I always like to hear that a fellow dealer is doing well and when Stewart Emslie strolled into my shop recently, it was obvious that he had something to smile about.

Stewart has been running a firm called Target Discount for decades and he relies on me for all his computer needs.

Although an important file on his PC was reporting that it was "corrupted", he was in a very jovial mood. While I attempted to recover the lost data, Stewart told me he had just completed a very good business deal with McDonald Resorts--a Scottish company that owns a multiplicity of luxury hotels and time-share developments throughout the UK.

Target had just installed a large number of digital TV systems in its time-share properties. He had installed a Philips TV and DVD in each home along with a Nokia digital terrestrial set-top box.

The parent company and the individual timeshare owners were delighted with the improvement in the quality of TV reception and, of course, the Nokia Mediamasters were giving each home a far greater choice of completely free programmes.

As many of the time-share owners only own one or two weeks at the properties, there is a large turnover of people who are seeing terrestrial digital for the first time.

A surprising number of these time-share clients have been so delighted with the quality of the pictures that Target has been gathering extra sales for their own homes.

This success does show that although there may only be a small margin on a DTV set-top box, this is transformed when the box is at the heart of a package that includes a widescreen TV and a DVD player.

Fortunately, I was soon able to recover Stewart's spreadsheet file and we joked that it just needed wider columns to accommodate his bigger sales figures.

As I watched him drive off in his brand new Mike Peters-style Lexus sports car, I couldn't help thinking that maybe we should all try a little harder to sell DTV.

I FULLY APPROVE of Retra taking its annual industry conference to Dublin and to the Jurys Hotel in Ballsbridge.

Dublin is one of my favourite cities and the hotel is one of friendliest in Eire. I am sure this is an inspired choice and, being Scottish, I like the way I can fly to Dublin cheaper than to London or indeed anywhere else in the UK.