My New Title- Mr Rat-colored Of Bushes

They're wonderful those Internet translator programmes aren't they? It no longer means us getting hold of the local translation services and paying them a fortune to handle our export enquiries. No. Whatever country enquires, we just say what we want and bung it on Alta Vista Babelfish or imtranslator and hey presto within seconds there it is all ready to go. And when we never get a sale we think that it was just a bit of bad luck. So when I got an email in Portuguese from a certain Tania Flour this morning I simply reversed the process and bunged it on the Internet to read this "Dear Mr Rat-colored of Bushes!" Hmmm. What the hell have we been writing to our export enquirers?



Orange Wednesday is coming around yet again. This week we're torn between Ice Age 3D and The Hangover but as Ice Age is likely to be around for most of the summer we'll try the Hangover it looks a scream.Good to see Southport finally getting 3D though - no more eighty mile round trips to the pictures.



We've got the BSI inspector coming around tomorrow to check out our environmental credentials. I'm sure that he will be impressed with the lighting in the gents' toilets which, due to a very green Eco friendly body-sensing switch failing, are now pitch black. Now that really is energy saving but the lads' washing machines might be running on overtime. We're very proud of our green credentials here and were amongst the first UK catering equipment companies to gain ISO14001 accreditation and we are still in the minority with very few following us down the green route. Trouble is we have run out of green initiatives now and are down to saving on very minor projects. The best green initiative we could have would be to send accounting stuff (invoices, statements etc) by email instead of by paper. But that will just add another to the long litany of excuses for late payment. "We didn't get the email"



So much for the green shoots of recovery. From Times Online July 7, 2009 Shock factory output fall dents recovery hopes. Output by British factories unexpectedly fell in May, official figures revealed today, undermining hopes that the recovery in the manufacturing sector is beginning to gain traction. Manufacturing output fell by 0.5 per cent in May, more than reversing small increases in March and April and confounding analysts' expectations of a 0.2 per cent rise. We could have told the government that ages ago. Why the surprise?


I see that it's Michael Jackson's funeral in LA today. Have you seen his "ghost" captured by CNN news?