Another Day Another Great Supplier

How many fliers arrive in the post on an average day? Four or five perhaps? Maybe ten on a busy day. How many go straight into the bin? If you are anything like me it would be 99.9%. And yet one very simple, very amusing and very straight to the point little cartoon booklet sent by Workhouse Marketing at the end of 2007 not only grabbed my attention but compelled me to do what it suggested and get in touch. I figured that if anybody could get my attention in the seconds betwixt envelope and bin, they must be people worth talking to.

And I figured right. I got in touch and went to see Workhouse MD Mark Jones in his offices in delightful rural Lancashire and was totally impressed by the Workhouse set up. If workhouses conjure up dark images of starving children begging for more, nothing could be further from the truth as the bright design studio was staffed by a happy team of young people working with the very latest technology. I immediately warmed to the Workhouse set up and was confident that they had the skill to take Instanta further.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Our 2008 brochure won plenty of plaudits from our customers and would be hard to match but Workhouse pulled out all the stops again last year and, as I leave the company, I feel that our latest brochure (above)is our best ever. Considering that Instanta is a British manufacturer and that the country has just been through the worst recession in living memory I have to thank Workhouse for their help in providing us with the sales and promotional material necessary to weather that storm and sail through with an increase in sales that went against the industry trend.

They are not a company to rest upon their laurels and have invested heavily in developing their business and now have a purpose built photographic studio and an excellent in house photographer. Their repertoire extends far beyond sales brochures as you can see from their last year's Xmas video which ends today's blog and captures the company's sense of humour perfectly.

It's very rare for me to enthuse so effusively about a company but it is extremely rare to come across a company that has values that are close to my heart. In the end all business has to be about profit, without it the country would grind to a halt, but other things are important too such as ensuring that clients and staff are valued equally. I feel that, in running their business, Mark and his wife Nita have applied similar principles to those used by us here at Instanta. It has worked for us and it works for them and I am happy to recommend them strongly. Sharing many interests and tastes it is no surprise that we have become firm friends away from the working environment and we have enjoyed dining out with Mark and Nita at several excellent North West establishments and are looking forward to meeting up with them again in a couple of weeks. 

I don't share Mark's passion for rugby which saw him and Nita flying to South Africa to follow the British Lions last year and has made him a near ever present at Wales Rugby internationals but he also loves cricket and even goes to watch Blackburn Rovers from time to time (although whether that marks him out as a football enthusiast or merely a masochist is open to question).Mark and Nita, who, like Marion, does a hard job in credit control amongst many other things, have two sons Ben and Tom. Ben, (front) who works at Workhouse is just off to Australia on a sabbatical, whilst Tom has opened an excellent wine shop in nearby Whalley named, appropriately, The Whalley Wine Shop. It stocks an excellent range of wines and a big variety of other drinks and is well worth a short detour when you travel along the A59.

Before finishing with that video, a quick word about Steve Gerrard. I have been highly critical of Stevie G over the last few years. It's not that I don't think he's a good player, his ability has always been beyond doubt. It's just that I felt that he had become a scowling prima donna who, instead of inspiring inferior players with his captaincy and leadership, treated them with contempt and limited Liverpool's performances by not involving them in the play. Last night he rose above that, played as part of the team and inspired Liverpool to a win that at half time looked extremely unlikely. Hat's off to him. But come on Steve, can we please see more smiles and less scowling. And supporters, whilst being able to pass the ball forty yards may well be a fine asset what has being big and f******g hard got to do with it?

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 .

Say It Ain't So Joe

I woke up this morning to the news that the team that I have been supported since I was a boy is being sold to the owners of the Boston Red Sox. I am not one of the histerical "Yanks Out" brigade, I love the USA and one of my favourite relatives is American but after the debacle that has turned a once great football club into a laughing stock, more American interest will be as welcome as Sir Alex Ferguson on the Kop. Having watched "The Town" recently I can see some connections in twinning Liverpool with Boston - it's difficult to understand what people are saying and there's a fair bit of gang warfare going on - but if the present owners had wanted to depart with some miniscule level of respect from the fans, another US connection is hardly the way to go about things. Judging from the boardroom battles going on at present it is perhaps unlikely that Hicks and Gillette will get their way on the sale but will someone who has the final say on it please veto this madness? I grew up with the club being owned and run by the parochial and philanthropic Moores family and it had the air of a family club for decades.The heart was torn out when the Moores' heir sold the business and I can't ever see it coming back. Today's a sad day.

