Tell us something TRIVIAL about your life

[John63]

Last year my eldest got a rabbit as a pet for the kids and asked for ideas for a name.

My suggestion of shortcrust wasn’t accepted too well 😁

[Neilwood]

All the costs in a housing estate is the land and the infrastructure. The houses cost peanuts and the quality is horrendous, anything that can be prefab is prefab. I'm surprised banks haven't twigged to this yet, the average mortgage is probably longer than the design life of the crap getting built now. There's going to be lots of claims in 20 years time when the developers have disappeared and reinvented themselves under a new name.

Taylor Wimpey have just announced they are having to completely demolish one of their new apartment blocks because of unspecified structural flaws. This is the state of the British building industry, stuff like this happens all the time though usually gets caught sooner. Everything is deskilled so no-one knows how to spot shit work any more.

That doesn't really surprise me - I started my working career with Wimpey Homes a lot of years ago now. Bearing in mind that the area I worked in had the highest profit margins in Wimpey homes at the time, can you guess what they decided to do to try to improve company performance? They, just after launching a new initiative which was supposed to eliminate "firefighting" ie the need to repair faults by getting it right the first time, decided to remove an entire level of staff from the contracts. They decided to remove the very level of staff that were responsible for day to day supervision of the work in order to reduce our cost level to that of other regions (who didn't have the supervisors). What happened shortly after that was we ended up with a lot of pretty expensive problems - one particular example I can remember (amongst many examples) was the self employed joiner (on a price) deciding not to bother putting the polythene damp proof membrane at the back of the plasterboard in a number of areas. We ended up having to decant the owners into a hotel, strip back all the plasterboard to the external walls, fit the DPM, re sheet, redecorate the entire property and move the owners back in 6 weeks later at the cost of approx £10,000 (I remember having to cost the claim). All to save the joiner a few quid. Combined over the year, the various "snagging issues" that would have been picked up by the foremen easily came to way more than the cost of the foremen.

I'm a plumbing and heating engineer. Haven't taken on any new customers for a year and now only taking on emergency work from them. Fully booked for regular jobs into next year, and that's with working seven days a week plus most evenings.

Really doesn't surprise me - I know quite a few tradesmen in similar positions with more work than they can possibly undertake and there is no sign of it slowing up for the foreseeable future.

[F.P.]

Started winding down for retirement 10 years ago - stopped doing roofs and most first fix work; stopped completely when I was 65 or so I thought.
Called back to the tools about 18 months ago !
Did a cut roof last year, Windows, lots of Windows cause of work in a listed building and now working in an en-suite bathroom .

Neighbour who is in his late seventies is also working several days a week in his workshop supplying a couple of builders.

But the biggest problem is getting the materials at the quoted price - joinery timber has gone up 100 - 150% in the last few months!

[steelemonkey]

I have just spent a few days on the east coast and spotted this:-



The coat of arms for Great Yarmouth, an ungodly mixture of lions and fish! Showed me I was in Norfolk.

[gobfish1]

All the costs in a housing estate is the land and the infrastructure. The houses cost peanuts and the quality is horrendous, anything that can be prefab is prefab. I'm surprised banks haven't twigged to this yet, the average mortgage is probably longer than the design life of the crap getting built now. There's going to be lots of claims in 20 years time when the developers have disappeared and reinvented themselves under a new name.

Taylor Wimpey have just announced they are having to completely demolish one of their new apartment blocks because of unspecified structural flaws. This is the state of the British building industry, stuff like this happens all the time though usually gets caught sooner. Everything is deskilled so no-one knows how to spot shit work any more.

Persimmon Homes
Build 13500 homes and pay the top 3 bosses 42 million . So got to be land speculation going on . And stock price bubble.

10 year guarantee, and 35 years to pay your lone off for the 50% stake in the home your buying. Lol it's a reachround for sure.

[steelemonkey]

More in the great chicken saga! Darkwing, the brainless cockerel I had to rescue from his brother earlier in the week, was looking very depressed and not eating much in solitary confinement and wouldn't even attack the mirror I leant against his run. Tiffany, a bottom of the pecking order hen, had gone broody and was trying my patience. I thought I could solve 2 problems in one by putting them together. I dropped Tiff into the coop of Darkwing's run and opened the door. Darkwing rushed in at high speed and I thought he was attacking her! But no, he was doing his usual reaction of 'shag first, check species later. He then kept going for over 5 minutes (average time is generally about 20 seconds), until he fell to one side like an exhausted fat man. Tiff lay on the ground like a very used feather duster for a while and I feared she was broken, but then a look of absolute outrage came into her eye and she rose to her full height with all her feathers erect, ran at him and pecked madly at his toes (he was on a low perch, being smug) until he fell to the ground. He's now afraid of her and very much under the thumb - it's great!

Is that your usual cure-all? Sex and plenty of it!

[Noggin the Nog]

Should read:

is that your usual cure-all? Violence and plenty of it!

[Divemouse]

Showed me I was in Norfolk.

Have you not seen the Singapore Merlion? Yarmouth is a hellhole, but the kipper museum is nice

[Divemouse]

Gardening weirdness: I planted various beans in piles of tyres last year, including the giant white beans that you get in Tapas - I was dubious they'd survive, as they're mostly grown in places like Cyprus. Not only did they grow well, but I've just found a stash of pods in a mouse nest with perfect dried beans inside and the plants have left overwintering tubers which are beginning to shoot again!

I also found a new conker tree in the ground under the wood store, coming from a full size fresh conker. The nearest tree is half a mile away as the very fit crow flies. I guess it has to be a rook, no squirrel is going to bother going that far. The walnut tree that appeared a couple of years back remains a mystery - no trees in the nearest 3 villages AFAIK.

[Nickpicks]

I also found a new conker tree in the ground under the wood store, coming from a full size fresh conker. The nearest tree is half a mile away as the very fit crow flies. I guess it has to be a rook, no squirrel is going to bother going that far. The walnut tree that appeared a couple of years back remains a mystery - no trees in the nearest 3 villages AFAIK.

It could have been carried there by a migratory bird - a swallow perhaps.