It's Starting To Sink In

We had a big meeting here at Instanta yesterday and one of the items on the agenda was our giving notice of our resignation from the Instanta board. Even though we have known about our retirement for over ten months now it still felt quite strange reading out a letter of resignation to the company that has been part of our lives for so long. But it's all done and dusted now and the letter is on file and we will officially have nothing to do with the company with effect from 30th November.

I only had time to briefly mention our office cleaner Dave Boutle's birthday yesterday. I wished him a happy birthday and he told me today that he had a pleasant night out at a Formby restaurant although he felt that their prawns defied the Trade Descriptions act being smaller than shrimps. I will miss Dave when we leave as he always has a good tale to tell. He is interested in antiques and, like me, he is a bit of an eBay fan. He trades under the name Lydiate_Boutie and is widely regarded as a world expert in hostess trolleys which are far more saleable than you might think. He also has a specialist interest in fenders and has sold some fine examples.He is fiercely proud of his 100% feedback record and goes out of his way to maintain it even if it means taking a loss.I'm sure that our paths will cross again at various auctions and antiques fairs.

One thing that struck me at yesterday's meeting was how well the sous vide machines are doing. They are really outside our core business as we are well known for water boilers but the lateral thinking behind the range is that water boilers = catering equipment creating hot water = sous vide. Simple really. So in future think Instanta = Catering Equipment and see what we think of next. As a very large proportion of our customers are catering equipment dealers it's all pretty logical.

Being in the office all day I haven't had much time to read about George Osborne's cuts but my son Paul, who is a fierce Labour supporter, asked me at lunchtime what was wrong with running a deficit. It's a bit like when I was a bank manager really. There was nothing wrong with customers running an overdraft as long as it was within their means and it's something that Instanta has had no problems in using over the past fifteen years. The problem comes when there is an overdraft,no profit and no prospect of paying the overdraft back.That's when the business has to take real steps to economise even if it means painful redundancies. The alternative is to face up to defaulting. As a dyed in the wool Guardian reader I am a bit out of sync with most of my fellow readers and indeed virtually everyone I follow on Twitter who are all dead against the Tory cuts. But let's face reality. If Instanta had spent more than its income year after year after year I would not be leaving to a hopefully comfortable retirement and our staff would not be facing the secure future that they do now. So I do think that it is essential to reduce the deficit and I can't really think of a more sociable alternative much as I would like to do so. And as for the French? Striking over a proposed retirement age of 62 ils vivent dans la terre de coucou de nuage.

Orange Wednesday today. Not a massive choice tonight so we've opted for Wall St Money Never Sleeps which has the most convenient showing time. Reviews are poor so we don't have great expectations but with the Orange two for one offer it's a cheap night out. I just hope that Orange will come up with a new ad soon. I'm really sick of seeing Jack Black doing his Gulliver Travels puppet joke. Bring back the old pitch ads. I could watch them time and again.

Well That's Next Wednesday Night Sorted Then

At last a film with decent reviews arrives at the local Vue. "The Last Exorcism" is right up Marion's street as she loves nothing more than a bit of horror - she married me! And it was reviewed with no less than four stars in today's Guardian which means that it should be passable at least. So that's Orange Wednesday sorted and, as I am going to see the specialist about my hip on Wednesday morning it will be a chance to get the horrors of the impending operation off my mind.



The Guardian devoted an entire page of the G2 section to sous vide cooking yesterday. The writer expressed surprise at how delicious the food that he cooked in the water bath was, although it was no surprise to us at all having seen the benefits of this method of cooking several years ago and acting upon our taste buds and developing our prize winning SV25 and SV38. Our sous vide water baths were developed in close consultation with leading chefs and are built with all the features that they demanded including our unique internal water agitation system.



With the prospect of a holiday next year after two years without one we have been planning carefully and are thinking of a return to Ile De Re. Looking at the photo you might wonder what the attraction is of a flat featureless French island but we hope to get back on our bikes and Ile De Re is perfect being criss-crossed with miles of purpose made cycle tracks with two or three lovely little towns on pretty harbours and the flatness should be a big help with bedding in the new hip. Only problem was that last time we went the weather was so (uncharacteristically) bad that we christened it Ile De Rain.




