Some Final Toasts

Here's Marion raising a glass on Saturday evening as we toasted everyone at Instanta using one of the crystal glasses that were amongst the kind retirement gifts given to us by our generous staff. Friends joined us for a meal at home and we used a very fine vintage bottle of wine given to me for my birthday by son Paul and his wife Josephine - thanks it was absolutely fabulous.

Others who we must praise in this penultimate Instanta blog are Simon Smith of Dunk Ink who travelled all the way from Tunbridge Wells to be at our retirement meal on Friday evening at Ho Lee Chows in Southport. Simon has been doing PR work for us since way back in the early 90's and has hundreds of excellent contacts in the catering trade. Thank you Simon, your presence and generosity at the meal was really appreciated by both of us. Best wishes to you and to Sue.

Silverwood Exhibitions who have designed and built all of our exhibition stands for many years must not go without thanks. Barry and Mike are two of the most genial Yorkshire men you could ever wish to meet and their stands promoted the Instanta image to brilliant effect making us look much bigger than we were at first. They are the most professional exhibition stand designers that we have ever worked with and we can strongly recommend them to everyone.


I had hoped to put a photo of the Jackson family from BJ Eurosell Ltd on here as my final tribute for today but unfortunately, as I write, the photo has not arrived. Jim Jackson together with his wife Barabara and son Paul have been supplying Instanta since 1989. They source all of Instanta's boxes and insulation material and you couldn't meet a nicer bunch of people. Paul and Jim are regular fellow sufferers at Anfield and I sometimes see them on the trek up to the home matches. Sorry that your photo was too late to appear here but at least all your packaging always arrives on time. If you need to source any packaging materials BJ Eurosell are a wonderful supplier.

Of course our friends on Saturday had to eat early so that we could watch X Factor. All my money is on Cher Lloyd but her odds have drifted so other punters disagree. Watching this I simply don't understand why she is not favourite. If any of the contestants has the "X Factor" rather than can sing well look no further than this.

Where Would We Have Been Without KLH Electronics PLC?

It was over sixteen years ago that we were introduced to a young John Walkinshaw and his company KLH Electronics by a fellow metal detecting enthusiast and I have to say that this find outweighed any treasure that we have ever dug up as John's brilliance in electronic design transformed Instanta's products from being advanced for the industry to being more than advanced for any industry. With John's help we developed features never before found on water boilers and had the rest of the catering trade scrambling to catch up. Not one to rest on his laurels, John has always been ahead of the game and when the competition caught up and brought out service warning codes and ECO modes we were ready to move ahead again and launch another more advanced generation of boilers incorporating liquid crystal displays, timers and built in filter monitors. The printed circuits designed and developed by John have not only been advanced but also extremely reliable. KLH have invested huge sums in automated production and these robotic production lines ensure that every board is identical and have made Instanta the market leader in advanced water boilers.  

Every electronics company needs a brilliant designer like John but we must also thank his fellow director Carol Morris for the efficiency with which she has run the operation ensuring that supplies are delivered on time and dealing with any queries quickly and in a very friendly and efficient manner. We will miss John, Carol and her husband Tom and everyone else at KLH and must thank them for the major contribution that they have made to Instanta's success.

Before we used John's design skills, all our boilers incorporated bulky electro-mechanical thermostats like these. They are good and reliable stats but the bulbs are in contact with the water and can suffer from limescale deposits in hard water areas and they have fairly long differentials when switching.

These tiny thermistors introduced to us by KLH transformed  temperature sensing by being extremely accurate and operating on a small differential ensuring constant temperatures and, being fitted externally, less sensitivity to limescale and much easier service.

It looks like Cher Lloyd, my X Factor tip for this year, may struggle to win. She came in the bottom two on Sunday night despite being much better than Wagner and Mary so she may not be as popular as I thought. Mind you, no X Factor winner to date has ever been in the bottom two so there has to be a first time and, in the same week in 2008, KLS were in the bottom two and finished as runners up. Much depends on how big the Wagner bandwagon has become. The anti Cowell brigade managed to knock Simon Cowell's act Joe off the number one spot last Christmas and they could do the same sort of thing again now by voting Wagner to win. But the laugh will be on Simon's face as he's the one who stands to gain the most from all those telephone votes and there's bound to be some sort of get out clause in that prize recording contract. I'm keeping faith in Cher for now and will be interested to see how she performs on Saturday night (if our friends who are coming round for a meal are fans of the show).