Thursday 7 Oct. NB SInce first writing this yesterday I have read more and understand that the prospective purchaser is not Hicks and Gillett's choice and that they will lose a fortune if the sale goes through. It doesn't change my sentiments though. There's no chance of us ever getting our club back and this is my last season as a fan. Another sad day.

At last, a photo of the newest Instanta baby, Alfie. Andy Fyles and his partner Claire came into the office with the latest addition to the family and he slept like a er baby? throughout the visit. He was exactly six pounds when he was born and Andy tells me that Alfie's big sister Bethany has taken ownership of her new brother.

I said on here a couple of weeks ago that I was fast approaching the target weight in the diet and I would write about it when I did so. Well, I hit the target of 12st 3lbs on Saturday and was going to write a long glowing endorsement of tescodiets.com. Having lost 35lbs (that's almost six Alfies at birth) I was delighted but then I logged onto the site the following day and found that the goalposts had been moved and my target weight was now 11st 13lbs. That's a bit scary as even my new clothes are starting to feel loose so I think I will give the new target a miss and try and stay at on or around 12st 2lbs. I can't really knock Tesco's online diet though. It's not too expensive (about £79 for six moths but there are discounts available) and if you stick to the menus it works. I've eaten (and really enjoyed) better breakfasts and lunches than I have ever eaten and enough organic chicken to empty a battery farm and enough fruit to clear Covent Garden. The only real drawback is that the evening meals are pretty small and my alcohol intake has gone from three or four bottles of wine a week to one or less. Tonight we're off to a chain restaurant near the cinema to celebrate - we'll probably be back to square one after that.

There are less than eight weeks to go now before Marion and I retire and this afternoon I have the daunting task of trying to explain to two very competent but untrained people here at Instanta how to do the monthly management accounts. Everything else in the business has been delegated and the transition has gone smoothly but this is an area that you can't really pick up in an afternoon and I think that we may have to look at getting in outside or parental company help. I know that Craig and Dave will have a real stab at it but it's not going to be easy for them.

When we retire we'll have plenty of time to catch up on all those TV series like "Mad Men", the last series of "The Sopranos" and "The Wire" that we missed. We'll also be able to watch some kids' TV which, judging from this, will be well worth watching.

It's Supposed To Be Entertainment

It was August 1967 when I first handed over my four bob (20p in today's money),pushed through the turnstile and gazed in awe at the steep staircase ahead of me. At the top of the stairs was a dark tunnel through which a tumultuous noise was coming. I entered the tunnel to see the mighty Kop in all its glory and I was hooked. In the forty three years that followed I have been a regular on the Kop and a season ticket holder for the majority of those years. Why? Well the main reason is that I loved the whole thing, the game the noise, the spectacle - the tremendous atmosphere. I was happy to hand over my cash even when it escalated from a few shillings to twenty and then thirty quid and is today pushing forty. Because I was being entertained.


On Saturday I couldn't make it to Anfield as I was celebrating in London with Marion. A couple of years ago I wouldn't have considered missing a match but sadly my whole reason for going to Anfield - to be entertained - is evaporating in an acrimonious cloud of poison. There was a time when the players would beam out from the photos in the programmes with smiles on their faces but today there's a near universal hard man scowl. It was nice if we won but no big deal if we didn't as long as it was a good match. After all it was entertainment, like going to the cinema or a concert.