A week on Monday Stephen Fry is performing his one man show at the Royal Festival Hall.It is being used as promotion for his autobiography and as an experiment the show is being broadcast live at cinemas around the country so we bought a few tickets to see it at FACT in Liverpool. Problem is we might have something else on that evening so, if anybody out there is interested get in touch. We may still be able to go but we won't know for sure until Wednesday next. As it is almost sold out, we should have no trouble finding someone to take them off us.

Have a good weekend. I was going to embed the brilliantly innovative new YouTube video for Tipp-Ex but it can't be embedded. But you can check it out here. So instead I'll embed the now famous dancing dog. If you haven't already seen it, have a look it's a brilliant dog.

You didn't read my earlier post

If you did read today's blog a little earlier, please ignore it as I have just received an email asking me not to mention my lead story until March. And if you didn't read it you won't have a clue what I am talking about. Nothing unusual there then.


Northern Area Sales Manager Peter Brindle is smiling today. Our sales figures for January showed an increase on 2009 so that is two months running when we have moved forwards in our current financial year. The year can sometimes be like a big game of snakes and ladders as some months have more days in them than others and, as we tend to sell from stock rather than advanced orders, those working days can make a big difference.For example there are 23 working days in March and just 20 in February and that's a difference of 15%.



It's the first of the month and I'm delighted to say that we paid all our bills this morning. We always like to pay promptly because it would be somewhat hypocritical if we started chasing our own customers for payment when we hadn't paid our own outstanding accounts. So now we can start chasing with a clear conscience.



Our South African agent Vin Meagher is going to use the World Cup to promote a "Warm Cup" by featuring our super Heated Cup Carousels. Vin tells me that even though we always associate South Africa with hot weather, the tournament is being held in the winter and some of the venues in the higher areas can be bitterly cold. Good idea Vin. Hope it's a success for you.

We had to miss Orange Wednesday last week as Marion was not well. I wonder if this new release will get to Southport?

Blogger's Block

It's a bit like writer's block I suppose but at least when you are writing a book or an article or something to go in the next super Instanta brochure you can walk away for a couple of hours and seek inspiration. But a blog? It's supposed to be a daily thing, something immediate and vital. "Since when has the Instanta blog ever been vital?" I hear you ask.But as I sit staring at a blank screen I feel ike a man on death row. My time is running out. (Sorry I've just reread that I don't feel ike. I don't know any Ike's and if there are any out there I don't want to feel them).

I've got to get the blog up before midday or there's little point in blogging.

But hang on a minute. The screen's no longer blank. There's a whole paragraph of drivel and now there's this. Every time I touch the keypad the words move a little further along the screen.

Gigolos for the older woman. " Now what is he talking about?" you ask. Well Nick just came in and said to me he had a great new business idea. I'm not sure who he had in mind (certainly not me looking at my photo on yesterday's blog when I looked like a Belsen survivor) but here he is.

What do you think? Has it got legs? "Has he got legs?" I hear you ask. Oh well. That filled up another bit of white space.



We're off to Manchester to do some shopping tomorrow. Now there's some interesting news. That's equal to - we watched the telly last night or I had Fruitful for breakfast. Tap tap. Is there anybody still there?






I know. I'll tell you about our lucky competition winner. Yes Bruno Gautier of The Hare Restaurant in Hungerford won one of our wonderful SV25 sous vide digital water baths in the recent competition in Caterer and Hotelkeeper. Trouble is Bruno doesn't know yet as the restaurant is closed until next week. Well Bruno if you do any of that vanity Googling that our Nick loves so much (or is that vanity Gigoling now?), maybe you'll discover that you are the winner. I did send an email but if Bruno's spam filter is anything like ours a message headed "Congratulations You have Won" will be mouldering away with a pile of emails trying to sell him acai berries or male organ enhancers.

