Let The Accolades Commence

I said that I planned to devote my last few weeks here to mentioning those who have helped contribute to Instanta's success over the last twenty years and I would like to start by mentioning local photographer Peter Raymond. Peter has been taking photographs for Instanta for the last five years and many people have commented upon the quality of the shots in our promotional material. Photographing shiny stainless steel boilers is not the simplest thing to do and Peter has been fastidious and a true perfectionist who always strives to achieve the best possible results. Look at any of Peter's photos and you won't find any unsightly reflections, incorrect shadows or smudges anywhere. He is an excellent all round photographer and, as you can see from his business card above, he is not a one trick pony and has far more than just industrial photography in his repertoire. Peter shares my love of The Pogues, The Archers and everything good on Radio 4 and we are on a similar wavelength on the social conscience front.Thanks for your excellent work Peter. I wish you every success for the future and will always look out for your Tweets on Twitter. Follow him @PeteRayUK

I don't know if Peter shares my love of The Apprentice but last night's episode was the best of the season so far. Alex Epstein pictured above with the beautiful but inaptly named Paloma (she's a long way from being a symbol of peace) somehow managed to stay in the show for yet another week despite exhibiting the entrepreneurial nous of a potato and speaking in the best apprentice speak possible (he's a "guru" who will make Lord Sugar billions). Mind you that's probably why he's still there. It is, after all, entertainment.

Which reminds me to remind you not to miss Paul's A League Of Their Own tonight at 10pm on Sky1 and Sky1HD. It's another double billing tonight with Amanda Holden, Kevin Pietersen, Joe Calzaghe and Patrick Kielty. It's bound to be funny although how on earth are they going to top John Bishop in spangly hot pants last week? I'm sure that they'll have a good stab at it.

I got home from work too late for the gym tonight so I'm going to have a go on the Wii fit for an hour. Not sure if I should as it keeps telling me that despite losing almost three stone I am still overweight and should be 11 stone (in which case I would be skin and bones). It also shows my Wii Mi figure as a very rotund fatty and then, to add further insult to injury, tells me that my Wii Age is no less than 73. Wait until I get that new hip, I'll give it 73.

Thought it might be nice to close with a song that Peter might enjoy. I certainly will.

No Hiding Place

Young Haylie Vidal thought that she had escaped my attention by taking a holiday on her recent birthday but I'm sorry Haylie, you don't get away that easily. Haylie was 20 last week and I am pleased to offer her our belated congratulations. She joined us in the summer after coming to us highly recommended by our service manager Max and you can't get a better recommendation that that (even if he is her dad).Haylie enjoys nothing more than a bit of shopping especially if it involves shoes and handbags. She is doing very well in the office, where she is involved in dealing with the cash and bank statements and is also learning to run the credit control department. You may hear from her if you are late in paying your account but try and make her life easy and pay us on time.

As we are winding down towards our retirement in just under five weeks I have found a bit more time for my hobby of selling on eBay. I recently listed this great little map of the smaller islands surrounding Great Britain and hope that it sells well. It's a really nice example and, for almost 300 years old, is in good condition.

Whilst it's good to collect old things and buying antiques for use is extremely green, I still don't understand those who collect animal heads as trophies. I know I'm a bit late and it's yesterday's news but I was really saddened to read about the stag known as The Emperor Of Exmoor that has been shot. I have read a lot of the arguments both pro and anti but even if the stag was past his prime, the deer population has to be kept under control and his carcass will be eaten and not wasted, there is something extremely undignified in the mounting of his magnificent head on a board and hanging it on display as a trophy. Such a fabulous animal deserved better than that. Lets hope the Emperor has the last laugh and his head falls off the wall and brains the brainless hunter.

A quick word about "Getting On" the wonderful sit com which is now in its second series - sadly in the wilderness that is BBC4. It's so refreshing to see such a realistic and genuinely funny programme about old people heading towards the oblivion of senility in a medical ward and the hospital team that looks after them. Written by and starring Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan it is beautifully observed and in Doctor Pippa Moore, Vicki Pepperdine has created a character to rank alongside David Brent in the annals of comedy brilliance. Do watch it.


Aplogies if you have a few problems getting hold of Instanta on the phone today and tomorrow. We are having a brand new all singing, all dancing switchboard fitted in preparation for the switch back from the wonders of VOIP to plain old ordinary phones.We are all in favour of the latest technology but VOIP sellers please don't come back to us until it's totally reliable.


I'll leave you today with a pretty awesome film called "People Are Awesome". You will have seen some of this but you won't have seen it all.

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 .

It Never Rains But It Pours

The saga of the Freezone internet finally came to an end yesterday and the Instanta broadband was back online after almost three weeks of being down. During the three weeks, the lads from MCS (our local computer company) have been regular faces here in the office in their attempts to reconnect us to the outside world and when they were not waiting for Freezone to answer the phone they made a few suggestions for improvements to the current network. A new shelf in the computer tower would make sense and take strain off some wires that were a bit overstretched. So Tony arranged for said shelf to be fabricated this morning and when Kevin put it into place he managed to do something to one of the wires which resulted not only in us no longer having any broadband but no computer network. So, having gone from being without email and internet we went to having no computers at all. As I write (on my own laptop) one of the MCS lads is taking our server back for inspection and I can only hope that the problem isn’t fatal. I sometimes think that we are reliving a Charlie Chaplin, Norman Wisdom or M Hulot film here.

