A Magic (Numbers) Weekend

Just back from London where we had a great weekend centered around a visit to the ITV studios on the South Bank to watch the live transmission of Magic Numbers. People must have heard we were coming as the ratings rose to over 3 million which is hundreds of thousands up on last week (nothing to do with some of the 11 million who watched X Factor staying around to watch the show). It was a fun and very entertaining evening as the studio audience arrived an hour before transmission and enjoyed a very funny warm up man and watching the pre recording of a couple of shots to fit in the opening credits. As soon as we got home Marion played the show back and spotted us at least half a dozen times - another five minutes of fame.

One advantage of having Marion as a partner is that there is never any "where should we go?" when you're on a holiday or a weekend away. And this weekend was no exception as she once again planned our timetable meticulously starting with a meal at the excellent Turkish restaurant Kazan, near Victoria station, staying at the City Inn Westminster (ranked 11 out of over 1,000 London hotels on Trip Advisor and well worth the rating), a trip to see Grace Kelly's dresses at the V&A and ending with a glass of champagne at the world's longest champagne bar in St Pancras station (now that's what you call a station!). Thanks for that M. There's never a wasted moment.

The next telly outing will be to the recording of the new series of A League Of Their Own which is being recorded in Teddington studios in September. We are looking forward to it as we went to two episodes of the last series and it was hilarious. I am pretty sure that Sky will have some more top guests for the new season.



The last series made a lot of jokes about John Terry and his alleged dalliance with Vanessa Perroncel. However, the Observer ran a lengthy interview with Ms Perroncel yesterday for which she received no fee. She maintains that she is innocent of being involved in any affair and is so determined and insistent on this point that, instead of cashing in on a very valuable potential kiss and tell, she is suing for libel those who ran the stories about her. You can read the excellent article by Polly Vernon here.

Having got over the disappointment at the Guardian's failure to run the weekly Pick The Score league, I today heard about and joined a new football site. Fantasy f***wit.com is a fantasy league in which one aims to pick a team full of footballing f***wits. Points are scored by players on losing teams and keepers who let in plenty of goals but there is the added bonus of more points for getting into the tabloids with a lurid story such as Crouchy's recent night out in Spain. I've picked Ashley Cole as one of my eleven. He has to be a high scorer in the f***wit stakes. Any ideas for more? I am allowed two transfers a week.

I'll close today with Alexandra Burke's fabulous Magic Numbers performance. Look carefully and you will see Marion bopping away and me er shuffling around.

Magic Numbers Brings Magic To Pensioner

When Paul looks back on his career achievements he will always be able to do so in the knowledge that in his TV development work at least he made one pensioner's retirement a very happy one. Sixty nine year old Pamela Mullens was having a quiet night in watching TV when she realised that two of her phone's numbers were included in those generated by ITV's Magic Numbers show. She phoned and was lucky enough to be picked for the final challenge. Answering five questions correctly gave her the opportunity to win £350,000 but she also had the chance to win absolutely nothing. In a tense couple of minutes she picked five of the seven boxes that had money in them and none of the dreaded boxes containing an X and in doing so managed to win an enormous £290,000. We enjoyed the show again and are looking forward to a week on Saturday when we are going to be in the audience.



Here's Operations Director Dave Wilson fresh back from his holidays. On Saturday Dave celebrated his 46th birthday so congratulations from me and everyone else here at Instanta. Dave took his kids on an adventure packed break but his son Jack was a little too adventurous on a mountain bike and ended up spending a couple of days in hospital. Happy to say that after an operation to remove debris from a damaged knee Jack was up and about and he is now fully recovered. But I am sure it's a holiday that he and his dad won't forget quickly.



And here's our factory leader Tony Mercer in his new Citroen car. It's been ten years since we last changed Tony's car so it was about time that he had a new one. Mind you he does so little mileage that ten years of Tony's driving is about three of everyone else's. We gave him a budget and Tony chose the car and negotiated a deal with the local Citroen dealer. Seeing what a good deal he got I might have to ask him to start having a word with some of our suppliers.Hope you enjoy it Tony. In another ten years we'll have a look at a new one for you.



