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.

The Sun Shines On Us At Excel

Spring is really in the air here in London with the Excel exhibition centre swathed in brilliant sunshine. This makes a great change to previous years when we have battled the elements to arrive at the show. Perhaps putting the show date back a couple of weeks was a good idea as attendance has certainly been better than expected.




And the sun shone brightly on us as I picked up one of the Caterer and Hotelkeeper awards for excellence. Our sous vide digital water baths won in the ancillary category and I went along to pick up the very nice plaque. It was good to win a prize at our last Hotelympia (me and Marion's that is not Instanta's). That bloke's giving me a funny look in the picture. Perhaps he didn't like the aftershave.




Continuing our daily introduction to some of our new colleagues from Zip, yesterday we were joined by National sales manager Nick Taylor. Based in Yorkshire and married to Louise, keen family man Nick is a proud dad to his little girl Emma who is just 18 months old. Louise is expecting their second child any day now and Nick is waiting for the important phone call to rush to the hospital. He couldn't do much when that call came last time. He was in Australia!



Yesterday we had a double visit from our friends at Zip when London Regional Sales Manager Graham Crisp popped in for a flying visit (quite appropriate as he lives in Biggin Hill).I didn't have chance to have a long chat with Graham but he told me that he is a keen golfer but not very good at it (false modesty I bet).

As I am late uploading the blog I might as well get today's Zip visitor in as well. Marketing Manager Malcolm Townsend has driven up from North Walsham to join us. Malcolm has been with Zip for eleven years. He tells me that he is a keen guitarist and has a collection of guitars at home. He once performed in a duo with his wife doing the singing but he has retired from that now. When he retires from Zip he hopes to take up finger picking banjo using a five string banjo. A nice interest and one that he is clearly passionate about.


I'll close with a dedication to Malcolm.

Hotelympia Day Three

The exhibition is at its halfway point today. Yesterday was fairly quiet but we had some interesting visitors and I think that the day went well. Marion and I had five minutes to spare and had a look at the prize winning cakes. Here's an amazing fishing tackle box cake - quite spectacular.



And this Simpsons cake was pretty impressive too.





Clearly no longer interested in cake is the new slimline Northern Area Sales Manager Peter Brindle who joined us yesterday for the rest of the show. Peter has lost so much weight lately that his clothes need alteration. If the exhibition goes quiet Peter's trousers falling down might attract a crowd. And if that doesn't happen we hope to have a laugh tonight when we go to London to the Comedy Store.





Yesterday's Zip colleague to join us at the show was Marketing Director David Bradbrook pictured here with Nick Neal. David was telling me about his mum and his mum in law who are in their late eighties and nineties and still active and pretty independent. With our retirement on the horizon I found that quite comforting although looking at the pile of pills on the bedside table in the hotel room I'm feeling pretty mortal (and the chambermaid probably thinks she's got a junkie in the hotel).

I'll leave you today with an appropriate video from a very funny guy. Old people rock. Of course they do.

Hotelympia The Final Countdown

Don't forget to make time to come and see me, Marion, Peter, Nick and perhaps one or two of our new Zip colleagues at the Hotelympia show at Excel next week. The show starts on Sunday at 11am and runs until Thursday. We are on stand 1959 and it will be the last opportunity for me and Marion to see some of our customers before we retire at the end of the year. It will be a strange feeling doing our last ever exhibition.



Before I started working for Instanta I would take a week's holiday from the bank and help my mum and dad out on the Instanta stand at the original Hotelympia. In (of all places) Olympia. I can remember in the seventies when times were hard in the catering industry and, in order to save on exhibition costs, I shared a room with my dad and my sister in law Val who, for her modesty, had part of the room in a B&B partitioned off with a curtain. We could not have dreamed then that thirty years later we would actually have a hotel room with its own en suite bathroom.



Then the show moved from Olympia to Earls Court.We had moved up in the world by then and could actually afford to stay in a nice hotel in Kensington and even go out into London one night. But exhibitions were still a grind in those days as, on the day before, my poor dad and I would be lugging heavy boxes and exhibition materials up flights of stairs to get the stand ready and then when the show finished we would have to do it all again in reverse. No fun at all.