Here's another example of the hilarious jokers those great British telephone voters are. They've crucified poor Paige for the benefit of Wagner, kept a leaden lump in Strictly Come Dancing and now they're putting the knife into Gillian McKeith. OK so she's not the world's most popular woman but, after a week of being chosen for those gruesome insect torturing trials, isn't it time to give her a break?

The Final Countdown. The Art Of The TV Review.

Its November 1st and today marks a major milestone for us. It's the first day of our last working month and the clock is now well and truly ticking down towards our retirement. I'm going to devote the blog for the final month (or at least some of it) to the things closest to our hearts as well as to people and businesses that have meant a lot to us over the last twenty years. I'll probably be including some of my all time favourite YouTube videos too.

Regular blog readers (and yes there are some - hello Mum), will know that Marion and I are big fans of the arts.You might think us a bit lowbrow as we love X Factor just as much as we love Puccini or Piero Della Francesca but we're comfortable with that, unlike those who wouldn't dream of confessing to enjoying the weekly Cowell glitterfest or the daftness of Harry Hill.Our son Paul is often amazed when people he meets in the industry who make shows for the masses proclaim without a trace of embarrassment that they don't watch that sort of TV.

Anyway, to get to the point, if you love entertainment and the arts, you love reading about them and the first page that I turn to every morning after checking on the soap opera that is my football team is the TV review. I've been lucky over the years as The Guardian has employed some of the finest TV reviewers and previewers including the inimitable Nancy Banks Smith , Charlie Brooker, Grace Dent and now Sam Wollaston. Unlike reviews of theatre productions, new albums, concerts, books, films or exhibitions which people tend to read to form a decision on whether to see or buy the product a good TV review is in itself a form of entertainment and I am happy to read about something that was on the box last night irrespective of whether or not I saw it.

A good TV critic will always sell papers. Jim Shelley at The Mirror, AA Gill and now Caitlin Moran of The Times are all talents who must be treasured by their proprietors and kept at all costs - as was the legendary Clive James whose ten years as The Observer's critic resulted in no less than four books of published reviews. In today's Guardian, Sam Wollaston writes a fabulous piece on Return Of The Rhino: A Last Chance To See Special (BBC2). It's not a programme that I would watch but I am always happy to read a good review and speaking of how the white male rhino is taken back to Africa after thirty odd years in a zoo in the Czech Republic Sam writes "He sniffs the warm ground, stirring distant memories maybe, then takes a mouthful of long fresh African grass. Mmm... after 35 years of dumplings and pilsner." Perfect.

Which takes me back yet again to the absence of a good critic in our regular Sunday paper. When Kathryn Flett left the Observer I blogged on here "Heartbroken On Valentine's day" as one of life's pleasures departed. Her TV reviews were full of humour and clever observation and her magazine pieces on life in her home town of "Random On Sea" were a joy and guaranteed that both Marion and I could grab different sections of the paper without arguing who was going to read her contributions first. Since she left in February I have been patiently reading all of her replacements. All are good writers but none has mastered the rare art of the TV review (and it is an art) and this week I couldn't even be bothered to read to the end and that's a first. If the Observer doesn't find a decent replacement soon I'm going to have to break a lifetime's habit and drop the paper. And just to show what a difference a writer makes, I even read and enjoyed the car review in the Guardian recently when Sam Wollaston wrote it and if you know that I drive a Prius you'll appreciate the level of my interest in cars.



I see that a lot of genuine TV reviewers are active on Twitter while the big shows like X Factor and Downton are on so they are genuinely interested and not just reviewing from DVDs. With X Factor I put my money where my mouth was and, having suggested that Cher Lloyd seemed to be a good value bet at 14:1 last week, I was amazed to see her odds on Betfair rise to 15:1 on Saturday before the show started. Backing her at those odds I could now guarantee a profit as they have tumbled to around 7:1 now but I think that she's got a lot further to go and I am not hedging my bets just yet. Remember we both tipped Joe at the audition stage last year although Marion's got a few favourites this time.


Oh well, twenty nine days to go now. That's TV reviewers off my chest, what beckons tomorrow? With the news of Cherie's dabblings recently, eBay might be topical.

