Pete Like's Driving In His Car

Here's Northern Area Sales Manager Peter Brindle with his new Mazda 6TS2 which arrived yesterday. It's a lovely looking car but Pete says he has to put the seats down to get his golf clubs in. All I can say is "Well Peter. You chose it!"



We signed up to the 10:10 initiative that I mentioned on the blog yesterday and are going to do our best to cut our carbon footprint in 2010. You can do your bit by clicking here. Yesterday's Guardian was full of helpful tips including the wearing of thermal underwear and putting a brick in the loo cistern. But the best bit of advice was "share your newspapers". Now that's what I call magnanimous. A bit like a turkey voting for Christmas.



I just nipped out to the pictures to get the tickest for tonight's Orange Wednesday offering "Final Destination 3D". I'm really looking forward to it even if it is just the same old gory offering as the last one. 3d should make it far more interesting.



My head is spinning with figures as I have been preparing the forecast for next year. Hopefully we should do OK. I didn't know what pay level to put in as we usually agree an annual figure in line with inflation. But it seems that over 50% of companies have had no pay increase this year and those that have have averaged 1% or less. We'll have to see.


I'll close with a dedication to Peter.

We Are Backing The 10:10 Campaign

The Guardian is promoting the 10:10 campaign today. The campaign is aimed at encouraging individuals and businesses to reduce their energy use by 10% in 2010 hence the 10:10. Regular customers know that Instanta was amongst the first business of this type to establish a real environmental management system and we were accredited with the prestigious ISO 140001 by BSI as long ago as 2004. As a result it might be quite difficult for Instanta to achieve yet another 10% saving but we will be encouraging our customers to do so by implementing even more energy saving ideas in our new product range to be launched at Hotelympia in February 2010.



On a personal note, Marion and I intend to change all our spotlights for those made by our electronics supplier John Walkinshaw's company LED lighting solutions. I have mentioned these on the blog before but their energy saving potential is phenomenal. The product is the first true replacement for MR16 lamps, it uses LED technology to provide the same brightness as a normal lamp and yet uses only 7 watts of power compared to 50 watts for a normal lamp. It contains no harmful products unlike fluorescent lamps and emits a warm natural light for domestic use. In addition, the gas guzzling Mercedes is going back next week to be replaced by the Toyota Prius although unfortunately demand is such that we can't get one until January. (Thanks to my mum for loaning her car to put us on).



Marion and I had a month of not drinking wine in an attempt to lose weight. The month ended last night and I baked us a pizza to celebrate and cracked open a nice bottle of Californian Merlot brought by my mum. Amazingly this is the bottle this morning with almost half its contents still intact.If I had shown you that a month ago you would have asked me where the other empty bottle was. But do you know? We just couldn't be bothered. We're not going to come over all preachy and teetotal but we've realised that alcohol is no big deal.



Orange Wednesday tomorrow and this week we're off to see the new Final Destination in 3D. I know, I know it's not exactly high brow but it should be a bit of a laugh after a busy week of year end accounts and some escapism won't go amiss.


Things are steaming ahead with Paul and Josephine's wedding. They have now set up a website. It's really sweet. You will soon be able to check it out and I'll put a link on the blog.




And speaking of true love, did you see ITV's adaptation of Wuthering Heights last night? I thought it was great although I bet there wasn't a single person over 40 who didn't at some point hear Kate Bush singing in their head.