Our friend Amanda Sweeney from the wonderful City Servicing sent me this video. She reckons that her husband Dave reckons this is her. Now a radical liberal like me would never make such claims but as it was sent to me by a woman I feel safe (sort of) posting it.Have a good weekend.

Out of the frying pan.

After two sleepless nights in our Holiday Inn Express room positioned on the Tay Bridge in Dundee we asked for a change. The receptionist kindly moved us to the back of the hotel and peace from the incessant traffic noise. Our delight was sadly short lived as we found ourselves alongside the top of a multi storey car park. There were no cars in the car park but there were about thirty floodlights. The local seagull population has commandeered every one of these as permanent roosts. We learned that seagulls don’t sleep either and if you can imagine the racket that thirty seagulls can make you will understand why we are now contemplating asking to be returned to the heavy traffic room tonight.

Noise apart we’ve had a pleasant few days in St Andrews visiting our daughter Sarah who has recently bought a new house with her partner Duncan. We’ve been driving around garden centres and DIY stores and Sarah now has a variety of new plants, pots, a parasol, a sun-bed and a chimenea to go with the John Lewis table and chairs which arrived bang on time as promised. Marion has been digging the garden and helping Sarah to plant everything up.





The table and chair instructions said to allow five minutes to assemble each chair and fifteen minutes for the table. That makes a total of forty-five minutes for the lot. It took me longer than that to take them out of their boxes and it was close to three hours when I sat back and admired my handiwork. Even then there were some screws that I hadn’t enough strength to tighten right up. It really is a great outdoor set though.





It’s our last night in Scotland tonight so we are off to The Seafood Restaurant in St Andrews. It’s a superb restaurant located right on the seafront in a modern glass building. I wonder if they do any sous vide cooking? I’ll have to leave a brochure with the chef.



Going to The Seafood Restaurant means no Orange Wednesday so we'll have to make it pink Thursday and go and see Bruno when we get back to Southport. I see today that the film has been banned in The Ukraine (yet more publicity for Sacha Baron Cohen. When will they learn!). It seems that so many under 18s have been trying to get in to see the film and been turned away that the producers are rushing out a censored version with a lower rating than the current 18. We watched the Inbetweeners on Channel 4 last night. I'm sure that they would be at the front of the queue trying to get in - at least Simon would be at the front of the queue with Jay at the back telling him what to do - brilliant comedy, if you haven't seen it check it out.

Artificial Sperm Whatever Next?

Did you read about the new scientific breakthrough - artificial sperm? It's a bit scary isn't it? I mean everyone wants to help infertile couples and, having a family member with several chronic diseases attacking their auto immune system, I'm all in favour of science and stem cell research. But how do they test it? It looks like sperm, it wiggles like sperm but would you want to be the first to try it? Fortunately the scientists have no intentions to create humans with it at the moment. They've called it In Vitro Derived sperm. I misread it at first as DeVito derived sperm and was imagining a new race of five foot tall actors.



No winner yet for Friday's competition. You can win £50 off your order by ordering a boiler, cup holder or sous vide unit and being the first to answer a very simple question about our sous vide digital water baths. We have sold out of our first batch of units which is a great start.Check last Friday's blog for full details.



Here's our favourite APC driver Steve getting ready for his charity act at The Mount Hotel in Orrell Rd Wigan. Steve's group is The Ship Inn Follies,his stage name is Zara Swallows and his burlesque drag cabaret has already raised over £1,000 for his local hospice. If you are near Wigan look out for the Follies' shows. I'm sure you'll have a hilariously ribald night out. For more photos of Steve and his friends in action check HERE



Dave Wilson and Gavin are busy with the BSI Environmental Management System inspector at the moment. We've got assembly worker Sean Johnson running on the treadmill in our gym and have told the inspector that we are using Sean to power all the lights in the factory. I think he was suitably impressed.