Cordon Bleu Arrives In Norfolk

Nick Neal our sales and marketing director hails from deepest Norfolk - a county not known for its culinary delights. So Nick was fascinated when a relative invited him to dinner on Saturday evening and asked him if he liked waffles. This was quite an adventurous change from the normal fayre on offer at the family home and it was explained that his hostess was taking a cookery course. Duly impressed Nick waited in anticipation for the dessert to arrive and he was salivating when an attractive dish made with a white chocolate base topped with fruits and surrounded by golden waffles arrived at the table. Nick's wife Collette took a spoonful and the table looked on expecting glowing praise. "Well?" asked Nick's relative smiling. "I'm sorry" said Collete "but it tastes of potatoes." .....yes that's right. The dish had been made with potato waffles to which the host's response was "are there any other types?" As Nick says, Norfolk has some way to go to catch up.

While Nick was going without pudding on Saturday, Marion and I had slightly better luck as we spent a very nice weekend at Rufflets Hotel just outside St Andrews where we had a relaxing time and enjoyed some excellent food. We were there visiting our daughter Sarah and her partner Duncan who have spent the last fifteen months renovating their house which they bought in July 2009. It is hard to believe it is the same place as Duncan has been working flat out and it has gone from being a fairly rundown bungalow with a loft space to a fabulous house. There's still some work to be done but the light is definitely shining at the end of the tunnel and Duncan has done an amazing job. Sarah has taken after her mum and her interior design ideas are working very well and the couple's cooking on Friday was great.

The wonders of Sky Plus were apparent again when we got back from Scotland last night and managed to watch both Saturday's two and a half hour X Factor extravaganza and the Sunday show in just over eighty minutes without really missing anything (apart from the great IKEA ad of course). It just goes to show how much padding there is in Cowell's domination of ITV's weekend schedules. The standard of the contestants this year is very high and I am still struggling to pick a winner although Matt Cardle's odds are dropping fast and he'll be odds on before long. My long shot picks of Treyc and Katie don't look too hopeful with Treyc finding herself in the bottom two being inexplicably pipped by Wagner (has the Stephen Fry YouTube video boosted his popularity?) and Belle Amie but I still think that Cher at 14:1 is a good bet.

I couldn't read Craig's daily email at the hotel on Friday evening as his report on the sales is in a spreadsheet and the hotel Internet didn't have Excel and I didn't want to start messing around with memory sticks. You might wonder why I am still interested in how we are doing as we're off into the sunset in under five weeks now. I suppose that it will always be with us and even in the future we will be looking at the beverage equipment in cafes and restaurants and seeing if they are Instanta. I managed to open Craig's form on Sunday evening and the sales showed yet another good week. It's quite obvious that we won't be missed as everything seems to be running like clockwork.

Monday is always the time when we start thinking ahead to what to go and see for Orange Wednesday. Halloween this week so it's a no brainer

Instanta Gremlins Strike Again & A Visitor From Down Under

Half way through writing the blog yesterday my computer packed in and I was unable to complete it so for today in the following read "yesterday" and for last night read "Wednesday night. Those nice young people from Mainframe Computer Services were round like a shot and diagnosed a failed hard drive and took my PC away for surgery. We've had so many computer glitches recently that the MCS lads are starting to be part of the Instanta family . Hopefully it will be back today and I mean today this time.

Today we were pleased to welcome Chris Poole the production manager of Zip Australia who is currently on a European visit sourcing plant and machinery for the Sydney factory. Chris is a Brummie by birth but moved down under a few years ago and is very happy in his new life in the southern hemisphere. He paid a surprise visit to his family in the Midlands earlier this week and they were delighted to see him. Chris had a good look around Instanta and told me that he was impressed with what he saw (well done everybody). Married to Samantha, Chris has three children, Josh who is 21, Cody 18 and Kieran 14. Chris is off to mainland Europe next week and doesn't get back to Oz until early November.

We went to see Wall St Money Never Sleeps last night. I have to say that it wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe by the reviewers but it wasn't brilliant. I found all the financial talk pretty difficult to grasp (and I once worked in a bank)and the plot was pretty complex and slow moving. But on a positive note Michael Douglas played the slimy Gordon Gecko very well and the cinematography with the sweeping helicopter shots of NY was stunning.