Speaking of Norman Wisdom, Marion and I returned to Preston on the train from Euston on Sunday evening. After running over Marion’s toes with his wheeled suitcase, a young man settled into a seat at the adjacent table. It was soon clear that he had consumed rather a lot of alcohol before boarding as he sat down beaming inanely from ear to ear. He proceeded to unpack a large rucksack. The first item to come out was a small electric kettle which he plugged into the computer point. He then knocked the kettle over and soaked the table. Changing his mind about a nice cup of tea he delved back into the rucksack, belched heartily and opened a can of beer. A laptop came out of the bag next quickly followed by a pile of sandwiches and a DVD which he started to play on the laptop. He put headphones on to listen but then asked everyone in the loudest voice imaginable if it was too loud. It wasn’t, he was. Apart from his constant chuckling at his film the rest of the journey was uneventful but the announcement of his stop was pretty late and the scene as he repacked the rucksack with soaking kettle, laptop, soggy sandwiches a couple of hats and his DVD taking each out at least twice and putting them in another section was memorable. As he left he dropped one of his hats and another passenger had to chase after him. Fortunately he was a harmless drunk but if he had been an aggressive one the journey would have been extremely uncomfortable.

So that’s put an end to today’s blog. It’s my birthday today. We’re going to see The Town at the cinema tonight but before then I am going to have to go and work on some accounts at home. Maybe I’ll get a chance to get back to normal when the server is back.

Wham Bam Thank You Mam

Went to see Salt last night. Just getting my breath back.If you are prepared to suspend belief ,strap yourself in and hang on for a 99 minute white knuckle ride with never a dull moment and watch as Angelina single handedly takes on the CIA,KGB,FBI and NYPD with a performance that makes Rambo look a bit of a wuss.If you are looking for any depth, forget it. If (like me) you used to enjoy running around the school playground machine gunning all your mates with an imaginary Tommy gun, you'll love it.



I spent an hour on the Treasury's Spending Challenge website last night. You can check it out here. It is full of ideas submitted by the Great British Public on how the government can save money quickly. You can log in and vote on the ideas that you like. Your first thoughts will be "I've got an idea. Scrap schools completely. That will save a fortune as it's obvious that they are doing nothing as hardly anybody can spell". Yes, the standard of grammar, punctuation and spelling in these ideas is woeful. Once you've got beyond the spelling you will find that the majority of the five star ideas (as voted by the public)are based around immigrants and how to stop giving them money. Other fantastic ideas include one to fit prisons out with huge exercise yards and get the prisoners pedalling on adapted bikes that are connected to the national grid so that we can get free electricity. I am surprised that the person who submitted this idea did not go on to suggest that if the prisoners showed signs of flagging we could send the power back the other way and fry the buggers. I do recommend the site. There are hundreds of ideas there. We should have put one in suggesting that every public sector office that still has kettles swaps them for boilers.



We've been invited to join some friends for a drink and a bite to eat at the wonderful Eagle and Child at Bispham Green tonight. I suppose we'll have to stick to slimline tonics and salads if we are going to stay on track with the diet. We are on week 14 but it's starting to feel like week 41.Today's lunch looks good "Prawn Mayo And Salad With Rice Cakes" but when I look at the ingredients there's no mayo. That's a bit of a cheat.Oh well. I have lost over two stone so far and there's just half a stone to go. But it is starting to feel like it's becoming the never ending diet.



I'm following David Milliband on Twitter. It's nice to follow politicians as they actually take an interest in who is following them. But just one point David, text messages sent after eleven pm (or at least received after 11pm) are not exactly going to make me happy to support your leadership bid. It's hard enough getting to sleep as it is without the beeping phone beeping in the middle of the night.

If Angelina Jolie had been wearing a camera on her head throughout the shooting of some of the chases in Salt ,it might look a bit like this.Pretty amazing.

Welcome Rob

I am delighted to welcome Rob Pennington who has joined Instanta as our new Southern Area Sales Manager. This is a brand new position and represents a 50% increase in our sales force. Rob,40, is a northerner who is now based in Reading. He's keen on cycling,snow boarding and football and is a devoted father to nine year old Nathaniel.Rob has a background in the catering industry having worked for Bunzl in the past. I wish him every success and hope that he enjoys working for us.



Regular blog readers (I flatter myself to think that there might be such people) will have noted the absence of blogs on Wednesday and Thursday. This was due to my total immersion in figures in preparation for the audit which is starting soon. I have completed the accounts for the ten months to 30th June (our new financial year end) and I have to say that they look pretty good and our new owners should be pleased that the results vary little from those forecast when we were in our negotiations. My own personal targets run for a different period so I hope that the success continues.



