Man United Ruined My Accumulator

Was there ever a more bittersweet statement than that. Every week I make a donation to the coffers of Betfair and in return they let me forecast the outcome of between six and eight football matches in return for dreams of riches. And every week I forecast between five and seven of those matches correctly but hardly ever do I get them all right. This week was no exception but as the results at Newcastle and Sheffield came in I was, for once, starting to feel confident as I was sure that AZ Alkmar, Braga and Barcelona would do the business later on (which they did). That left just the mighty Man U against the minnows of Sunderland. And I didn't even have the pleasure of seeing them lose. As, of course, the obligatory injury time goal went in.




Nick tells me that his great new business idea has not brought results yet. Give it time Nick, give it time. I have put a link on Grannies Reunited.




I spent five hours editing my novel yesterday. My professional critic thought that it jumped around a bit too much so I have been cutting chapters and pasting them in other places to try an make a more even flow. The big problem then is continuity. For example one character has a disability caused by a long past accident. Have I mentioned it by Chapter six? No? Damn. Rewrite of Chapter six needed.



When I haven't time to get into writing the novel I've been spending a lot of time on Harper Collins Authonomy website. Here you can upload your book and let others criticise or praise it.Those who support the books which become most popular get points and rise up the charts as "Talent Spotters". I have somehow managed to get myself to number 63 in the Talent Spotter chart. I don't think that I am in a position to criticise but I certainly think I can tell if a book is readable or not.


I must thank our expert photographer Peter Raymond for giving me this link. He knows how I feel about bankers.

A Filip For Rafa

I mentioned the other day that I had heard about a new Instanta baby boy and here he is Filip Kolasinski. Filip was born on 21st July and weighed in at a healthy 3 kilos. Congratulations to proud dad assembly worker Rafa Kolasinski and mum Beate. He's a beautiful baby.




Orange Wednesday tonight so we have finally decided to go and see Bruno. I think we'll either love it or hate it with little chance of anything in between.



We've got the new bank area manager coming to see us this afternoon. We'll have to see what he has to say about the wonderful interest rate collar that's currently costing us about £3,000 per month. I doubt that there's any way out of it though.



I did the company figures yesterday and they look OK. I also got the industry figures for the first two quarters of 2009 yesterday and we are certainly ahead of the field in terms of sales growth. Our growth is shown at -1.0% whilst the industry average is a much higher negative.

Here's a taster of what we are letting ourselves in for tonight.

I Figure We Are Doing OK At The Moment

I've been slogging away at figures all morning in preparation for tomorrow's board meeting. The accounts look pretty good all things considering although they would look a hell of a lot better if we hadn't had to pay almost £100 a day for Barclay's marvellous interest rate collar. Sales and gross profit for our first nine months are within 2% of last year and overheads are significantly down resulting in an improved net margin and, consequently, less pressure on the overdraft. We paid all our bills within a couple of days of the start of June and at the moment have £100k spare within the overdraft facility. The VAT bill is due at the start of next month but, according to the press, nobody appears to be paying that on time at the moment so we could ask for another three months grace.



I've been limping for about six weeks now and have done no swimming, football or gym for ages. The pain seemed to be easing off last week but came back with a vengeance at the weekend. A trip to the doctor confirmed that I have a groin strain and she has recommended some powerful painkillers which seem to be helping.I now realise that last week's easing was down to the painkillers that I was taking for the tooth extraction. I really miss the football (not so much the swimming) and hope that I can be back before too long.



In addition to our special offer on seconds and new (but old style) models on yesterday's blog(click here for details) that will run until the end of the month or until all are sold, today's special offer is on the WM15. Both the 3kW and 6kW units are reduced by 10% to £666 and £697.50 until Monday 15 June 2009 at 10 am. To qualify for this very special offer, orders much reach Instanta by 10 o'clock on Monday 15 June and MUST quote blog offer 110609

The best word I can use to describe last night's Orange Wednesday offering "Last Chance Harvey" is "nice". But "nice" doesn't win oscars and an hour and a half of cute kittens would have done the job just as well. It's a very predictable love story and the cinema was packed but I'd wait for the DVD and watch it with a box of Kate from "The Apprentice's" chocolates with your partner if I were you. I'm not sure which would be the sweeter. I said that I had read that it was sad but, if it was, I missed it.



Before going to the cinema last night I was playing around on Youtube and hit on the new XBOX360 project NATAL. I'm not a big gaming fan although I did have an Atari space invaders console when they first came out and loved those tennis games made up of three white blobs on a black screen. But this new project really interested me. I had to check that it was not a wind up and hadn't been posted on April fools day but no, it seems that controlless gaming is a reality and it really is being developed. Take a look at the video for a demonstration. Now that's the future (or it will be when it becomes commercially available).