My Boiler's Not Working Properly

We had a call from an engineer customer the other day. "I just can't fix my customer's boiler" he said. Although we no longer have a service department we offered to take a look and this mountain of scale was the cause of the problem. This serves to illustrate the damaging effects that limescale can have on a boiler and why we make huge efforts to provide customers with early warning of limescale build up. OK it's a pain to have to keep cleaning the boiler and the probes but it's a lot better than shortening the life of your machine. And if you can't be bothered with all that regular cleaning you can always buy a decent filter.



Regular blog readers might recall that we suffered a night of sleeplessness at the Ramada Bolton a few months ago due to being put in a room immediately above the dance floor on a night that an Abba Tribute band was performing. I asked for our money back but was offered a free night instead. We'll find out if that was a good thing or not on Sunday as there is an antique fair on at Bolton's Reebok stadium on Bank Holiday Monday and by staying at the hotel we can get to the fair early without having to get up at six o'clock. I'll reserve judgement.




I've got eleven items listed on eBay at the moment. It's my first step back into eBay selling since last summer. Because I always start the listings at £0.99 it can be quite nail biting as hardly anyone bids until a few minutes from the close of the listing and until then everything is showing a price that would bring a loss. At least the number of people watching a particular listing can give you an indication that there are going to be a few bidders. Most of my eleven items have between twenty and forty people watching them but this lovely little dish by famous art potter Bernard Leach has a massive one hundred and nine watchers so I have high hopes for it.



It's the last day of the month and I am delighted that the lads in the factory hit this month's production target with a day to spare. Congratulations Tony and Jason for achieving this and to Dave, Gav and Jenny for making sure that it could happen. Sadly we won't hit my sales target on the invoicing side as, although we hit our sales target for orders, for some reason a lot of orders were wanted for delivery in May and not April. But on the positive side, this should give us a very good May.

There's a big event next week. No, I'm not talking about the antiques fair at the Reebok or Liverpool's visit to Hull. I've steered clear of commenting on the election so far but have been itching to put something on the blog. Without wanting Instanta to look partisan and, in the interests of impartiality, here are three short videos that I enjoyed. They rubbish the lot of them.

It's Still Vacant

I thought that with the huge volume of traffic that we see on here, one day on the blog would have sorted us out with our new Sales Manager but, despite one or two mentions of interest in the position, we've no firm applications yet.So, as I said yesterday, if you're good at sales and based in the south, get in touch.



I am indebted to our ace local photographer Peter Raymond for sending me this photo of an advertising billboard for an airline. Now who came up with that slogan? Quite brilliant.




I had a nice phone call from Calomax MD Tony. He phoned to say that he appreciated my gift of the last copy of my novel and was kind enough to tell me that not only had he read it but that he actually enjoyed reading it. The lady who painted the cover picture also emailed to say that she loved it so, apart from a few lukewarm and one hostile response, I've had a fair percentage of the twenty who I gave copies to who have given me positive feedback. The artist has suggested that I send more copies out to her and she has a friend who will sell them on the island upon which the island in my story is based.



Next weekend will see me as the Jamie Redknapp of the BBC's new antiques show. Regular readers will have seen that I recently applied to compete in their new Antiques Master quiz. I didn't make the first team but I am on the bench and am going to the recordings in case one of the other contestants drops out (and having seen the typical age group of antiques collectors at fairs, that is not beyond the realms of possibility). It will be an interesting couple of days and I am looking forward to it.

Finally hats off today to Steven Mulvain who wrote the briefing re the pope's forthcoming visit. I notice that Steven, like our son Paul, graduated at Balliol and it's good to see that the typical Balliol sense of humour is still alive and kicking. I'm glad that the Catholic church has not made a big fuss about it. Maybe they have got a sense of humour too - something that is sorely lacking in some of today's world religions.


We're off to John Lewis on Sunday as our sofas are in need of replacement. Have you seen their new ad? Good isn't it?

Feeling Old

We went to see Kick Ass last night (a film that does exactly what it says on the tin). It was a great night out and we both thoroughly enjoyed this comic book caper. The only problem was that, in a cinema that was completely full, we looked like a couple of pensioners who had stumbled into the wrong screen as, without a word of lie, we were at least twenty five years older than everyone else. Oh well, young at heart perhaps. Watching the star of the film 13 year old Chloe-Moretz reminded me of the first time I saw Jodie Foster. She was 14 in 1976 when she starred in Bugsy Malone and Taxi Driver and in the thirty years since there hasn't been another show stealing child star until now. Ignore all the talk about her using bad language, (it's just a few throwaway lines)you just can't take your eyes off her in every scene she appears in - quite brilliant. I can see a great future for her.



For the last few days I have been busy writing this new instruction booklet for our office staff. At the moment Max answers all the technical calls but when he is not here, I take them. As I won't be here at all in twelve months time we need some cover so, hopefully, this comprehensive guide will help. The most important piece of guidance in my opinion is to take control of the call. If you don't, you can be kept on the line for ages listening to someone who thinks they know everything about the boilers (but obviously don't)rambling on about resistance and amps and stuff like this when "have you switched it on at the on off switch?" often brings the response "is there one?".



Just got an email from Jen at Workhouse telling me that the next issue of Instanta Dealer News is almost ready to go. I just need to take a photo to finish it off and, if you are on our mailing list, you should have your copy next week.



Remember this? I printed twenty copies of my novel "Give your tomorrow" and gave them to family and friends. The feedback has been quite encouraging but the readers were family and friends and one family member told me it was rubbish so I lost heart a bit. Anyway, I have just found my last copy and it's a bit like my last Rollo. Who do I love enough to give my last copy? To prove that I am quite magnanimous, I have decided to give it to those lovely blokes from Calomax.It will give them something to read while they wait for the orders to come in.

I'm off to Anfield tonight. Miraculously Liverpool are still in Europe while Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United aren't. It should be an entertaining game. The season is almost over now and cricket will soon be back. Here's a snippet of what we have to look forward to.