Instanta Twins Are Thirty

Well they will be tomorrow. Here are twins Darren Rodwell from our welding department and Gary from our sheet metalworking team. Darren has grown a beard to help us to tell them apart. The brothers remain close and will be celebrating with family on Sunday. Let's hope that their beloved Blackpool FC beat Watford on Saturday to make it a day to remember. Both twins are loyal Blackpool fans and season ticket holders who travel around the country together following the Tangerines.Being a proud dad to baby Ella, Gary has little time for any other hobbies but Darren spends his free time fishing, golfing and playing pool. He tells me that he is taking girlfriend Lauren on holiday to Amsterdam to celebrate his birthday. Darren has been with Instanta for 13 years which has certainly not been unlucky for us as he does a great job. Brother Gary is well into his second year on the Instanta books. We hope that they both have a memorable thirtieth.I'm starting to feel very old when people I took on at 17 turn 30.

I'm feeling a bit guilty today. Everyone else in our road except us had one of those big blue recycling bags for the newspapers. Ours disappeared one day never to be seen again and never to be replaced by our friendly recycling team.As I arrived home yesterday the bottle men had actually been (after the bottles and papers had been outside since just after Christmas). There, floating down the road like tumbleweed in the breeze, was an empty blue newspaper bag. Now I know that it wasn't my blue bag (because I didn't have one) so I suppose I should have made a neighbourly effort to return it to its rightful owner. And that's why I'm feeling guilty. Because I didn't. Now some other poor soul is without a blue bag - sorry neighbour.



I was sitting in the board room yesterday (as you do) and I realised that all the photos of our boilers on the wall were of models that we stopped making about four years ago. So I went to the printers this morning and got them to do me some prints of our latest ones. And very nice they look too (mind you the old models weren't bad at all).

Have you read the news about our Prius driving footballer? The question is, Is Gary Neville a "Boot Licking Moron". According to the Guardian Carlos Tevez certainly seems to think so after an astonishing attack on the Manchester United right-back. Neville is not the most popular among the ABU tendency, but does the Old Trafford stalwart deserve such abuse? Please follow this link to have your own say on ther matter. I don't usually vote on the Guardian daily polls but today HAS to be the exeception.



Shortly after I finish writing this I'll be off down to London to meet up with son Paul for his stag party. I'm not sure that his friends will relish having invited me along as I've vetoed getting dressed up like this and told them that strippers are completley out of order and off limits. They've settled for a comedy club in Brighton. Now lads, if you are reading this, I've heard that there are some very nice antique shops in Brighton.


Well stag parties are notoriously boozy events. So, as Paul is a huge Jets fan, I thought that he'd enjoy this interview with legendary Jets quarterback Joe Namath

It's Make Or Break For Rafa Tonight

No Orange Wednesday for me this week as we went to the pictures on Blue Monday because Liverpool are entertaining Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield this evening. Normally this would be a fixture to look forward to but the long haul up the hill and up the steps to the seat is becoming less and less inviting as the season progresses. There was a time when there would be a bound in the steps on the way to the games but it is now more of a trudge. Although he has huge support I have to blame Rafa. If you are in charge of any business whether it is making boilers or running a football team the buck has to stop with the boss. And if you can induce a feeling of indifference in a supporter who has been going for forty five years you've got to be doing something wrong.Let's see how things turn out tonight.



Perhaps the Reds will take a leaf out of the New York Jets' book. After a completely indifferent season in the NFL, the Jets (my son's favourite team)scraped into the play offs with a run of results from other teams that went in their favour. And now they are just one game away from reaching the Super Bowl the USA's biggest sports event of the year , an event that they haven't won since 1968. It will be a fantastic achievement if they make it to the Super Bowl. So perhaps all is not lost for Liverpool. Spirit of Istanbul and all that.



The new brochure is looking good. I'm getting quite close to the deadline so I need to get it to the printers soon. There's bound to be some errors in it. I am hopeless at spotting typos (as you will know if you are a regular reader of this blog) but fortunately Jenny and Marion between them seem to have the knack of picking up most of my mistakes.



I just got the figures from CESA for the last quarter. We send our sales figures to the trade association every quarter and they collate all the members' info anonymously and get the overall picture back to us. I was very pleased to see that for 2009 we beat the average change by 15%. Well done everyone at Instanta.

I'll finish with a Death Metal Rooster. Why? Why not?