Last Saturday a supporters' group demonstrated before, during and after the match at Anfield and staged a sit in. More is planned for this Sunday. I sympathise with the group. I understand their hatred at the way that the club became big business and was taken over by soulless money men looking to make a quick buck and I share their frustration at seeing the one time colossus shrinking towards oblivion. But what are the demonstrations going to achieve? What is their purpose? To tell the owners we don't want them there? Well I would have thought that was pretty obvious to them by now. All they are achieving is distracting the players and distracting the crowd from what, after all, they are paying (through the nose) to see. Staying behind after the match to vent spleen at the owners who most likely are not even there is only going to get the protestors hoarse with shouting. The only people being damaged by the protests are those who want to watch an entertaining game and then get home in a decent time. Everyone knows that the ownership of the club is a disaster, the demonstrations will achieve zilch other than perhaps a burnt Sunday dinner. Until the club is either repossessed by RBS or sold to a new owner we'll just have to take it and hope that someone on the pitch gives us cause to smile. Here's hoping for Sunday.





As you make your sandwiches tomorrow spare a thought for the bloke who bought this loaf from his supermarket. He though that the bread looked a bit of a funny colour at one end and then saw it was a mouse. Oh well, at least he spotted it and found it was complete - except for the tail.


I'm away from the office today but I hear that the broadband is back up and running after three weeks. Normal blogging should return shortly.

The Customer Is Always Right

We’ve always accepted that age old cliché here at Instanta but an incident this week has left me questioning its truth. A few days ago a customer phoned up to place an order. We quoted a price to him upon which he blew a fuse and said that the price was not the one that he had on his price list. We courteously told him that we had sent him a new price list in July and that he was on our mailing list and should have received it. Instead of calmly saying that he had not received it (in which case we might have come to a fair agreement and perhaps split the difference with him or even honoured the old price), he continued with such a tirade of abuse that our (totally innocent) employee on the receiving end was visibly shaken. There’s no place in business (or in any other part of life) for bullying, especially when the victim is relatively junior, has no say whatsoever in our pricing policies and is a totally innocent party. So, is the customer always right? Certainly not in this case and I would like to suggest a saying for him to take on board in future. “Do as you would be done by”.

I trudged up to Anfield last night to witness another nail being hammered into the coffin of the football club that I have followed since I was twelve. I know it was only the Carling Cup and Liverpool put out an under strength side but they were playing what equates to fourth division opposition and at least six of the team have plenty of Premier League experience .It was an opportunity to show the depth of the squad. The depth was shown to be severely lacking and it soon became clear that Pacheco (much heralded as one for the future) will soon be one for the past and Jovanovic demonstrated that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys (if you call a few million quid peanuts). You can’t blame every Liverpool player for the debacle. Captain for the night Kyrgiakos gave his all in a swashbuckling attempt to salvage something from the game and inspired the team to a late extra time equaliser and I felt sorry for Wilson the new signing from Rangers who demonstrated a fine passing touch that has been severely lacking but at the end of the day the once Mighty Reds were pretty well outclassed and we had to endure a huge crowd of Northampton fans singing “Can we play you every week?” and then walk back to the car in monsoon conditions. We play Blackpool in about ten days. I’m feeling nervous about the headlines already.

Going to Anfield meant that I sacrificed the opportunity to watch the groundbreaking new reality TV show Seven Days and I even forgot to record it. As far as I can tell, this is an original concept (although Paul will no doubt tell me that it’s been done somewhere else – nothing TV related escapes his attention).It certainly raised plenty of comments on Twitter #SevenDays so it must have had a sizeable audience. It seems that Joe Public can offer advice to the real participants in the show, via the show’s website, on how to handle their problems although I doubt that the difficulties encountered by inhabitants of Notting Hill will provide as much interest as those facing sink estate dwellers in Glasgow. “Just doing the Ocado order online Jemima. Ciabatta or Focaccia?”

Still no Broadband service here at Instanta. I’m starting to feel like a donkey with a carrot dangling on a stick before me as our providers keep telling me it will be back on today. At least today they are saying “today” whereas on every other day they have been saying “tomorrow”. So will today be the day? Today they acknowledged my request for a MAC. Seems that they have a legal obligation to provide one within five days but I requested it over eight days ago. But did I get an acknowledgement of my request they ask? I think that their email says that I did but they interpret it differently. Do I want to get lawyers involved? Always a difficult decision when that carrot appears to be so close.Until then no photos and no YouTube on this blog.

