All Change In The Office

When I arrived at Instanta this morning it looked like a bomb had dropped. The place was a mess. We gave Jenny the challenge of reorganising the office by Christmas and she set about the task with her typical energy and efficiency and last night the local office furniture people came round with a load of new desks. It didn't take long for the place to start to take shape and by late morning the office was back up and running. There's still some decorating to be done and I think that a new carpet is on the way but it's starting to look good. We need a new phone system next as, although the VOIP system is very economical, it's not very good and we frequently lose calls or have terrible line quality. I am all for new technology but it's only good when it works properly.

Back up and running in a couple of hours.

If you wacthed "A League Of Their Own" on Sky1 last night you might have caught a glimpse of me and Marion with our son Paul. We were in the audience for the recording and were required at one point to blow vuvuzuelas. We couldn't hear the noise as we had to wear ear plugs but it sounded pretty loud on the show last night. The show was very funny. Watch out for next week when Sky are broadcasting two episodes back to back - 10pm Sky1 and Sky1 HD.

I was too busy to find time to complete the blog yesterday as I was working on the final audited figures for our year end. It's that time when all the final journal entries need to be posted on our computer and balanced to the accountants' figures. Being something of a nerdy pedant I have to get this right to the penny so it takes a lot longer than it should. Anyway I said that I would report back on "The Social Network" which we went to on Wednesday night. The cinema was packed but the vast majority of the audience was under twenty five and we looked like a couple of grandparents gatecrashing the grandchildrens' trip to the pictures. However, the film was certainly not a juvenile one. It told the story of the setting up of Facebook by a couple of Harvard university misfits and the claims and counterclaims that ensued after other students alledged that Mark Zuckerberg (brilliantly portrayed by Jesse Eissenberg ,above left) had stolen their ideas. The film is set in the lawyers' offices where the claims are being heard and comprises a series of flashbacks to 2003 and onwards.Whilst the subject of lawsuits sounds very dry, the film  moves with great pace. All of the cast are strong and Justin Timberlake (centre) puts in a fine performance as Napster creator Sean Parker and Andrew Garfield plays the most sympathetic role as Zuckerberg's co-creator Eduardo Saverin very convincingly.


It's a very good film and well worth going to see. My only difficulties were knowing that the Winklevoss twins were both played by the same actor Arnie Hammer which made me keep looking for the join in the film when they were on screen together and the fact that the film is based on a book by Eduardo Saverin which makes you question the partiality of the storyline. As I said above, Saverin is the most sympathetic character but he wasn't going to depict himself badly was he? A good four stars from us. It's quite fascinating to see that the world's biggest social networking site was set up by a young man with virtually no social skills whatsoever and whose Facebook business card read "I'm CEO Bitch".


I'lle leave you today with one of this week's mosty popular videos on YouTube. Rumour has it that this newscaster was fired for this. If that's true I wonder does anybody in authority have a sense of humour any more? And don't forget, if the video doesn't fit in the screen, double click and it will open in another window.

Tonight's Orange Wednesday - The Social Network

I'm happy to say that we're back into our regular Wednesday evening trips to the cinema after the summer drought in which very little worthwhile arrived at Vue. We've actually got a choice this week with our multiplex showing "Made in Dagenham", "The Other Guys" and "Wall St Money Never Sleeps" all of which got passable reviews. But we're opting for "The Social Network" as, being about a geeky bloke who spends a lot of time on computers, it has a certain resonance with me. As the reviews on this won't be in the papers until Friday we can go with an open mind. I'll let you know if we "Like" tomorrow.

Speaking of geeks, Andrew Marr has gone on the record to state that bloggers are usually single, spotty and balding blokes living with their mothers and blogging from their mums' basements. I don't know why the normally rational Mr Marr has taken such a vitriolic stance against we poor souls who attempt to while away a few minutes putting our thoughts online. I doubt that much has ever come from my blogs but they have given Instanta an online presence and there's no harm in that. I think that Marr's underlying displeasure stems from Internet users' ability to be abusive and worse whilst hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. I've never blogged anonymously and any postings that I make elsewhere are always under my eBay user name lfcchampions and it would take seconds to find out who I was.






I do share Marr's distaste for the anonymous side of the web. Our son Paul and his wife Josephine work in a creative capacity in television. We are always keen to read about the television shows that they create and search online for comments. Whilst these are usually positive there have been times when we have been sickened by the extent of bile and ridicule heaped anonymously upon stuff that has taken months of hard work. OK people are entitled to an opinion but would they say this stuff to their faces. And whilst promoting the family, look out for Josephine's "Perfection" with Nick Knowles which is due to air soon on BBC2 and Paul's "A League Of Their Own" tomorrow at 10pm Sky1.


Just got a tweet to say that the judge in the RBS Liverpool trial has found in favour of RBS and the sale to the Red Sox boss can now go ahead. Don't really know what my feelings are about this. The whole things has a very grubby feel to it. I'll be glad when things return to being about football and not money.


I wrote on Monday about the Yeo Valley ad that turned up during the X Factor on Saturday and ran for a massively expensive 2 minutes. I didn't like it although plenty of others apparently did. However, it seems that the ad lacked something as far as originality is concerned. Take a look at this which came to my attention via Twitter @mediaguardian .

Welcome Barbara

With the clock ticking down towards our retirement, it's time to make sure that the office continues to be adequately manned and we are delighted to welcome Barbara Banks to Instanta. Barbara will be helping out with the bookkeeping and other office jobs and will be here from 1pm from Tuesday to Friday. Barbara once worked for my old employer Barclays Bank and her banking experience should stand her in good stead to help with our ledgers. Married to Bob and with a grown up son David, Barbara lives in the nearby village of Hesketh Bank. She enjoys going to the gym but I don't thinks she'll be trying out the exercise equipment in the shed at the back of the factory. It hasn't had a lot of use since we installed it and it's pretty cold down there. Anyway welcome Barbara, we all hope that you have an enjoyable time working here at Instanta.

Here's our super new pocket brochure. Printed in house by our parent company, it arrived today hot off the press. Nick calls it a DL but I don't know what DL stands for. Maybe we could offer a prize for the best suggestion. It's all Nick's own work so in the unlikely event that there are any spelling mistakes for once it won't be me that carries the can.I missed a glaring mistake on one output figure in our super main brochure in February. Mind you that mistake was so big I don't think that anybody could possibly take it as correct.

Orange Wednesday tomorrow and this week's choice is "The Social Network". If you aren't familiar with it, it's a film about the birth of Facebook and by all accounts it's a fascinating story about geeky computer students and the legal battles that arose over who actually created the site. I used to be quite active on Facebook but haven't logged on for quite a while now. I wonder if we will be giving it the Facebook thumbs up on Thursday. I'll let you know what we think of it here.

And speaking of Thursday don't forget "A League Of Their Own" on Sky1 at 10pm. See how well you can do by playing the game by clicking on this link.  http://tiny.cc/zl6qm

Another big Sky favourite is "The Simpsons". The show has been all over the internet this week due to an intro to the show baing done by the famous street artist Banksy. Here's a brief news article about it and below that is the intro itself. Unfortunately it seems that every time it goes up on YouTube somebody takes it down so if the video has gone by the time you read this, sorry.