The football season hasn't even started yet but already footballers are all over the news for their typically rubbish behaviour. If it isn't Rooney weeing in the street or ex (and possibly shortly to be re-signed)Liverpool star Peter Crouch who, according to the News Of The World allegedly asked a prostitute to perform a sex act in a taxi and asked the taxi driver to negotiate the fee for him as he couldn't speak Spanish, it's the prima donnas who have been called up to the England squad for this week's friendly and have told Capello that they just can't be bothered. What a game eh! Oozing with class.

Last week I posted a video of a policeman dancing in the street. Here's a guy who thought it might be a good idea to do the same. Perhaps it's not that great an idea.

A Relaxing Weekend

After several hectic weeks at work and at home we managed to get some relaxation on Sunday and had a great day with a morning spent listening to the wonderful Radio 4 (Broadcasting House, The Archers Omnibus,Desert Island Discs (Jimmy Mulville catch it on the Beeb website if you can) and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue) - a morning worthy of the license fee on its own. And to make the weekend even better we managed to see both our kids. With Sarah living in St Andrews and Paul in London this doesn't happen often but Sarah and her partner Duncan made a surprise visit en route to a holiday cottage in Cartmel on Friday and stayed over for the night. It was great to see them and I hope that they enjoy their cottage break and get a bit of good weather.

As for Paul, we only caught a glimpse of him and his lovely wife Josephine. They went to the broadcast of Stephen Mulhern's Magic Numbers on Saturday evening and Marion spent the half hour after the show finished winding the SkyPlus backwards and forwards until she found them in the audience (centre above). They both seemed to be enjoying themselves and we certainly did too. The show is very light entertainment, the acts are polished and highly watchable and there was some tension at the close when a viewer managed to win a whopping £70,000. Marion and I are going to a broadcast of the show, which Paul developed, in a couple of weeks and we are looking forward to it very much.





Can you spot the difference between our super WB2 steam and water boiler and the other product? You may think it's easy but it was beyond one of our customers (who shall remain nameless). We ran out of WB2 boilers the other day so, when a customer was desperate to source one quickly, we phoned around a load of distributors and found one who was willing to send one from their own stock with us agreeing to replace it for him when we were back in stock a couple of days later. The desperate customer was relieved and extremely grateful when we organised everything for him. But his gratitude and relief were short lived when this other boiler turned up instead. The whole exercise cost about £100 in carriers' fees and made us look a bit stupid.I suppose the old adage "if you want something doing properly- do it yourself" will always be true.



With a little spare time yesterday I had a few minutes on Marion's WiiFit. I haven't used it for some time and expected it to compliment me on my weight loss. But no. The squeaky little voice told me I was out of time for my targets and I still have to lose another two stone. Two stone!I'll look like a skeleton.Just to rub it in my "wii mii" makes me look like Billy Bunter.

I'll close today with the Peckahm Terminator a video that makes interesting viewing on a number of planes and raises a great deal for discussion. Firstly, are bus drivers told not to intervene in arguments? Secondly, do they teach English in schools today? Thirdly, would you catch a bus in Peckham? And finally if you want to exit a bus is this the best way? Oh, and if you are easily offended by extremely bad language, watch with the sound off.

New Prices From Monday

It's not too late to buy a boiler at the current price. But you will have to be quick as there is a price increase on Monday when prices will be raised by a shade over 5%. However, any orders placed before 5pm today for immediate delivery will qualify for the March 2010 price.



If you have visited this blog before you will know that I am a big fan of YouTube. I get an email update of the top virals every Friday but usually find that they have already been on the blog. However, this morning the email linked to one that I had not seen before and it has had over 8 million (yes, million!) views. Obviously with such a huge audience I had to take a look at it and here it is for you to check out. I don't know if I am a big cynic or what but I just don't get it. I was waiting for something to happen. It didn't. But I suppose that now it has been on this blog that will be eight million and five views. I wonder how many more simply thought WTF.





