Almost There

After a few months our gas tower is down to the last two levels now. One of the demolition workers popped into the factory on Tuesday and asked if he could reverse his lorry into our car park. "No problem" we said before an enormous low loader carrying a massive crane backed in and promptly churned two tracks into the warm tarmac. Fortunately the workers were very good and have made quite a good job of patching the mess up.



Today's special June offer which will run until Monday at 10.am is an extra 10% off all the twin tapped CT range boilers. That's the CT4000-3.CT4000-6,CT6000-6 and CT6000-9. A saving of up to £96.90. To qualify for this special price, orders must reach Instanta by the deadline and MUST quote reference blog offer 250609.

We're well into the holiday season now and when I go round with the pay packets it feels like there are more people away than are here. I know that isn't quite true but I'm hearing all about Nick's forthcoming trip to St Lucia and Lauren and Daz's holiday in Turkey whilst me and Marion are planning three nights in Dundee.(Tis madness but there be method in it).



I had a vist from Damian Thompson from Andy Bounds Ltd yesterday. We saw Andy give one of his motivational speeches at the recent CEDA conference and were impressed. Damian is going to give us a quote for training our sales team as young Craig Buckley is going to join Nick and Peter on the road in September so,coming at the job as a completely raw recruit, some professional training might go down well. I imagine the session might go a little bit like this.

Gas Towers, Boilers And Burgers. Going Down

After horrendously slow progress in demolishing our local landmark Southport Gas Tower, the tower has started to come down at speed with another section going inside a week. Before long nothing will remain of what was once a welcoming beacon to Sangrounders heading back home (or a bloody ugly eyesore depending upon your viewpoint). Having worked in its shadow for thirteen years it's like losing an old friend but one that you would only invite on Facebook to boost your numbers.

Today is another special offer day. For a bit of a change today's offer is on ex demo machines and some bankrupt stock that we reclaimed from a liquidator. Some of these items are brand new and unused but not current models. Others have simply had their plastic coating removed. Some are slightly used or marked. A full list can be found by clicking here But the beauty of this offer is that we don't want you to pay the prices that we have listed, we want you to make us an offer we can't refuse. Try us. We can only say no!The units will come with a full guarantee and there will be no carriage charge within the UK. So give us a try. This offer will run until the end of June or until the stock runs out.


Thanks to the striking Underground workers, son Paul had a 7 kilometre walk to work today and he arrived on time. He told me that the traffic was so heavy he was actually passing the buses. The walk took well over an hour and left him arriving at the office uncomfortably sticky.I imagine that thousands of Londoners experienced the same today and the only positive that could come out of it is that the capital's workers may be just a little bit fitter as a result.



If ever a product has been successfully hyped it has to be the Carl's Junior $6 Portobello Mushroom burger. We don't even have Carl's Jr over here as far as I know but this burger has been on and off the US's number 4 burger chain Carl's Jr's menu for a couple of years. Anyway it has recently been relaunched in the States with a brilliant advertising concept using regular YouTube faces telling how they eat theirs. It's a bit of a loss of independence for the YouTube stars like Smoosh and Nigahiga but if they've got hundreds of thousands of viewers waiting for their next utterances and they can earn some real dollars for doing it why not? It will be interesting to see if their participation is seen as a cop out by their fans. It has certainly given Carl's Jr some coverage as millions of hits have been registered on the nine different clips in just a few days.

Here's a rapper who wasn't approached by Carl's Jr but I suspect that he's going to get a lot more subscribers in future.

Barclays' Pension Fund Has £2.2bn Deficit

I read with interest that Barclays have a £2.2bn deficit in their staff pension fund and , as a result, are scrapping their final-salary pension scheme. "So what?" You might say. Well, before joining Instanta I worked for Barclays for seventeen years and my Barclays pension figures in my retirement plans. As it stands I don't seem to be affected by the planned changes but a £2.2bn funding gap is hardly likely to fill me with confidence - I'm afraid Instanta is going to be lumbered with me for quite a few years to come.





