Magicians Do Exist

Although "Magicians Don't Exist" is the underlying message of "The Illusionist",this beautiful little film proves otherwise as Sylvain Chomet has created eighty minutes of pure magic that cannot fail to enchant all who go to see it. Beautifully drawn in pastel shades that capture Edinburgh in the late fifties, this old fashioned animation offers a poignant study of love,loneliness, solitude and loss without being unnecessarily maudlin and still managing to raise more than just a couple of smiles. The story (a screenplay written by Jacques Tati) centres around a once successful French conjurer (Tatichef) who, finding himself threatened by the progress of TV and Rock n' Roll, seeks pastures new in the UK.But even a remote Scottish Island is celebrating the arrival of electricity with a new Juke Box. On the island he meets a young girl who becomes a substitute daughter and accompanies him to his final season in a decaying Edinburgh music hall alongside a motley bunch-a clown, a ventriloquist and some acrobats. The characters are instilled with the innocence and naivety of a lost age and, whilst the recent fabulous Pixar offerings Up and Toy Story 3D left the audience sobbing uncontrollably, Chomet tugs on the heartstrings with more subtlety as we watch their tragedies unfold.I thought that we were going to see a film with subtitles but the film is,in fact, to all extent and purpose silent although it does have a haunting and melodic score. We had to travel to find a cinema showing this but it is certainly a film worth going out of your way to see.



Marion and I are on the final countdown to retirement and are into double figures now with just 97 days to go. We had better start thinking about what we are going to do with ourselves. I think a holiday is long overdue as we have not been away for more than a couple of days since the photo at the top of this blog was taken in July 2008. Marion fancies a cruise although it would have to be one for anti-social people as the thought of sharing my first weeks of retirement with thousands of others is not exactly compelling. I am used to solitude now and am so isolated here in the board room that I have an idea of what it might be like for the Chilean miners - write a blog lads it will keep you sane. I wonder what their bosses are thinking about their pay - "Now are they on normal time,overtime, sick pay or should we sack them for not turning up for work. Is there room to send a couple of picks down that tube to get them doing something worthwhile until Christmas?"



Craig emails me every day with the updated sales league table. It's a very complex spreadsheet (he's a clever lad) and the boxes turn green when we have hit our month's targets for different ranges. First to go green this month was our fabulous new wall mounted value range. These fabulous stainless steel boilers which come in 2,5 and 10 litre capacities are proving a big hit with the customers and offer an economic, stylish and reliable hot drinks solution for those on a budget. Heading towards green are the upmarket wall mounted boilers which have Eco friendly features such as built in seven day timers, thick insulation and half capacity Eco mode for quiet periods.



Olly Murs is performing his new single on the final episode of Magic Numbers which airs on ITV1 and ITV1HD on Saturday evening at 8.45pm. There's an enormous prize fund of £400k up for grabs and it would be a perfect finale if someone out there managed to win it. Sitting here in the board room I can hear the radio in the factory and it seems that the producers of Magic Numbers have an uncanny knack of picking star acts for the show as I keep hearing Alexandra Burke, JLS and Scouting for Girls' (all of whom had guest slots) songs over and over again. As for that Alexandra, I can't get that catchy tune out of my head since "oh here I go drip droppin way down low dah dah da da"

Final question of the day. Why does this never happen to Chris Kamara?

Oh What A Tangled Web

With my weight at a record low I have ventured out to the gym a few times lately. Forty minutes on an exercise bike is manageable but boy is it boring. Granted there are a number of TVs dotted around the place but without sound I have resorted to watching "Eggheads",looking at the answers and surmising what the question might be and which is the correct answer. The other night "Bubble, Saffron and Edina" were on the screen in the entertainment round and I guessed the question might have been "which character in Ab Fab is played by Jane Horrocks?" but I was wrong as the answer was Saffron. Fed up with this game after a few weeks I decided to look for a pair or earphones. I knew we had some somewhere in what Michael McIntyre might refer to as the "Man Drawer " (in our case a camera bag) and there they were. Only problem was that, on arriving at the gym, whilst the TVs were tuned to BBC2. Sky News and BBC1 plus a couple of those music channels that look like soft porn, the plug in sounds were only tuned in to the music. So what's the question if the choice of answers is "Liverpool, Real Madrid or Barcelona?"




Am I alone in wondering what all the fuss is about the woman who put a cat in a wheelie bin? OK so it was a bit cruel to the poor little moggie but the way that the world has reacted it is as if the lady (who turns out to be a bank official - at least she was before the video got onto YouTube) was responsible for mass genocide. Let's have a bit of perspective. The cat was featured in today's Sun surrounded by gifts sent by well wishers. It's a bloody cat! Send your gifts to some of the people flooded out in Pakistan and get a hold on reality.





A matter of priorities.



Nothing on at the local Vue again this week so we are off to Picturehouse at Fact in Liverpool to watch "The Illusionist". It's a French cartoon with subtitles based on a screenplay by Jacques Tati but somehow Vue don't seem to think that the people of Southport will be interested even though they have found time to show "Grown Ups" and "Scott Pilgrim" which both look a bit rubbish. I'm not saying to give films like "The Illusionist" a whole week in Southport but there must be others here who would like to see the film (the list of films that we would like to see but don't reach Southport is endless)and maybe a night a week and one of the smaller screens could cater for us. Oh well it's £14 out of Vue's coffers.



We've sold out of our fabulous under counter models this week which is a bit frustrating as, with the factory on shutdown, we can't rush a few out to help a customer who wants three for the weekend. It's very rare for us to run out. We built to meet Nick's sales forecast but he was not very accurate on this range. Never mind, it's better to sell more than the target than less and apologies to those who missed out. A salutary lesson. Why not keep a couple in stock?

I'll close with a trailer for tonight's film