It's yesterday's news but I was delighted to see that Spain is taking another step into the 21st Century with the banning of bullfights in Catalonia. All that is needed now is for the rest of the country to follow suit and stop this barbaric ritual and all those other nasty things like throwing goats off towers and piling onto donkeys until their backs break in the name of "tradition". It beats me how any of it still goes on and perhaps it's time for a Europe wide movement against this cruelty.

I would like to say a big thank you to my Chinese reader who regularly leaves a comment on the blog. I am afraid that I don't speak Chinese and I do hope that the comments are complimentary. That Babel Fish Internet translation service is not up to too much as the translation of the latest comment reads "To have the item of fool law is it possible that in the law: “in an organization's fool, is bigger than permanently is equal to 2/3".I'm not sure that that is what my reader intended to say. Hope it's not me that's being referred to as the fool. Anyway here is a message for him or her courtesy of Babel Fish. Hope it doesn't offend. 谢谢您的评论。 不幸地我讲中文，但是您的到博克的参观是受欢迎的。

Don't forget Magic Numbers with Stephen Mulhern tomorrow evening 8pm ITV1. I've got my fingers crossed that there will be a big winner this week.This week's star act is Scouting For Girls. Never heard of them but I am reliably told by everyone in the office that they are good. Let's see.

It's Good To Be Trusted

It was a tale of two antique dealers on Saturday at the NEC's Antiques for Everyone. It's a wonderful fair and it live up to its name with antiques on display ranging from a couple of pounds to hundreds of thousands. Marion and I were not planning on buying anything and were just wanting to browse. We didn't take a cheque book with us. Everyone accepts cards now don't they? Well the answer to that question is 'no' when it comes to the antiques trade. So when we spotted this very nice little Liberty pewter carriage clock that would look good in our newly decorated lounge (we needed a clock as we bought a similar new one from John Lewis but sent it back because it was really shoddy)and went on to ask about payment methods it was "cash or cheque". As we had no cheques and insufficient cash I had to hobble across to the other side of the NEC to find a cash machine (which charged £1.99 for the privilege of giving me some of my own money). I'm not complaining. I couldn't expect a dealer to give a complete stranger credit at a huge and busy fair.



Or could I? Later in the day we found this lovely Venetian Murano glass bowl that was just the right colour for said lounge colour scheme. I raised the question."Do you accept cards?" The answer?"No." I resigned myself to another trek to the ATM but the dealer said that it was OK if I had no money. I could take the bowl home and send him a cheque next week. Now that is extremely impressive and trusting. OK it's not priceless but it is a nice bowl and I couldn't see John Lewis or M&S adopting the same policy. So hat's off to Barclay Antiques of Edinburgh. And yes, the cheque is in the post.



Although, when you think about it, Barclay Antiques' policy is not that different to ours at Instanta. Here we send out boilers all over the country and tell the customers to send us the money. And no, the cheque is very rarely in the post the following day.


I enjoyed Magic Numbers on Saturday night. The show included a segment where Alistair McGowan did nine impressions for a studio contestant and she had to say who they were in order to win a prize. I thought his mimicry was quite brilliant and even if the lady answering didn't know the voices there were plenty of clues in the content. She guessed a grand total of three correctly and ended up with poor Alistair visibly deflated. Don't worry Mr McGowan, me and Marion managed eight each. It was a pity that the winner of the phone in competition once again managed to go home (or stay home) empty handed. Mind you,now that TV shows are all squeaky clean and winners are chosen at random so there is no chance of contestants being weeded out for lack of personality, never could a contestant be more deserving of going unrewarded. "So what will you do with the money if you win?" asked Stephen Mulhern."Don't know", the flat response. "Is there nothing that you would like?" the host continued, oblivious to the fact that he was flogging a dead horse,"Not really". The woman was two minutes away from the chance of winning £300k but sounded as if she was on her way to a funeral and ITV's phone call was an inconvenient interruption. Watch next week. It's a very colourful, light and feel good show.