I'm Loving Angels

We visited Mark and Nita of Workhouse Marketing on Saturday and they kindly took us to dinner at local restaurant Angels. It's quite odd - we live in a busy seaside town but have a very limited choice of decent places to eat out whilst Mark and Nita live in the middle of nowhere and are within a couple of minutes drive of no end of fine dining establishments.This one, Angels of Ribchester is an amazing find. Perched on a hillside within what was once an old pub, the owners have spared no expense in converting it into a top class restaurant. The decor is totally over the top with the Angels' theme running throughout and a plethora of halos, wings,twinkling light effects and heavenly thrones in the reception area give it the air of a gay night club. But once inside the main dining area, the tables are tastefully set with starched white tablecloths and top quality cutlery and the decor is far more low key and refined. The menu was delicious and the portions sensibly sized so Marion and I were not faced with driving a coach and horses through our diet. The prices reflected the standard of the food and we had an extremely enjoyable evening.Highly recommended.



It was an interesting weekend on the football front. I went to see both Everton and Liverpool play Blackburn and Arsenal respectively. Both games were notable for howling errors by two normally reliable goalkeepers. Howard of Everton managed to spill a harmless ball right into the Blackburn striker's path whilst Liverpool's Pepe Reina marred a near perfect display of goalkeeping by fumbling the ball into his own goal in the very last minute of normal time. Of the four teams that I saw, none impressed greatly. Blackburn were far too dependent on high balls into the box, Everton put too many passes astray in midfield and lost the ball on the halfway line countless times, Arsenal impressed with their possession but created little whilst, for Liverpool, Ngog really needs to learn to control the ball and understand the offside rule as every attack in the first half seemed to break down when the ball was directed towards him. He redeemed himself with a great goal in the second half but by then Liverpool were down to ten men and it was backs to the wall for the rest of the match.The atmosphere at Anfield was better than it was last season and the crowd were behind the team. It will be interesting to see how Liverpool perform with a full eleven at Man City next week.



Marion said that there was a new detective series on BBC2 last night so we thought that we would give it a try. "Vexed" was completely off the wall and within a few minutes I was laughing. "Are you sure that this is not meant to be a comedy" I asked. Marion was not sure but it soon became obvious that it was and, in the spirit of the very first series of "Moonlighting" when the young Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd flirted and charmed their way to future stardom, Toby Stephens and Lucy Punch played it for laughs and raised plenty. I enjoyed so many little scenes within the show such as when Kate (Lucy Punch) is waiting for Jack (Toby Stephens) to turn up to a crime scene and busies herself reading the murder victim's copy of Hello whilst the poor woman lies in a bloody pool beside her and when a misunderstanding leads to her smashing a kettle into an innocent suitor's face and another has her breaking her husband's knee-caps with a rolling pin. It may not sound funny here but I can assure you it was.



I was hoping to implement a new computer system here at Instanta before we retire in November but things are dragging on that front and I have had to start a crash course for our staff on the current system. Today I have been showing Operations Director David Wilson the accounts system. He doesn't need to know it in detail but a background in it will help him and then he can tell everyone else all about it when we have gone.

Looks like Kate from Vexed had another misunderstanding when she went to McDonald's drive thru and they told he they had no Chicken McNuggets left.

You'll Never Wok Alone

I awoke to this morning's news that Liverpool, the club that I have supported for the past forty four years, is on the verge of being taken over by a consortium backed by the Chinese Government. I have nothing against Chinese people but why can't a local club be owned by local business people? Love them or hate them, the traditional British Football Club owners used to be fans themselves albeit fans with money to burn and they were most interested in seeing their teams play good football. Any overseas investor has to be in it purely for the money and, whilst I have no doubt that there is a tremendous opportunity to sell millions of shirts made in China to Chinese people, I can't see any local benefits to the deal. Instead of a labour of love as it was twenty years ago, owning LFC will continue to be the grubby exercise in commercialism that it became when Hicks and co took over. As a season ticket holder who no longer spends a penny in the ground (where programmes are £3,and Kit Kats £1)or in the club shop (Shirts £40 or more)I will be exactly the sort of customer that the new owners won't want. Why have loyal fans of forty four years standing when you can have day trippers and tourists who are going to spend fifty quid each on top of the ticket price?



