With a move slicker than anything you've ever seen in any Bruce Lee film, I managed to jump up, bend like a reed and flick the tubes deftly with my left wrist, sending little Roland back behind the corrugated sheet from where he dared appear in the first place. (There's another version of this tale involving an ear-splitting shriek and said rat falling off the tubes in terror, but I wouldn't pay much heed to that).
The main person behind the Tinbasher blog is Paul Woodhouse, who reports that he blogs from "Colne in Lancashire - a tawdry little hell hole if ever there was one."
Besides how entertaining the Tinbasher is, this blog is remarkable for the way it marries up a traditional industrial business with that trendiest of communications vehicles, the blog.
And what a traditional business they are in — a blog is a first for this industry. As Paul reports, Tinbasher is the only sheet metal blog on the Internet, saying, "Talk about ploughing a lone furrow. It's one thing being a big fish in a little pond, but I'm the only fish and that isn't healthy. I find the sheet metal industry — especially in the UK — to be a webphobic bunch."
Butler Sheet Metal sees the blog as a way to help break into new markets, i.e. home decorative sheet metal and designer stainless steel. They have a business unit called Planters Direct, which manufactures and sells beautiful, contemporary stainless steel planters.
Like many family businesses, they don't advertise and they don't have a marketing budget. The blog is a way to present the business as it is, with authenticity and transparency.
To this end, Paul adopts an informal, slightly tongue-in-cheek tone. He writes on a variety of business-related subjects, interspersing occasional mentions about Butler Sheet Metal's services or Planter's Direct products.
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