Excitement mounts(sort of) in the build up to one of our regular ten pin bowling nights which is scheduled for Wednesday. Twenty Instanta players will be enjoying a couple of games of bowling together with some very unhealthy food and a couple of drinks at the Southport Bowl. I can't play due to my bad hip but I will be interested in the results. Marion and I will be in London watching the recording of Josephine's show "Perfection". And talking of perfection I wonder how many scores of 300 will be recorded. We haven't had one yet but I think that welder Kirk Harrison who had a storming game last time with strike after strike might be the first to do it.



My interest in the World Cup final is now negligible with the defeat of Germany by the boring Spanish who managed an extremely unimpressive series of 1-0 wins on their way to the final. The commentators keep saying excitedly that they are waiting for the Spanish to hit their real form but come on! Have they not realised that they have hit form and their tactics are designed to simply absorb pressure and win on the break? Which is a bit like their opponents Holland who do the same with added clogging (at least the Spanish are not a dirty side). Which means that Sunday night should have 0-0 stamped all over it. At least one of my favourite players, Dirk Kuyt, will be appearing in a World Cup final which will be one over on his team mate "superstar" Stevie G who is still worshipped in Liverpool whilst Dirk is referred to by most as a boring "workhorse" with no ball control. If I were the new manager and had to chose to keep only one of the two there would be no argument. Kuyt is the perfect manager's player. He does exactly what is asked of him for a full ninety minutes. Good luck Dirk.

When we retire in a couple of months I need to get myself a new mobile phone as I will have to return my company phone. I've been looking at the iPhone. Do you get the balloons with it or are they an optional extra?

Blimey Kirk You Kept That Quiet

Here's Kirk Harrison our welder, the real ale lover and beekeeper who, to every body's surprise, went and got married to girlfriend Gillian on Saturday. Kirk planned the ceremony very secretly as he wanted the minimum of fuss and arrived back at work on Tuesday as normal.He will be taking a honeymoon in the late summer when the happy couple plan to visit Italy to take in some of the culture and, of course, the wine.



Not long now before the fate of the England team is known. It seems that nobody here at Instanta is bothered. We arranged for anyone who wanted to watch the match to do so if they took a very late lunch and stayed on until six fifteen to make up the time but it seems that rumbling stomachs took the better of them and nobody could manage to wait an extra hour and three quarters without eating so I will be watching almost alone. (I'm used to going without food now that I am into the fifth week of my diet). Not sure if I can be bothered as, let's face it, their attitude to the fans and to the management is pathetic. What a load of spoilt brats. If they do come home tomorrow it certainly won't be to a heroes' welcome. I see that the French are in an even worse mess with Thiery Henry being summoned before Sarkozy to explain why the team embarrassed the nation. I would have thought it was obvious. You take a player like Annelka with his track record of petulance and fall outs with both team mates and managers with you and you are asking for trouble.



Nick and I went down to Chiswick yesterday to interview a number of candidates for our new Southern Area Sales Manager position. The interviews went fairly well and we are mulling over our decision. I have to say though that I was disappointed that a couple of the candidates did not even know what we made. You couldn't make it up.



I can here that the match is just starting on the radio. Slovenia at 9-1 to win look like a pretty good bet to me. Oh well I'll finish for now with a girl who will grow up to be a WAG.

So Now The End Is Near

Yes, today we are approaching our final Hotelympia curtain.It has been a very good show. The tales of impending doom that spread when major manufacturers like Lincat decided not to exhibit have proved unfounded and our stand has been busy with a steady flow of customers for most of the time. We've met a few new potential customers and have had the opportunity to show the latest models and new catalogue to lots of our existing ones.





We also had the chance last night to visit newlyweds Josephine and Paul. It was good to catch up with them and hear about the honeymoon in Cuba. It sounds a brilliant if slightly quirky destination and will certainly be on our wish list for a holiday when we retire. They had a great time and are both looking well and relaxed.



It has also been great to see the amount of publicity Sky have poured into Paul's show "A League Of Their Own" which launches a week today on Sky1 at 8pm. Paul has been involved in developing this show for many months and we are all looking forward to seeing it. We've got a small gathering coming round to watch at our house and we hope that it's the success that the effort deserves.



This week has flown by but it has been good to catch up with old acquaintances (sometimes for the last time). We went out for dinner with Dave and Amanda from City Servicing on Monday. They are a super couple and they run an outstanding service company. We will be back at Instanta tomorrow and then on Saturday we are travelling to Langar Hall near Nottingham for the social event of the year (or the second social event following Paul's wedding). Our dear friends David and Janet Wareing's daughter Lizzie is 21 and they are hosting a black tie dinner in her honour. It promises to be a wonderful affair. It's hard to believe that Lizzie is 21. It's a cliche but it really does only feel like five minutes since she arrived on the scene. She's got a great sense of humour and we are really looking forward to the event.

Here's a dedication to Lizzie. It also goes out to Mario at Instanta who was also celebrating earlier this week.