Marion, Max and me are off to DeVere Staverton Park near Daventry tomorrow. We are going to the Zip annual conference and sales awards dinner.Max and I are giving a brief talk on how to service the boilers so the service department will be a bit thin on the ground here. Fortunately we don't get too many calls nowadays and I have written a help guide for everyone in the office to have a stab at helping if they can. We'll always be available on the mobile if they need us.



I just got some industry stats from our trade association CESA. It looks like the catering equipment industry is bouncing out of the recession with signs of healthy growth in the last two quarters after seven negative quarters. It's good to see this upswing. Although Marion and I only have four months to go, we want the business to be successful for everyone who works here and for our new owners.



I reached a milestone on my diet yesterday when I had to ask our factory leader Tony Mercer to punch a hole in my belt for me as my trousers were starting to fall down. I've been dieting for twelve weeks now and have lost 12 kilos so far and four inches off my waistline. Poor Marion , who really doesn't need to lose any more weight, has had to suffer this with me and we are both getting a bit fed up (if that's the right choice of words) with the tiny evening meals. The breakfasts and lunches are great and probably much more than we have ever eaten in the past but the evening meals rely heavily on brown rice and chicken and we could both murder a pizza. At the rate that I've been losing weight we've got another five weeks max. Roll on September.

Sadly no Orange Wednesday again this week. This summer's releases have been a pretty poor bunch (Toy Story 3 and Inception apart). And speaking of Inception, I am grateful to an old friend of Paul's for Twittering (sorry Tweeting I stand corrected) the link to this explanation. If you've seen the film you can now understand. If you haven't, this pretty well sums it up.

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?

New Year - New Car

The Instanta year starts on the first of July for the first time today and Nick has cause to celebrate with the delivery of his new car. We took one look at the June sales at the close of business last night and went straight out and bought it this morning. Nick is pleased as punch with the vehicle.He tells me that it has 18" alloys which means nothing at all to me but I suppose that my Prius will have them too. Anyway, he needs something comfortable to drive if he is to achieve the targets that have been set for the new year - he's going to doing a lot of miles. So, off you go Nick. We'll see you next June.



My brief return to eBay trading has ground to a halt. There seems to be very little movement in my specialist area of antique ceramics at the moment and I am not wasting hours to sell stuff at a loss. I have got about forty items at home that I would like to sell but I don't think that eBay is the right place at present. Maybe I'll venture out and take a stand at a fair some day in the autumn. The last thing I sold on eBay was an electric organ that I sold on behalf of my next door neighbour. It somehow managed to sell to a church in Barbados. Now I am busy trying to sort out delivery to a London address which is not a lot of fun - especially as the organ only sold for forty quid. Why couldn't it have sold to someone local? Why do favours always have a habit of turning around and biting you?



Here's something else that won't be easy to sell. I just had a quick search on eBay and there were over four thousand England shirts for sale. Hard luck for anybody who stock piled and bought in a load of them in anticipation of glory. The only thing that they can hope for is a Germany win so that England's apparently feeble performance can be put into the context of "we only lost to the World champions".



As a Liverpool fan of over forty five years and a Kop season ticket holder for over half of those years, I would like to welcome Roy Hodgson to Anfield. Things can't get any worse than last season when Liverpool's performances were so boring that it became an ordeal to go to the matches. It is only because Rafa left that I have renewed my ticket for another season. I couldn't care less if Liverpool don't win as long as I enjoy watching the games. After all, it is supposed to be entertainment. So, Roy, please get us to play with a bit of flair. You will win the crowd over and the Benitez days will soon be a distant memory. And a bit of team spirit would be good too. Did you see the England team spirit? And who was the England captain? Precisely.