Hands off Terry Wogan. We've already suffered from Terry leaving Eurovision. Now the BBC is being criticised for paying him and other radio presenters too much. His pay has not been revealed but is reputed to be in the region of £800,000. He attracts 13 million listeners to his show which works out at such a low cost per listener per day that it barely registers. I'm a Radio 4 man myself but I can think of a lot less value for money. It's reputed that certain Premier League footballers earn as much in a month as Terry earns in a year.






Today's special June offer will run until 10am on Monday 8th June. Until then you can buy the super CT200 boiler for the very special price of £485. That means a saving of £76 or over 13%.To qualify for this special price, orders must reach Instanta no later than Monday 8th June at 10 am and must quote the reference blog offer 050609.



Excitement mounts here at Instanta in anticipation of the annual golf day on Monday at Duxbury Golf Course. About ten staff and friends will be competing for the coveted trophy. Craig backed out of booking the fire engine limo and the pink one wouldn't take all the golf bags so it's a plain old mini bus. Never mind, I am sure that there will be plenty more opportunities to impress the members.As for the golf? After his success at Celtic Manor, it would be a very brave man who would bet against Peter Brindle to take the trophy especially as he has organised it and made the rules.





Our genteel home town of Southport is starting to look like Al Capone's Chicago if you believe the local press. For the last few weeks almost every front page of the papers has featured a local businessman (with a business just down the road from Instanta)who appears to have fallen out with someone. Said businessman has experienced a gun attack on his home, arson at his business, a high speed chase along the coastal road when he was pursued by a motorcyclist armed with a hand gun and this week's episode had him arrested after a huge brawl at a trendy bar in up market Birkdale.It would be no surprise if the Mitchell brothers turned up in next week's installment.Although, joking aside, it seems more likely that somebody is going to be very badly hurt.

We are recruiting for a new office trainee at the moment. We phoned an ad in to local careers service Connexions. We are looking for someone literate and with good numerical skills to contact Jenny Wright here at Instanta. Seems that Connexions could also be looking for someone literate as all the applications have come addressed to Jenny Write.

Twenty six years ago when the kids were little we all used to enjoy the outrageous pop videos on "Top Of The Pops". I never quite understood "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" but thanks to YouTube, everything is now clear.

Sales Go Into Reverse For The First Time During The Recession

We aren't going to lose too much sleep over it but, despite May being an excellent month for sales, our sales fell during May when compared to May last year. Having said that, during May last year we had one order for almost 300 units so it was always going to be a difficult act to repeat. The result is that in our full 12 months to 31st May 2009 compared to the full 12 months to 31st May 2008 our invoiced sales were 0.3% down and in the first nine months of our trading year we were 1.5% down compared to the same period last year.So we had better get a few more units sold.



And with that in mind, here is today's special offer in our continuing month of daily giveaways. For today only, Tuesday 2nd June 2009 the price of our super heavy duty CT6000-6 is reduced from £757 to £681.30. That's a saving of 10%. The offer is valid for all orders for models CT6000-6 placed before 10am on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 for delivery during June 2009. Orders MUST bear the reference blog020609



We've had a great response to our Dealer Newsletter in which we highlighted the launch of our super new Sous Vide digital water baths. One response from more than one customer "What the hell is Sous Vide?" Nice to see everybody keeping on top of the latest developments in the catering world.




Work on the demolition of our local landmark has started to gather pace and here we are two months into the job. The gigantic cranes have been removed today so the trimming of the tower is now within reach of normal cranes.That must be a relief to whoever is organising the work as the monster cranes were reputed to be costing a fortune.



It's week 26 of 2009 and Marion and I have managed to make 25 visits to the cinema so far but we are really going to struggle with making Orange Wednesday this week as there is absolutely nothing on at the local Vue and we don't fancy a long drive. I was reading the reviews for last week's film "Drag Me To Hell". Both The Guardian and The Observer critics enjoyed the film but both were uncomfortable that the old lady who makes a curse was portrayed as a Gypsy. Now, apart from the beard and sandals, I am as big a Guardian reader as you'll find and I didn't have any worries about the PC implications at all.

It's another sunny day as I write. I quite fancy a glass of wine in the garden this evening. If I do I won't be taking the car out later. Unlike some people...



Yesterday's YouTube video was removed by the user presumably YBNP. What a pity.