Unashamedly Name Dropping Today

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

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

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

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



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

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

The Love Affair With Mercedes Ends

A couple of blokes came and picked up the Mercedes CLS two weeks ago. Before it went back I took it to the local body shop for a quick once over and a touch up of any minor blemishes and the collectors took the car away in pretty good nick for a three year old vehicle. Imagine my surprise yesterday when a bill for just under £500 arrived from Mercedes Benz Finance claiming this sum was required to get the car back up to scratch (groan). No mention of the expensive bluetooth fitting that I left in the car or the unused and very expensive polishing kit or the fact that I drove 37,900 miles whilst contracting for 45,000 miles or the Nokia phone cradle. If you went to look at a three year old car would you expect it to be completely free of marks? No. I have written to them complaining and if I don't get a satisfactory response I don't think I will ever look at Mercedes again even if they do bring out a hybrid.



We had a staff meeting this morning. That's when I had the unenviable task of telling everyone that we fell short of the profit sharing target by just £9,000. However, to sweeten this bitter pill we have agreed a pay increase of 2% for everyone with immediate effect. And, considering that the current inflation rate is just 0% I hope that's a pretty fair compromise.


I mentioned at the staff meeting that our buyer Gav (above right) has volunteered to be our new Sports and Social organiser now that Lauren has left. The first ideas are a pool tournament, a bowls night and a night at the dogs. We talked about paint balling but I always end up getting hit more than anybody else (including a disproportionate amount of friendly fire)and those paintball pellets sting.



Off to Anfield tomorrow for Liverpool v Hull City. This is the sort of team that Liverpool struggled against last season so let's hope that we get a more realistic result this year. My problem is the persistent standing on the Kop. It never used to bother me much but since I've needed a hip replacement I dread the ball heading in our direction as the getting up and down is extremely painful.


You know how Youtube has been awash with vidoes of computer generated babies doing all sorts of stuff like skateboarding. Well here's a refreshingly new one with not a bit of computer tampering whatsoever.I challenge you not to smile.

When Jenny Met Craigie

Instanta's own love story comes to a culmination today with the wedding of our Stores And Office Manager Jenny Wright to Salesman Craig Buckley. Jenny and Craig met here at Instanta in 2001 when the tall shy young man started as our Office Junior. Romance blossomed several years later and we hope that they have a wonderful today and a great future together. Look in on the blog tomorrow for some photos as Marion and I have managed to take time out to watch the big event.



My love affair with Mercedes ends tomorrow when the lease on my lovely CLS320cdi expires. Having driven a Merecedes of some type or other for about twelve years now I will be sorry to see it go back but I was being hypocritical banging on about green issues whilst at the same time driving a car that does 30mpg (if you drive it extremely carefully and slowly). So the Toyota Prius hybrid beckons. Sadly that is three months away but in the meantime my mum has driven to the rescue. My knight in shining armour has come to my aid with her Nissan. She's off to Spain and won't be needing it for a few months. Stop Press: Phone call from Mum. Nissan been involved in accident. AAAAAAAAAAAAAggggggggggg.



The phones have been going mad here this morning. It's gone midday and I haven't finished the blog yet. Same happened on Friday when I didn't even get time to start it. Something wrong there. I can't be getting my priorities right. Nice to hear the office so busy though but I'm looking forward to a breather and not so much hard work.



On a chilling note I take back all my criticisms of the security procedures at airports after reading the reports on the soft drinks bomb plot. I've no plan to travel by plane in the near future because its just too much hassle nowadays but I can fully understand the reasoning behind it now. I just thought it was yet another case of British overkill but if the intelligence services hadn't handled the case so well the overkill would have been the number of innocent transatlantic passengers.

I'll finish on topical note. Let's hope that Craig's best man is not so clumsy.

There's No Green Option With A Merc

In about eight weeks I have to hand the keys to my beautiful Merecedes CLS back to the local dealer and walk away holding back the tears. I'm not a car lover and don't know a spark plug from a carburettor but I do love this car. It has been a pleasure to drive and a joy to own. But all good things must come to an end and my conscience has been niggling away at me for the past three years. Instanta's hard earned and fully justified green credentials have been somewhat tarnished by my gas guzzling and somewhat hypocritical vehicle choice and it's time to redress the balance. Sadly there's no green or electric option with Mercedes and none of their cars could in any way be described as being green unless you're talking about the colour.



So how about the Teslar Roadster? This electric vehicle is due over here soon but, as sexy as it looks, I haven't arrived at the male menopause just yet and, to be honest, the reviews were far from enthusiastic.





So it looks like a toss up between these two.The Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight. Both have impeccable green credentials and both have a £15 road tax and no London Congestion charge. Both have an mpg approaching 60 and neither looks too bad.Is it just me or do you think that there has been a bit of copying here? Both these look incredibly similar. It will all boil down to features and a test drive.I'm starting to forget the Merc already.



Here's son Paul and his fiancee Josephine with the Black Farmer's daughter at the weekend's Taste Food Festival in Regent's Park.The couple had a great afternoon sampling the delights on offer and were one of the Black Farmer's daughter's first customers. Great brand name that. Don't know how it would go down in the States where there must be thousands of black farmers but it seems that ,over here, he's the only one.



Marion and I are taking our fellow board members for lunch at the Warehouse today. I don't seem to get the chance to chat here at the office and whenever we have board meetings it's all work, work, work so I thought that it might be good to allocate a bit of time to less business orientated conversation. No doubt we'll end up talking about all the staff. Just kidding if any of you are reading this.We'll only be talking about Craig.

Our special June offer today is 10% off the HCC60 heated cup carousel. This bargain price of just £562.50 is valid until 12 noon tomorrow 23rd June 2009 and to qualify orders must reach us by then and MUST quote reference blog offer 220609.


I'll leave you with a song for the day.