Good news!
We had two containers arrive safely at Portbury, Bristol after coming all the way from the Port of Guangzhou (pictured below).
Bad news! One of the containers has been pulled by customs for inspection. Now as I am sure you already know, Revenue and Customs are the most powerful organisation in the UK, and probably the largest consumer of surgical rubber gloves.
For those of you who haven't been involved in importing, the implications of a customs inspection are: (1) your container is picked at random for a 'contraband' inspection (you may have noticed the occasional endangered parrot in your Twin Pedestal Desk!); (2) they pull all the furniture out of the container in the quickest fashion possible which generally means that up to 25% of the furniture is damaged; (3) on a good day, they will try and load the container again, resulting in probably a further 10% damages; (4) on a bad day, they will simply telephone and say that the contents of your container are on the dockside and need moving before they start incurring Demurrage (dock rental) charges; (5) Finally, they invoice you for the time it takes to do all of the above - and no! I am not kidding!
Bloody gits! We did however have one container land with us tonight...... will keep you updated!
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