Marion and I are off to visit our super daughter Sarah in St Andrews this weekend. We haven't seen her a lot this year and we hope that once we have retired we will get more opportunities. She's cooking us a meal while we are there. It's a good job we've finished the diet as she's a great cook.

The office is finally taking shape with the fitting of the carpet. Now the place doesn't echo any more and it's a lot warmer. It's a pity it wasn't all done before our visitors from Australia and our Norfolk head office arrived as I think that they would have been pretty impressed.


It was a double bill of Paul's "A League Of Their Own" last night (and I mean last night now). I couldn't promote it on the blog with the computer being down but I hope that everyone enjoyed it as much as we did. Another very funny show and a double bill to boot. Looking forward to the X Factor on Saturday. I still haven't got a real favourite but I see that Stephen Fry is going for Wagner.

We Start The New Week With A New Office

We arrived today to a sparkling new office. After the desks arrived on Thursday, the decorators came in on Saturday and spruced everywhere up with a lick of paint. All the cracks have gone now and everywhere is looking bright and fresh. The carpet is next and then we can start putting things back up on the wall and mess it all up again.

We've got a big meeting tomorrow. It is most likely going to be the last business meeting of our working careers and Marion and I will be giving official notice of our resignation as directors of the company due to our retirement on 30th November. I've just done some figures to report at the meeting and I have to say that they look pretty good and we can go out on a positive note in the knowledge that the business is going from strength to strength and growing healthily and that our new owners made a good buy when they bought our shares.

I'm off to the doctor today for a check up. Thanks to the wonders of the NHS our local surgery carry out regular checks on blokes who are over fifty. It seems that we are in the category that is most at risk from high blood pressure, heart disease and weight problems. I had all the blood tests last week and my weight is now at a healthy level. As for the blood pressure, I've been treated for this for about eight years now and it's very much under control. In fact when I took my reading on Saturday is was 95 over 65 which seems to be on the low side. Mind you I worried about the reading and a couple of minutes later it was 111 over 65. It would be nice if I could reduce the medication as with blood pressure tablets, cholesterol pills, sleeping pills and painkillers for the bad hip I go to bed rattling.

Last year I tipped Joe to win the X Factor and had a small win on Betfair. This year's competition is much harder to predict as there are a number of likely candidates. I have had a flutter on Treyc and Katie as I think that their odds are too high and there will be a chance to lay the bets in the next couple of weeks as they stay in the competition.At the moment I don't think that either will win. I feel that the best price is Cher (above) who is 13-1 on Betfair today. I don't particularly like her music but if the same people who watch YouTube are those that vote on X Factor there may be a clue there. At the time of writing, Matt's performance from Saturday has had 352,000 hits on YouTube whereas Cher has only had 281,000 with One Direction trailing in as a poor third at 173,000. But if you scroll down the YouTube chart you will find that Cher's performance has been uploaded four times and she holds four of today's top twenty most watched slots taking her total to 398,000. Just a thought. I struggle to look at her with a straight face after Grace Dent likened her to Mrs Overall on Twitter.




Now that we are only six weeks away from retirement We're going to have to think about buying ourselves some mobile phones. Dave Wilson and Nick have been dealing with phones here at Instanta and every now and then a new one will turn up on my desk and I'll spend the next couple of weeks trying to work out all the features. I haven't done a great deal of research yet but no doubt Marion will find a website on the lines of comparethebestmobile.com and try and persuade me to get the most economical option but I've always fancied one of those iPhones. If I don't get any phone calls I can always do a bit of performing. Remember to double click if it doesn't fit on your screen in the blog.

Welcome Back Jenny

We've missed Jenny Buckley here in the office as she has been off sick for a couple of weeks but normal service was resumed today as she felt well enough to make a return.It's been an eventful couple of weeks and Jenny missed our weeks without broadband and the disaster when our computer server went bang. Fortunately Tony Lowe and the spares team made a huge effort to keep her work up to date for her whilst she was away and I am sure that she will find everything in apple pie order. Welcome back Jenny we are all glad to see you.

We've decided on something of a marathon for our regular Orange Wednesday cinema trip. We've wanted to see "Winter's Bone" since it was released but it's one of those non-blockbuster offerings that tend not to find their way into the multiplex cinemas such as our local - Vue. However, Vue has decided to give this one an airing - hooray. When? 10.30pm boo.