I'll leave you with a warning on The Homosexual Menace. Take care.

Joined Twitter But Haven't Tweeted Yet

I like to think of myself as an early adopter of new technology.I joined Facebook ages ago (have since left),had Skyplus and HD tv from the start and was at the Apple store for the launch of the iPad (although they didn't persuade me to buy one). But Twitter is something that I have been aware of but haven't felt the urge to join. However, I noticed that our son Paul was using it a lot when we were with him last week so I decided to look into it. Haven't really sussed it or its potential out yet but I plan to find out more soon. In the meantime if you are a blog reader and you are on Twitter, please get in touch and I will add you to those I am following.If you are interested my tag is lfcchampions (don't ask).



Whilst on the subject of new technology, I keep seeing the adverts at the cinema for the new 3DTVs. I would love to have one of these but is it worth it yet? When we got HD there were only about three channels to watch and it was several years before we got the service that we get today and I suspect that there will be very little to watch in 3D at the moment and the near future. Will probably wait on this one.



Whilst I am twiddling my thumbs waiting for a visit from one of our Zip colleagues I have been having a sneaky look at Max's warranty figures. And very good they are too this month with jobs given out to our agents at less than fifty percent of the target figure. As we set the target pretty low anyway, that is a remarkable result and I hope that I am not tempting fate by drawing attention to it and go on to find out next week that the number of calls has doubled. Well done to everyone for making the boilers so reliable.




Magic Numbers on ITV1 on Saturday night at 8 o'clock promises to be a lot of fun again with X Factor's Diana Vickers performing and BGT judge Amanda Holden joining Stephen Mulhern for the show. Stephen seems to be a very popular choice of host and is very well liked. Nick's daughter Laura is working on the show and she told Nick that she met Stephen yesterday and he was very friendly. I think that the way that they react to humble runners in the production team is a true measure of the star quality of "celebrities" and, from what Paul has also told me, I think that Stephen has a very bright future. I really hope that a viewer wins a huge cash prize this week to shut up the Internet knockers who think that it is impossible - it isn't.

To get an idea of the flavour of the show - remember it's LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT, here is a clip from last week.

Small Is Beautiful

The harvest began in earnest at home at the weekend and we duly cut our first courgette yesterday. It may not be very big but it is perfectly formed and I am sure that it will taste delicious with the apple and walnut salad scheduled for the diet tonight.



There's no shortage of salad leaves and it is a pity that there are only two of us at home as we have had enough rocket and other lettuce to feed a small army over the last few weeks, although the plants are now beginning to show signs of exhaustion and I think that the crop will shortly come to an end.


Saturday Night saw the first episode of son Paul's new show "Magic Numbers" on ITV1. I really liked Steven Mulhern (not Mulhearn as wrongly spelled in previous blogs- sorry Stephen) and the show was very entertaining with a great performance from JLS and another from Britain's Got Talent's Twist and Pulse. I haven't looked at the forums or ratings as, when "The Colour Of Money" came out it took me a few weeks to get over the nasty criticism heaped on the show and left us feeling sick after knowing how much effort had gone into its development. I did catch a couple of comments when Googling for today's blog and I have to say that those that I saw were warm and one even went as far as to say that it was "good" - praise indeed for the Internet. It was a pity that the woman who won the opportunity to phone in and win £250k managed to chose a losing box on her final pick and won nothing when she had a one in three chance of winning nothing but a two in three chance of winning £20k or more.



On Saturday we went to see "Inception". Or at least I think we went to see "Inception" or did we just dream it.Am I now writing this blog or dreaming that I am dreaming about writing this blog? We will ever know unless we have a special token such as a little spinning top or a brass chess piece. Confused? Go and see the film and all will become clear. Or will it?


The first thing I did this morning before starting work was rush down to Vue to get tickets for Toy Story 3 which is on general release today. Both tonight's shows were sold out but I was determined to see it today and so I am skipping lunch and going to the four pm 3D showing - can't wait. Marion's got plenty of tissues.

Here's a taster.