I just went onto Youtube to find a good video for today's blog but inadvertently typed in Yotube. And yes the site exists as do Gooogle, Gogle, Facbook, Appl and many many more. I wonder how many hits these misspelt sites manage in a day. It would be interesting if we bought a misspelled leading website name and put Instanta up there and saw how much our site traffic increased.I tried "comparethemeerkat.com" but "comparethemarket.com" already has it. I had a moan about the quality of what's on offer at the local Vue at the moment. Well at least we have something to look forward to at Christmas - honest.

This could be very costly

We're still in the early days of the volcanic dust crisis but the fallout from this could be far higher than we ever imagined. Being a British manufacturer we are not reliant upon bringing our boilers in from overseas but if we run out of the tiniest imported component production will dry up. And it is the tiniest components that are most likely to be shipped by air. At the moment things are OK but we buy our taps from the USA and some of our electronic components originate from the far east. As we have had an exceptionally busy period lately we could see a shortage. So come on all you politicians. This is an ideal opportunity for you to sort things out by putting emergency procedures into play and boost your election ratings. The election could swing on how this one is handled.



One advantage of life here in my solitary office is that I was able to complete the management accounts for April without any distraction. This meant that I finished them in half the time that it usually takes and, what's more, they balanced to the penny. That's a huge relief as I am one of those accountants who can't live with discrepancies even of a few pence. When I started out as a cashier in Barclays in the early seventies I was always proud of balancing my till to the penny. This tended to get up the noses of some of my colleagues who, after months of accuracy, contrived to pinch 5p from my till and then fell about laughing when I spent over half an hour trying to find my mistake.



Liverpool entertain West Ham United at Anfield tonight although whether or not they will entertain the crowd is another matter. I was impressed by the Hammers' performance at Everton the other week and with Torres out for the rest of the season I wonder who is going to score for us. I have given my seats on the Kop up for a customer tonight. He is taking a relative to celebrate his 30th birthday so I do hope that they both have a good time. Now that's what you call good customer relations.



It's a big day today for Mark and Nita from Workhouse Marketing's young son Tom. Tom is opening The Whalley Wine Shop today. In case you don't know it, Whalley is a pleasant and thriving Lancashire village with an ancient abbey on the banks of the river Ribble. Tom used to manage the premises for a major off licence chain but they closed last year and Tom has made the bold decision to take the shop on as an independent. Good luck Tom. We all wish you massive success and will be coming to you for your advice and some of the excellent wine that your mum and dad have told us about.

We missed the new Britain's Got Talent this weekend. I read that the star of the show was a dancing dog. So let's see what we missed.

Ole Ole Lucas Leiva Lucas Leiva

When I heard the Kop singing this tribute last night I had to pinch myself in disbelief. A player who has single handedly created a new meaning for the word mediocrity being lauded to the heavens. At first I thought it was some sort of joke like the sympathetic mock enthusiasm shown for Eric Myer ten years ago but when the crowd continued with a heartfelt chant of "Rafa Benitez", I realised that they had lost their collective minds and wondered if Rafa has been putting some sort of mind changing drug in the pies. Mind you a 4-1 win against a top team that had been unbeaten in months was an achievement and the records will show that Liverpool (and Fulham) are the last English teams in Europe this season.



Liverpool's progress in the Europa League will hit the ratings of Paul's show Sky1's "A League Of Their Own and I was half hoping that they got knocked out last night as that will mean another two Thursday nights when the programme will be up against live football (and who are the target audience? sports fans). Last night's show was great and I watched it this morning whilst eating my bowl of cereal and then I went and watched it again while I was doing the crossword upstairs so that should be another two on the ratings. This young chap, Jack Whitehall was very good and the show was laugh out loud funny. Come on Sky, now that Manure and Chelski are out of the Champions League, why don't you move A League Of Their Own to Tuesday.



I've just given the go ahead for the dealer newsletter to be printed.The letter is to advise everyone just how fantastic the new boilers are. In fact they are so fantastic that we have sold out already and some customers may have to wait two weeks. "Two weeks!" I hear you say? "That's nothing!" But regular customers will know that two weeks is an eternity here at Instanta. Victims of our success I suppose but we are doing our best to get everything in stock as soon as we can.



