?" I hear you ask.But as I sit staring at a blank screen I feel ike a man on death row. My time is running out. (Sorry I've just reread that I don't feel ike. I don't know any Ike's and if there are any out there I don't want to feel them).

I've got to get the blog up before midday or there's little point in blogging.

But hang on a minute. The screen's no longer blank. There's a whole paragraph of drivel and now there's this. Every time I touch the keypad the words move a little further along the screen.

Gigolos for the older woman. " Now what is he talking about?" you ask. Well Nick just came in and said to me he had a great new business idea. I'm not sure who he had in mind (certainly not me looking at my photo on yesterday's blog when I looked like a Belsen survivor) but here he is.

What do you think? Has it got legs? "Has he got legs?" I hear you ask. Oh well. That filled up another bit of white space.



We're off to Manchester to do some shopping tomorrow. Now there's some interesting news. That's equal to - we watched the telly last night or I had Fruitful for breakfast. Tap tap. Is there anybody still there?






I know. I'll tell you about our lucky competition winner. Yes Bruno Gautier of The Hare Restaurant in Hungerford won one of our wonderful SV25 sous vide digital water baths in the recent competition in Caterer and Hotelkeeper. Trouble is Bruno doesn't know yet as the restaurant is closed until next week. Well Bruno if you do any of that vanity Googling that our Nick loves so much (or is that vanity Gigoling now?), maybe you'll discover that you are the winner. I did send an email but if Bruno's spam filter is anything like ours a message headed "Congratulations You have Won" will be mouldering away with a pile of emails trying to sell him acai berries or male organ enhancers.

Our friend Amanda Sweeney from the wonderful City Servicing sent me this video. She reckons that her husband Dave reckons this is her. Now a radical liberal like me would never make such claims but as it was sent to me by a woman I feel safe (sort of) posting it.Have a good weekend.