I don't really feel like going out at 10.30pm so we've decided to go and see "Buried" at 7pm and then pop out for a bite to eat and come back at 10.30pm. Hopefully we'll be able to keep awake and I hope that the films are as good as they've been billed. The film industry is weird. Nothing worth watching for months and then loads in the same week. I suppose it makes sense as there's no point in releasing your best offerings in the quiet of summer.

I wasn't alone in falling for the X Factor hype and blogging about the injustice done to Gamu. The blogosphere,Twitter and Digital Spy went into meltdown but I suspect that there's going to be a twist in the tail and I've already read reports of "Wild Card" entries being introduced which might explain the anomalies in the live finals line up. And with such a blatantly wrong choice the producers have gained the maximum possible publicity.

I am enoying being on Twitter even if I do have no followers. Some of the celebrities I follow were complaining the other day that their follower numbers had dropped to zero - I thought that was normal. One of the most active Tweeters is Lord Sugar ( @Lord_Sugar ). At the moment he's conducting a survey on the most hated newspaper and feels that he will get a realistic response. But as a statistician I have to differ as, instead of being the view of a cross section of the nation, it will be a cross section of people who use Twitter and follow one of three (Sugar, Jamie Oliver and Jonathan Ross) of the thousands of celebrities on the site. As one of only two who use Twitter at Instanta as far as I am aware, my response is bound to be unrepresentative and to prove it I just asked everyone in the office for their choice and none was the same as mine and three chose the same paper.


And here's one of the benefits of Twitter. How else would I have found this if @IndiaKnight had not mentioned it.

Losing My Memory

One of the fears of growing old is losing one's memory and with retirement rushing towards me like an express train, getting old is something that often dwells on my mind. This morning I arrived at work without the memory stick that contains many important documents that I have been working on recently so I went back home to get it. After searching high and low without success a mild degree of panic began to set in but I knew that it had to be in the house as I had put it in my pocket at work and driven straight home on Friday afternoon. Putting my Sherlock Homes hat on I retraced my steps and eventually discovered the lost memory in the tumble drier where it had ended up after a cycle in the washing machine. Fortunately it hadn't yet got into the ironing or that would have been the end of it and as this is the second time that it has been through a wash cycle and survived intact I think that it is turning into something of a lucky charm. Congratulations Kingston for making such a robust product.

My X Factor predictions on yesterday's blog were somewhat off the mark as Cheryl Cole and Danni Minogue went from the country's sweethearts to Britain's Most Wanted inside half an hour and Twitter went into meltdown calling for the nastiest things to happen to them. Why? For some obscure reason Danni rejected the cinema worker Paije in favour of the annoyingly self obssessed Nicolo (OK it's only an act but it's not one I can endure for too many weeks) and even worse Cheryl rejected the best female singer Gamu in favour of another self promoting attention seeker Katie. I hope that Gamu and Paije aren't asking themselves what must have crossed many a mind last night (with apologies to Sacha Baron Cohen) "Is it cos I is black?". I won't go any further down that route and have to remember that we are watching a television programme that is designed to create interest and attract viewers and if a decent singer wins then that will be a plus for Simon Cowell and controversy fuelled viewing figures will be far more important.

Yesterday's defeat at home to Blackpool must have surprised only those armchair supporters who have not seen Liverpool in action this season. I went to the match fully expecting a difficult game and enjoyed watching a talented Blackpool side who together probably earn less than Steve Gerrard (earn being a debatable choice of word), make the once Mighty Reds look like relegation material. I feel sorry for Sotirios Kyrgiakos who, once again, was the only Liverpool player who looked like he could give a damn about the outcome and came close to single handedly salvaging a point that we did not deserve. There was a time when every player who pulled on the red shirt played with the passion exhibited by Sotirios but those times are long gone. All together now "We all dream of a team of Kyrgiakos's , a team of Kyrgiakos's, a team of Kyrgiakos's".Wonder if it will catch on. In Daz and Gaz Rodwell we've got Blackpool fans here at Instanta. They sent me a good luck text before the game and were gracious enough to send another at the end saying that Blackpool "held on". If coming close to winning 3-1 is "held on" then I suppose they did.


Today I was hoping to include a photo of Assembly Worker Andy Fyles and his partner Claire with the latest addition to their family Alfie John who was born on Thursday but I haven't had the chance to get one yet. Congratulations to Andy and Claire. I have reported lots of Instanta babies on here over the past few years but boys have been a rarity. Let me have a photo when you have a minute.