You really start to feel your own mortality when all the obituaries in the papers are people that figured large in your youth. Yesterday was no exception with the sad announcement of the death of Malcolm Mclaren. Love them or loath them, nobody over fifty can forget the impact that the Sex Pistols had when they arrived on the scene and I was very sad to hear of the death of someone who contributed such a lot to the country's arts scene. And even if you didn't like punk, you can't fail to raise a smile when you watch this.

A Mouse Free Morning

I went into the garage today and for the first time this week my trap had not been sprung. Earlier in the week I had two false alarms followed by the capture of the first field mouse on Tuesday and a second yesterday.I released both safely in the park at the same place so I hope that they meet up again in some sort of mousy love story although, as one turned left at the gate and the other turned right, it may be some time before their paths cross.They are harmless enough little creatures but they were scoffing all the bird seed and messing up the garage and I didn't fancy them finding their way into the kitchen.




I watched Liverpool last night and thought that they were unlucky to lose after the ref gave Benfica two penalties and sent off Ryan Babel. After months of malaise running through the team and the fans it is good to see the spirit that they have shown in the last two games. It's just a pity about the last twenty. Anyway the 2-1 defeat has set things up nicely for the return at Anfield where I will be joined again by my friend (who for the record is categorically not old) Dave Haworth.It promises to be a good night.



Son Paul's loyalties are divided and he is hoping that Liverpool lose next Thursday as their continual performances in the Europa League are clashing with his show "A League Of Their Own" in which John Bishop (above) is proving himself a popular panellist. As the show has a target audience of young sport lovers, the ratings are bound to be hit when the show comes up against football. The thing is, now that almost everyone has Sky Plus, they can watch both. I certainly did and I thought the show was, once again, very funny.As he has taken a 3-1 lead (I think) in the shows aired so far, it looks like Freddie Flintoff is going to be the champion.



Which leads me seamlessly to the quiz night organised by local accountants Champion. The themed quizzes held a few times each year are always great fun and local businesses are asked to put in a team. Last week the theme was france so we entered. Our team name was "Nous sommes chier et nous savons que nous sommes" but this was quite wide of the mark as the team, comprising me, Marion, sales director Nick, store man Tony and his son Rob ended up in a very creditable second place and if we had taken notice of a couple of Tony and Nick's answers we could have won. I forgot to mention this the day after due to some of life's pressures.



I've been so busy at Instanta this week that I didn't have time to blog (and I had a really good April fool blog planned too). But never mind, the Guardian more than made up for it with one of the best April fools for years. They reported that Labour were cashing in on Gordon's new hard man image and were planning a series of ads like that above. I was taken in after seeing this one but when I got to the Reservoir Dogs one I smelt a rat. Nice one Guardian. Just the right amount of plausibility for a perfect April Fool.

Did you see the touchline spat between Moyes and Mancini the other day? That was nothing. Here's a manager who really wears his heart on his sleeve. I had to laugh at his name - "Playfair".

Have a good Easter.

Our Boomerang Almost Came Back

We had a great evening on Friday when Mark and Nita from Workhouse Marketing joined us for a meal at the Malmaison in Liverpool. It was good to catch up on all their news including the imminent opening of the Whalley Wine Shop in Whalley (where else?)by their son Tom. It's going to be supplying a great range of wines and more and Tom, who once managed the same premises for Thresher, is hoping that his old clients will return and benefit once again from his expertise. With the strength of the Workhouse publicity machine behind him I'm sure that he will make it a great success.