Now, thanks to the wonderful Barry and Mike of Silverwood Exhibitions, we arrive to a fully set up and ready stand.I can't stress what a difference this makes as, instead of starting day one exhausted and fed up, we are relaxed and ready to meet the customers. We can also leave the minute the show closes and Mike and Barry dismantle the stand and take everything away.I can't recommend them highly enough.

One thing I am not sure about is how I will cope this time in view of my need for a hip replacement. We don't have any seats on the stand so I may be skiving off from time to time to take the weight off my hip.


We met Paul's bride Josephine's uncle Ric at the wedding. He is operations director for Opera North and he has kindly invited us to see their performance of Ruddigore at the Lowry tomorrow.Here is the audience reaction from when it was performed in Leeds.

Liz Iz Back (Again)

Nothing could give me more pleasure than telling you about the return of Liz Clayton to the Instanta fold. Liz first worked for Instanta six years ago and was a very popular member of staff here until she left us to take maternity leave. Liz stayed off work for a couple of years while son Sam was a toddler and she then returned to help us out part time when Natalie took her maternity leave. Now that Sam is at school and Marion and I are making plans for our retirement we felt that it was time to find another part timer to ensure a smooth transition and we immediately thought of Liz and were delighted to hear that she was in the job market. So here she is again. Liz will be working from 9.15 until 2.15 and we are all looking forward to her company. She will be involved in answering the phones and dealing with both the sales and the purchase ledgers.



We will be on the way to London for Paul's wedding on Wednesday so we won't be able to go to the local Vue for the Orange Wednesday promotion. So we went last night to see "Youth in Revolt" starring Michael Cera. Cera has been typecast as the dorky teenager in Juno, Superbad and now in this but it is a role that he carries off superbly and the film is great fun. I assume that, at 22, Cera will have to give up these roles soon but until he does, just enjoy them.




Things are running smoothly with our new colleagues at Zip. There is no real change here in the office and now that the phone has stopped ringing with all the congratulatory messages we are back to normal. We are in daily contact with Norfolk as we are getting the brochure and exhibition together and are looking forward to meeting Zip's sales force and service engineers in the near future.



One of the things that is necessary for when we retire is to have cover on the service desk. At the moment when Max is not in I man the pumps but with me going at the end of the year we need an alternative and Lee Moore has stepped into the breach. At the moment Lee and I are answering calls on speaker phone which is great for Lee but not so great for everyone else in the office. Mind you, perhaps they are all learning too so instead of having just one person to cover for Max we will now have three.

I'll finish today with Charlie Brooker's lesson on how to present the news.

Instanta and Zip - - The unbeatable team in boiling water solutions

Dear Blog Reader

You’ve always known Instanta for teamwork whether it is in conjunction with our suppliers, our customers or our staff. We love working with others. We’ve got a great track record and have built up some wonderful relationships in our fifty three year history.

We are delighted to announce that we now have a new relationship. With immediate effect Instanta is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zip Industries (AUST) Pty.

Established in Australia in 1945, Zip is a world leader in instant boiling water technology and mirrors the ideals that are so near to our hearts, working closely with staff, customers and suppliers to provide exceptional quality and service. Together our two companies share over a hundred years experience in supplying boiling water solutions throughout the world – a level of experience that is unparalleled in the industry.

So what changes will you notice at Instanta?

Although we aim to retire in 2011, I will continue as Managing Director and Marion will remain in the office working as a Director and our brief is to carry on as we were. There will be no staff changes and your contacts will remain the same. So there are no sweeping alterations planned, you can still phone me up on my direct line 01704502900 or Skype either of us via our website and we will be here helping to steer the company forward on the same principles that we have done for the last twenty two years.

We know that this is an extremely positive step forward for Instanta and are sure that you will join us in supporting this move, which sees the brand - and our team - become strategically important parts of the Zip Group.

Yours faithfully


John Brassey


Now. We like Zip boilers and we like Instanta boilers. But which is better?

There's only one way to find out.