Having done the hard yards stripping the Great Wall of Idle, it was now time to order it’s fancy new “coat”. So it was that I was now at the mercy of Brendan the Render’s crack team.
Negotiations had been concluded the previous week with the usual pursing of lips, rolling of eyes and long exhalations of breath as White Collar Boy sought out the best price from Blue Collar Man, neither understanding each other’s mysterious worlds.
An opening price was offered, which suggested to my ignorance that gold studs would be embossed into the render.
Therein lies the classic difference; we hope to pay a bowl of rice a day whereas the Great British Artisan knows lads like me are completely useless and, therefore, captive. After a modest fight, the wallet eventually opens like a slow cooked mussel.
Chipping away like I had on the wall’s crumbling face, I made one last effort, using everything life at Barclays Bank had ever taught me about sales negotiating.
“What if I labour for you to get the job done quicker and cheaper?” I suggested, rather hopefully as Brendan tried hard to suppress a smile, having just woken me at three in the afternoon from my self-confessed daily siesta.
“Surely I could be of use to you?” I said. He scratched his chin and looked towards the leaden skies.
“Aye…you can make the tea!” he said and the price moved not one penny.
Blue Collar Man had stuffed White Collar Man once again but it had been great fun at least. David Cameron needs men like Brendan to sort the EU budget out.
Midday on Day One and finally our materials had arrived. Brendan had relented, consenting to me assisting apprentice Carl by filling the cement mixer as the sum of his confidence in me.
“Four sand, one cement…can you remember that?” he said offering little that suggested he really believed I could. I thought it best to omit the last time I mixed concrete I also omitted the sand. You live and learn so they say.
First though, the mandatory cuppa which would punctuate proceedings as regularly as the church bells over the next two days and lead my kettle to glow as if it was radioactive.
The lads were addicted to sugar and at one point I thought my shovel was of more use in the kitchen. Brendan took anything he drank with three heaped spoons whereas the health conscious younger lads stuck to two.
A sugar laced cuppa and a Tunnocks wafer every hour led me to suggest this was not good for a Hollywood smile. Brendan promptly smiled and pulled his front two teeth out; I nearly fainted on the spot.
Soon second-in-command Steve came across to inspect my “mix”, looked me in the eye and said “sound!” Perhaps I had finally found my true calling? Tea boy and shit-shoveller all in one.
Steve suggested I actually looked like a builder even though I confessed I was concerned about some rough skin and a cracked nail. I told him I once dressed up as a waitress and was shit at serving drinks too; he kept his distance after that.
Day Two arrived and the novelty had quickly worn off. I brewed up on cue knowing that if an engine needed oil, then Team Brendan’s machine would not move an inch without liquid sugar and a dunked Tunnocks.
Young Carl the apprentice fired me to sole control of the wheelbarrow; as this was required with less frequency than my kettle, we all decided I should accept redundancy immediately and bugger off back to my office to do some work.
“Thank you for the opportunity Sir Brendan” I mumbled as I bowed and made my escape.
When I next surfaced to refresh the lads, they were all heads down in the sand. Brendan’s teeth had fallen out and were in danger of ending up in my wall.
Eventually, we found his fangs and the lads were keen to know how my sales drive was going, perhaps convinced I was some fancy city trader ready to offer them a bonus.
Had they asked me anything about Homes Under The Hammer, Bargain Hunt or what I thought of the dress Keeley Donovan had been wearing on Look North I would have been better able to assist them.
Day Three and it was time to cough up the dosh. The lads lingered – perhaps I had become a drop-in centre – but I had a busy schedule with Pensioners’ Pilates and coffee morning at the gym to get to.
It was time to say goodbye albeit with a tear in my eye…which always happens when I part with money.
Rather magnanimously I had offered to dump the waste for the lads at the tip. Clearly they had decided I needed some exercise, filling several bags so full that I thought I had suffered a triple hernia, humping them into the car.
When I got to the tip I was extremely disappointed not to be challenged as a trader. Did I not look the part anymore? As I dropped some stuff into a skip, I noticed several plant pots.
I asked the man if it was okay to retrieve these and he watched, bewildered, as I hung over the edge like an old baboon and fished out the pots, one by one. As I walked back to my car I could sense a lot of head shaking going on behind me.
Proud of my new status as Steve of the Dump my new life as an eco-warrior had begun and all thanks to Brendan.
