Everyone's A Winner

It was one of our bowling nights at the local bowl last night.Pictured above are overall individual score winner Kirk Harrison (centre),runner up Gavin Ford (left) and third placed Gary Rodwell (right). Kirk had a huge run of strikes in game one but his consistency suffered in game two and left him an overall score of 289 for the two games.



And these are all winners too as the team captained by Max Vidal (left) won the overall team contest with a total of 1187 over two games. Pictured with Max are, left to right, Lee Moore, Kirk Harrison,Gary Rodwell and Craig Buckley who was also the overall winner of game two with a score of 144.



This is where the everyone's a winner theme starts to get a litte tenuous. My team had an individual winner in Craig Mercer who beat the rest of us. Here he is (not quite Victor Ludorum this time Craig)pictured centre with, from left to right, Joey Jones, Phil Joce, Nick Neal and me.



David Boutle was highest scorer in this team with 242 points. Here he is (in striped shirt) with (left to right) Steve Eyres, Andy Fyles, Jenny Buckley and Dave Wilson.



Gavin Ford, left was the highest scorer in this team with a total of 280 points. Gav is picture with his mum Margaret, Sean Johnson, Tony Mercer and Natalie Drummond. A good night was had by all and there was so much food that we didn't eat it all (it usually looks like the buffet has been attacked by a plague of locusts).



After my total memory failure the other day, we have decided to make tonight our weekly cinema trip. We'll miss out on the Orange two for one offer but at least we'll get to the pictures. I somehow doubt that the film will live up to the hype but what the heck, it looks like a bit of fun.

I'll close with a bowling shot to make our players feel a bit better about themselves.

The Best Laid Plans

Once a month I sit down with Tony and Gavin and we plan what we are going to make for the next month. We tweak this in our weekly production meetings but we generally get things just about right. So last week we planned our production and put in a fair few WM15SS boilers (pictured). Today an order comes in for all bar seven of them. Oh well, it's a nice problem to have, I'm not complaining.



Marion and I love Florence. Next to Venice it's one of our very favourite places. But not tonight. Because tonight the Florentines of Fiorentina have Liverpool's destiny in their hands. If they beat Lyon, Liverpool are out of the Champions League in the first round for the first time in ages and I'll have to go and watch them in the Europa League (how exciting). I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed and hope that Lyon do us a favour. Mind you there's also the small matter of Liverpool needing to beat Debrecini too. If the results do go Liverpool's way there's going to be one hell of a big game at Anfield in December.



It's that time of year when we have to look at our prices for next year. We've just been through a major recession and nobody is expecting increases but we are implementing some major upgrades to our boilers in February and some increases are inevitable on the new improved models. We'll do our best to keep them to a minimum. Fortunately Gavin has done some good deals with suppliers and we will benefit when they filter through.



Orange Wednesday tomorrow has to be Paranormal Activity. This is the film that cost $15,000 and has grossed over $100million already. It's a sort of Blair Witch scary movie. It probably won't live up to the hype but we'll give it a try.Marion likes a good fright.

And speaking of frights, I'll leave you with something found in an American sewer. Real or not? I'll let you decide.

The Accountants Are Coming

I just had a phone call from our auditor Alan Finch of Moore Stephens letting me know that his arrival for the annual audit is imminent.We always enjoy Alan's visits.He is such a warm and friendly personality and could not be more removed from the stuffy image that accountants are sometimes given.Yes he's a great guy (apart from supporting Everton that is).



Natalie Drummond paid us another visit the other day and brought Olivia in. It's hard to believe that one of the Instanta babies is an Instanta toddler already but, as you can see, she is. And doesn't she look like her mum?

We had a phone call this morning from a customer who said that their boiler was not hot enough and that it had to deliver water at 100 degrees to satisfy health and safety requirements.(Health and safety requirements that we've never heard of). I can understand the confusion as the word "boiler" obviously implies "boiling" but there are no atmospheric boilers on the market that deliver boiling water. If they did, every canteen, kitchen or office using one would be full of steam.We'd like to label our units as "water heaters" but for the last thirty years (at least)all products like this have been called boilers and we don't want to make the move unilaterally.If you want boiling water you need to buy a pressure boiler.



Anybody out there know of any properties available to let in E London? One of my family is having a hell of a job trying to find somewhere suitable. They spend hours on the Internet making a list of suitable properties and then phone to arrange viewings and what's the answer? "Oh that one's already let". They make appointments to view and does the agent turn up? No. It's a minefield but decent two bed flat or house (preferably not modern)totally reliable tenants, E1 E2 E3 E14 anyone?



It seems that all the lads here at Instanta are keen on using the Internet but, unlike the office workers who can use it at their desks during breaks and lunchtimes, they can't get online in the factory. So we're looking into getting a wireless set up in the canteen so that they can use it during lunch when someone else is hogging the dart board or the pool table.

Today's the day that we decide on our Orange Wednesday film for this week. Not a big choice this time but I am looking forward to when this one comes out.