Happy Birthday Rob

Today (Sunday) we're sending our best birthday wishes to Rob Lowe who is responsible for our machine sales processing. Rob, whose dad Tony works in our stores, joined us in May and his presence in the office has certainly broadened our outlook on life. University educated Rob's interests range way beyond our usual comfort zone of X Factor and football and we now have wide ranging debates on topics as diverse as religion, politics and history and I will miss that when we retire in eight weeks' time. Rob is extremely conscientious in his attitude to work and I am sure that he will have a great future at Instanta after Marion and I have gone.If you get time to read this on your birthday Rob I hope that you have a wonderful day.

And Rob was not the only conscientious one here at Instanta as we recovered from the complete computer failure that hit us on Wednesday morning. It appears that when we moved a shelf in the computer network cabinet a box was knocked over. But it wasn't just a box, it was something to do with the power supply and it caused a power spike that took the server out. After thirty six hours sans computers we were back up and running late Friday morning and I would like to thank everyone in the office and stores for going out of their way to get things back on track and for working flat out throughout the day without any breaks in order to return us to normality. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed and were greatly appreciated. Every cloud has a silver lining and ,whilst I was not exactly overjoyed at the accident that caused £5,000 worth of damage, I was relieved to see that our insurers advise us that we are covered. Our first claim of any size for as long as I can remember.

Whilst Rob's arrival in the office has certainly increased our range of conversation there's no escaping the fact that X Factor is still the number one TV show to debate - Strictly comes nowhere near. And with costumes like that worn by Sinitta on Saturday's show it's hardly surprising. Dressed as some sort of Barbarella/warrior queen character from a teenage comic strip I imagine that the young boys in the groups that she was judging had difficulty in concentrating on their singing whilst Diva Fever were dying to know where they could get an outfit like it. We find out the final twelve tonight. At this point last year I had already tipped Joe as a likely winner but this year's choice is going to be much more difficult. I think that we can rule out all of the groups and most of the over 28's but there are three or four amongst the girls and boys who look good. Cher Lloyd,my favourite from the auditions, went down with a sore throat in last night's show and would not make the cut if judged on that performance alone but, as her auditions had more hits on YouTube than all of the others put together, I think that she will survive. I think that the top four will be Cher (most original girl),Gamu (best voice girl),Paije (best voice boy) and Matt(most original boy). I won't be putting any money on until the first live show.

On a more serious note, have you noticed the proliferation of suicide in the news recently? A couple of weeks ago there were the strangers who killed themselves after meeting on the internet and then two sex workers who apparently set up copycat deaths together soon afterwards. Yesterday I read of the director of the company who gave Northumbria Police the taser that was used on Raoul Moat, and later found not to be approved resulting in the company's license being revoked. And in the news last week was talented eighteen year old musician Tyler Clementi who leapt to his death from the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly taped a video of the young man indulging in gay sex with another student and then posted the tape on the internet. I spent a couple of years as a Samaritan so know a little bit about the mindset of the suicidal. It is a hugely complex subject but what struck me about each of these cases was the impact of the media - both digital and traditional. The two strangers met via the internet and the copycats discovered the chemical recipe online. The director's company was all over the press and the young mans private life was broadcast for all at Rutgers University to see. Without the web would some of these at least still be alive? I have said on here that the internet is the most important tool in life today but it is time that we all think very very carefully about the potential consequences before we press the publish button. And is there not a good case for an increased Samaritans presence on the web? I notice that there are a fair number of Samaritan branches on Twitter but perhaps a worldwide permanently manned Twitter account might benefit those who have suicidal tendencies and are internet aware.

And I can't end with a jolly video after that although I hope to brighten things up tomorrow with news of a new Instanta baby if I get a photo.

Well Done Josephine

In the absence of a photograph of son Paul's fiance Josephine in her dodge ball outfit, here's a photo of her hat. Dressed as a penguin,Josephine took part in a charity dodge ball tournament in London on Saturday.Being American she was possibly one of the few people who actually understood the rules of this wacky game and, as a result, her team triumphed and managed to raise a magnificent £5,000 in support of breast cancer. Well done Josephine. Any photos of the games?



