31st October. Put It In Your Diary. The Follies Are Back

I just got a message on Blogger that The Ship Inn Follies, the vaudeville and drag act run by our APC driver Steve (that's him third left) and his friends are putting on another performance at the Original Ship in Leyland on 31st October. Tickets are £5 each but hurry as their next show (a charity performance in aid of Support Our Soldiers on 6th November) has already sold out. We haven't been able to get to one of the shows yet but we've seen the photos and heard glowing reports so if you are near Leyland please support them. You can check out their blog here.



I missed my trip to Orange Wednesday to watch the dire match between Liverpool and Hungarian champs Debrecen. Half way through I got a text message from son Paul which offered me £50 if I could get this chant started to the tune of Quantalamera "Gone to the pictures. I should have gone to the pictures". On a positive note I was seated in the Upper Centenary Stand and did not have to stand up once during the match. I looked down at the Kop and saw that the whole lot stood up for the entire game.



We've had no less than three positive sales enquiries from Dubai this week. We don't do much exporting but maybe we should. Anyone fancy being our Export Director? Mind you with our budget you might get as far as the Isle of Wight ferry.



It only seems like five minutes but two years have almost passed since we started working with the wonderful Workhouse Marketing in Ribchester. Workhouse have done some tremendous sales literature for us and we've got our first meeting scheduled next week for us to get cracking on our 2010-2011 brochure. I'm trying to make up my mind what we will be able to get into it but we've got a pretty good idea. There are one or two products that might or might not make the February deadline but we'll have a good try at getting everything in.If you are looking for a marketing company with bright ideas, originality and a great sense of humour, look no further. You won't be disappointed. Here's a link

We'll end today with some footballers jumping bulls.Bit more exciting than Liverpool.

Artificial Sperm Whatever Next?

Did you read about the new scientific breakthrough - artificial sperm? It's a bit scary isn't it? I mean everyone wants to help infertile couples and, having a family member with several chronic diseases attacking their auto immune system, I'm all in favour of science and stem cell research. But how do they test it? It looks like sperm, it wiggles like sperm but would you want to be the first to try it? Fortunately the scientists have no intentions to create humans with it at the moment. They've called it In Vitro Derived sperm. I misread it at first as DeVito derived sperm and was imagining a new race of five foot tall actors.



No winner yet for Friday's competition. You can win £50 off your order by ordering a boiler, cup holder or sous vide unit and being the first to answer a very simple question about our sous vide digital water baths. We have sold out of our first batch of units which is a great start.Check last Friday's blog for full details.



Here's our favourite APC driver Steve getting ready for his charity act at The Mount Hotel in Orrell Rd Wigan. Steve's group is The Ship Inn Follies,his stage name is Zara Swallows and his burlesque drag cabaret has already raised over £1,000 for his local hospice. If you are near Wigan look out for the Follies' shows. I'm sure you'll have a hilariously ribald night out. For more photos of Steve and his friends in action check HERE



Dave Wilson and Gavin are busy with the BSI Environmental Management System inspector at the moment. We've got assembly worker Sean Johnson running on the treadmill in our gym and have told the inspector that we are using Sean to power all the lights in the factory. I think he was suitably impressed.



A few months ago I came up with an idea for a novel and within a few days started writing with a vengeance. I am now up to 48,000 words and my adventure yarn has somehow morphed into a romance - it basically just dragged me along with it. It's probably too short to be published although it has a proper beginning a middle and an end and I don't want to pad it out unnecessarily just for the sake of reaching the magic 70,000 words beloved of publishers. Perhaps I'll have to send it to Mills and Boon, their books are quite short.I've had writers block for three days now trying to come up with a title.



Did you see see ace Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker's new panel show "You Have Been Watching" on Channel Four last night. The show was basically Charlie's "Screen Wipe" with a few celebrity guests brought along for the ride and was best when Charlie was delivering one of his acerbic rants to camera. He must watch one hell of a lot of TV to discover the US show "Deadliest Warrior" that compares fighters throughout history and decides which would have won e.g Shaka Zulu v Robert The Bruce (not kidding) and, even more bizarrely the IRA v the Taliban. Guess who wins.