A few months ago I came up with an idea for a novel and within a few days started writing with a vengeance. I am now up to 48,000 words and my adventure yarn has somehow morphed into a romance - it basically just dragged me along with it. It's probably too short to be published although it has a proper beginning a middle and an end and I don't want to pad it out unnecessarily just for the sake of reaching the magic 70,000 words beloved of publishers. Perhaps I'll have to send it to Mills and Boon, their books are quite short.I've had writers block for three days now trying to come up with a title.



Did you see see ace Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker's new panel show "You Have Been Watching" on Channel Four last night. The show was basically Charlie's "Screen Wipe" with a few celebrity guests brought along for the ride and was best when Charlie was delivering one of his acerbic rants to camera. He must watch one hell of a lot of TV to discover the US show "Deadliest Warrior" that compares fighters throughout history and decides which would have won e.g Shaka Zulu v Robert The Bruce (not kidding) and, even more bizarrely the IRA v the Taliban. Guess who wins.

Whatever Happened To Huge Instanta Sales?

I'm on a bit of a roll at the moment. Writing "Whatever happened to swine flu?" ended up with a pandemic being announced a week later. "Whatever happened to the barbecue summer?" left us with a glorious weekend so "Whatever happened to huge Instanta sales?" has to guarantee a bumper crop of orders in June. I only just wrote that and an order for 12 boilers came out of the FAX. Midas touch or what? I could be on to something here. "Whatever happened to instant weight loss?" Let's wait and see.



A new face in the office this morning. Here's assembly worker Lee Moore fresh from his 30th birthday last week. Young mum Natalie Drummond is missing baby Olivia and has decided to leave us soon. When Lee heard about it he asked if he could have a taster of life in the office to see if there might be an opening for him. After spending an hour with me trying to explain bank statements he could be forgiven for deciding it's not for him but he actually kept up very well with my somewhat speedy tuition style. Marion is now going through the banking with him and he has answered a few phone calls. It's a beautiful day and the rest of the assembly team are enjoying their weekly day off (it's a four day week in the factory) so Lee should have a good idea by the end of the day if office life's for him.



The Sous Vide equipment is rolling off the production line and is selling like hot cakes or should I say like hot water baths. It's hardly surprising. A hell of a lot of research and development went into these units and, as you can see, they look brilliant. If we loaned a unit to every distributor that chefs have asked for a trial we would have to shift production up a gear. We are loaning a few out but the trials can only be for a few days as the demand is overwhelming.



Today's special offer is 10% off the DB2000. This superb push button unit was launched last year and has already become a favourite for self service. The unique locking feature has also made it a big hit with prisons and high security units. To qualify for this offer of £675 instead of £750 (a £75 saving) orders must reach Instanta by 5pm on Tuesday 16th June 2009 and MUST quote blog offer 150609

I learned an interesting lesson on Friday night. Internet gambling,wine and ignorance are best not mixed. I had a small flutter on "Big Brother" before going to bed. Only a couple of quid on three housemates whose odds were so high that they could only come down in weeks to come. I only saw the BB opening night and had no idea what had been going on last week. When I got up on Saturday and soberly checked how things were going I discovered that all three of my picks had already left the house!



I got home from work on Friday and the humane mouse trap was shut. That was a bit nerve wracking. So I gingerly picked it up and listened. Not a sound. So I drove to the park and wandered not at all self consciously into some long grass (avoiding curious glances from passers by who probably thought I was a pervert spying on the kiddies playground). I held the trap just above the ground and pulled off the cap to shake out......... cheese! I'd just driven to the park to release a lump of cheddar.Check the blog out for next week's installment when I will be releasing a dollop of Gorgonzola.

I'll finish today with the new art exhibition at Bristol museum. In case you haven't heard about it (I'm sure you will have)the curator of the museum allowed urban artist Banksy to take over the whole place and mount his own show. I'm not sure about Banksy. The show certainly looks like being a lot of fun but Banksy pieces are now changing hands for six figure numbers (Brad and Angelina are amongst his supporters)and I have to ask if urban art has now sold out?