Concluding The Obvious
The BBC’s website at the weekend contained an article about “a significant breakthrough in the battle against childhood obesity” coinciding with news that in Britain, the numbers of bariatric surgery procedures were…er…ballooning.
Studies led by Danish paediatrician Dr Jens Christian Holm involving 1,900 patients helped 70% of them to maintain normal weight by adjusting up to 20 elements of their lifestyles.
“According to the US Centre for Disease Control, one in three children is now overweight and the incidence of obesity amongst adolescents has quadrupled over the past 30 years.”
Dr Holm urged other nations to learn and confront this global health challenge.
“In general, obese children are neglected. They are often lonely and many of them don’t participate in activities with their peers. They lack self-confidence.”
But what ground-breaking stuff did he conclude could assist the fat kids? In a nutshell – no pun intended – these can be summarised as follows:
1 – Eat less crap.
2 – Drink less crap.
3 – Unplug kid from various devices.
4 – Get kid to move.
The kids in the study showed real progress but the worrying thing was that Dr Holm felt that the family unit’s participation was crucial as well. From this it is clear that some kids will still miss out simply because they have thick parents.
On a macro level the success rate “was achieved with an average of just over five hours of medical consultation per child per year.” The long-term savings to the NHS would be eye-popping and certainly much cheaper than bariatric surgery.
But let’s be honest, this is hardly rocket science.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29755469
My Old School
I had five great years at Hanson Upper School in Bradford but in recent years the school has had troubled times.
I could take the easy route here and avoid the recent controversies around school uniforms; after all what do I know about kids save for the desire to avoid having them at all costs?
Part of the issues Hanson has suffered in my opinion is that it has grown into an unmanageable beast with pupil numbers tripling since I was there. Schools this big are simply too big.
It may be new and shiny – funded by Labour’s stupidly expensive splurge on the Private Finance Initiative – but the academic results have been poor.
Now, the latest new Head is enforcing a strict uniform policy that has gained headlines for all the wrong reasons. For me, good on her to try to start somewhere to turnaround Hanson.
Parents on the television news were predictably bleating about the policy but this is the result of decades of limp apologist attitudes, crap standards and a collapse of expectations. Smart kids produce smart results – simple stuff.
One woman whined about kids being sent home with nobody there. We dreamed of the old boiler failing at my old primary school – as it regularly did – so we would be sent home. No fear of being abducted for us especially on a day of bunking off.
I hope the Head succeeds in what can only be a start here because pride takes time to nurture and initiatives like this should not be thwarted by hopeless parents devoid of any.
Big Al’s Corner – Temporary Insanity
Shares in pub company Punch Taverns plc were expected to plummet on early trading Monday morning as the market was rocked by an announcement from Big Al.
“I’m going to have to stop drinking, it’s not good for my health” he confessed after over forty years of propping up the great British pub industry.
For a brief second or two I swear the lights dimmed in The Scruffy and the beautiful Melissa behind the bar froze on the spot contemplating redundancy.
And then he clutched his blonde – Saltaire, not Melissa – and slurped another slurp…life was good again.
Back On The School Run
Pitch black, a weekend on the beer and the phone ringing at a time I hardly recognised; 6.41am…surely this was not happening? Then I remembered I was on “duty” again as Power Mum was dropping off the Golden Child.
I duly fed and watered him as we sat and watched some fit bird on CBBC swimming with sharks before battling with the fat mums at the school gates.
As we crawled through the Monday morning gridlock I noticed the little cherub looking up at me, almost with affection. Appreciation at last of my great sacrifice this bleak winter’s morn?
It was only then that I realised he was trying to kill me off with a silent but deadly. I dumped him out of the car before he stained the seats and searched the radio waves for comfort.
Radio 2 had the impossibly chirpy Chris Evans (how on a Monday morning?) whilst 5Live had the nauseating Nicky Campbell. Turning in desperation to Radio 4, I found a debate on the best way to die, which did not include asphyxiation caused by a Godson’s fart.
I decided to visit Herr Aldi on the way back. Walking down the aisle there was a woman struggling to cope with a rather wild acting young lad.
“Oi…Archer will you come down off them shelves!” she shouted and in that moment I offered thanks once again to Dr Khan’s knife for rendering me safe from things called Archer.
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