Unfortunately things went downhill the morning after our evening at the Malmaison. Whilst we were having breakfast, a call came through from the factory. Yes I had given Andy the closely guarded secret that is my mobile phone number and told him to phone in case of emergency. We had some of the factory team working overtime to catch up on the backlog of orders that had built up when the circuits were late. So when the phone rang I knew that it was an emergency. Andy told me of a programming problem with the boilers and I couldn't suss it out. So planned day shopping in Liverpool was curtailed as we weren't in the mood for it and we returned early.The nightmare scenario was that three hundred circuits would have to be scrapped. So, after a couple of hours of thinking, I came into the factory and started playing around with the boilers on test. And, guess what? The programme glitch was dead simple, all that was required was for the boilers to be rebooted to accept the new programmes (a bit like when you put a new programme on your computer) and they were all working perfectly. What a relief! I always vowed not to work on Saturdays but now that I no longer own the business, there I was at 6pm.(Chris please note). Thanks to the lads who gave up their time.



I still have a chance to meet Sandi Toksvig. I had a phone call on Friday from a very nice researcher Laura at the BBC and she asked me to come to Manchester for an audition for the show.So tomorrow evening I'm off to the BBC in Oxford Road. I don't really think I stand much chance as, although I know quite a lot about ceramics and Japanese stuff, I don't think I'm up to much on the rest of the antique spectrum.


As part of the audition I have to take a favourite antique with me and talk enthusiastically about it. There are quite a few on a display in the lounge but I'm torn as to which to take as I really like and am enthusiastic about them all.I'll probably take the least valuable as, knowing my luck lately, I'm bound to drop it. And talking of dropped stuff, I just bought a beautiful antique teapot on eBay. The seller said it was in good condition. Now I don't know about you but I don't think that four enormous rivets and a re glued chip on the spout could be defined as "Good condition". The seller was fine and offered a full refund (even saying I could keep the pot if I wanted). I loved the style of his response "hi there ,
to my knowledge [and i m not THE XPERT]it was in good condition.the handle , didn t know , sorry .
to me it s just a teapot .it s eBay .you can t see it , sometimes you are lucky as a buyer , sometimes not .look , i ll send you a full refund if you d b happy that .i m not fussed " sic as they say.

Finally something to shout about at Anfield. I invited my brother Peter to join me but he was unenthusiastic about the prospect of another boring performance so Nick came and saw one of the best goals scored at Anfield for a few seasons.

In A League Of Her Own

It's a very special birthday today as my wife and best friend Marion (here with her best friend Jane) celebrates her 55th. Working in the same office we spend many hours together and I can honestly say that I enjoy every one of them. We met when I was 16 and will have been married for thirty four years in July. To celebrate we are going to Blackburn tonight to watch Lee Mack (below). Local lad Lee has been getting rave reviews for his show and his "Going Out" tour is sold out but I managed to get some tickets on eBay. After the show we are off in the direction of Scotland as we are going to see Sarah tomorrow .We will be staying at the Premier Inn (or something like that) in Penrith (a real birthday treat for Marion as we will probably arrive at about 12.30am). I'll do my best to see that she has a great day.





I was listening to Duncan Bannatyne on Desert Island Discs on the way into the office this morning. When choosing his first song Duncan said that being a Scot living abroad in England he liked to hear a Scottish voice so Rod Stewart and Maggie May was at the top of his iPod. Er would that be the Rod Stewart born and raised in London England Duncan?




I missed Paul's "A League Of Their Own" last night as I was at Anfield watching Liverpool (who definitely aren't). But thanks to the miracle of Sky plus I managed to watch it this morning while I was doing a pile of ironing. Another good show - very funny, great choice of guests although edited just a bit too short. Even some of the highlights that were in the adverts (which were very funny) didn't make it into the show.

Nick was telling me about his plans to hold a sales meeting every Monday morning at (wait for it) 8a.m. 8 a.m! That's the time to set the alarm clock for isn't it? Better give him a key to the office. Enjoy - Nick.



Here's the latest craze sweeping the internet. All you need is a web cam and anyone can join in. You go onto www.chatroulette.com and you will see a completely random stranger who is also sitting at their web cam and you can chat to them. At least that's the theory. It seems that a pretty high percentage of people have a tendency to exhibit themselves inappropriately but hey, whatever, this little video shows you some of the possibilities of the site. It's going to be as big as anything else on the web. Why didn't I think of it?