Here's Lee Moore from our office demonstrating his skills as a Christmas tree decorator. Thank you for brightening up our reception area Lee. It looks good. Just straighten it up a little.We will be closing on Christmas Eve at lunch time and will reopen on 4th January.



The local Toyota garage just phoned to say that the Prius is on schedule to arrive on 31st December and will be ready for me and Marion to collect on 4th January. It is another of our attempts at supporting the 10:10 initiative and I'm pretty sure that by the end of 2010 we will have actually reduced our emissions by more than the target 10%.



I have been dipping my toe back into the eBay water a bit lately and just took delivery of this superb art deco vase designed by leading designer Charlotte Rhead.Being wrongly categorised and described, I am pleased that I was able to pick it up fairly cheaply. I've now got a cupboard full of antiques to sell on eBay. Only problem will be finding the time to list them all.Maybe when things get quieter here.




Stop press. An email just arrived with a photo of the dodge ball team. There's Josephine 2nd right looking suitably aggressive. I better not upset her when she's married to Paul.




Have you Seen all the fuss about the Facebook group who got together to try and make Rage Against The Machine the Christmas number one to try and get one over on Simon Cowell? It seems that they are being successful. All I can say is that anybody who buys it simply to spite Simon is a mug and wasting their money on a tuneless dirge.I've just joined the Facebook group Joe McElderry for Christmas Number one. There are 86 members already. And how many in the Rage Against The Machine group? Er 41,000. Come on Joe.

We told you Joe

Not wishing to gloat too much but here is the opening to my blog of 23rd August the Monday after Joseph McElderry appeared on the first show of this season's X Factor "After a gap of what seems like five minutes, our Saturday night TV is once again dominated by Simon Cowell in his new show which,in the arena format, should be called "Britain's Got The X Factor".You've got to hand it to Simon; it really is a slick piece of entertainment but the freak show elements are starting to wear a bit thin. On the basis that (a la Susan Boyle), they have showcased the best acts in show one I think we may have already seen one of the final two. But I'm not expecting it to be Danyl Johnson (the best audition Simon has ever seen).No. Marion and I think that Joseph McElderry with his boyish good looks and pitch perfect voice has much more to offer than the dreadful Eoghan Quinn (Chucky)who made it to the last three last year. And Danyl had the benefit of a track complete with backing singers (another first). Looking at Youtube hits to date Danyl is out in front but at only 41,000 views so far he's not another Susan Boyle." And yes I did put my money where my mouth is and won £415 which has left me in profit for my year's gambling for once (just).



A few days ago I gave you a sneak preview of our fabulous new CT8000 boiler that we will be launching at Hotelympia in late February. Having taken the boiler to the photographers myself, I didn't look too closely at the photo as I assumed it to be a photo of what I took to him. But some eagle eyed readers said that the photo didn't look quite right. And if you look at the photos above you will see what was missing. It seems that our photographer uses layers to get the perfect image. This would never have happened in the days of negatives. It's a good job it was spotted before the photo got into the new brochure.

And speaking of photos, I'll finish today with a selection of snaps from the Instanta Xmas party held at the Floral Hall Southport on Friday. A good time was had by all. All captions left to right.
Lee Moore and Craig Mercer making shapes on the dance floor.

Our sales team Nick Neal and Peter Brindle get down and boogie.

Monsieur Brindle Operations Director Dave Wilson , Sales Director Nick Neal and morning cleaner Dave Boutle

Assembly workers Joey Jones and Rafa Kolasinski

Store keeper Tony Lowe and Service Co-ordinator Max Vidal

Store keeper Phil Joce and his wife Pat

Me and Marion
Marion and afternoon cleaner Margaret

Peter and his wife Linda

Assembly worker Andy Fyles and his cousin office assistant Lee Moore

Machine shop supervisor Mike Chubbs and welder Kirk Harrison

Factory leader Tony Mercer wih head of wiring Martin Rimmer, Andy and Lee

Machine operator Craig Mercer, with Joey Jones and assembly worker Maiusz Kiepas

Head of welding Craig Peach with sheet metalworker Gary Rodwell and Gary's partner Faye (centre)

Office manager Jenny Buckley and guest Natalie Drummond

Sales Despatch Craig Buckley and Jenny

Tony Lowe and ex employee Liz Bradshaw

Assistant Factory Leader Jason Poland and his wife Jude

Assembly worker Sean Johnson