yen_powell

It's alright I suppose, has won a few awards, but it is a bit lacking in toilet facilities and I have had a few managers who think a meeting there instead of the office is a good idea. I built a road in there a few years back, I was only supposed to check the construction on behalf of someone else but it turned out there were no drawings for it at all, so I had to do those, including a bit of a wiggle to save some mature trees and then set it out. It now gets used by HGVs when they have a music festival in there. I'll see if I can find my pictures of the trees I couldn't save being cut down after a birds nest check. Bit of Old London Bridge put here when the park was built. The Georgian one not the medieval one I assume.

On Sunday I'm meeting Jim and his son Little Jim (also known as Gerald due to the fact that's his name) to mark out my scheme kerb lines on the actual road and footways in chalk and paint. This way we can gauge the best places to put any new gullies and drainage connections and see any obvious fuck ups with my lines before I go any further and make myself look a right dicky-doo-dah. Hope it stays dry or that's my overtime up the spout. Jim and myself will be measuring and curving bits of rope artistically whilst Gerald shouts out if we are about to get run over and if he doesn't he will get a blast of Gaelic swearing off his Dad from underneath a lorry. Coincidentally there is a nice food market just inside the park gates we will be working outside, so lunch should be exotic and possibly tasty. Check out the link below. http://victoriaparkmarket.com/

I had a hotel group email me claiming my footway (constructed a year ago) was stopping their fire door opening. Honestly, it's the slightest thing with these people! Their desk staff were obviously not informed of this dangerous fact because I now have 3 lovely photos of one of them holding the door fully open for my contractor Jim.

I only realised after I left that they have made a big change inside one of the barns. They used to have a metal platform and stairs at one end so you could stand right up amongst the roof beams to see them close up, with some of the makers marks and numbering systems highlighted. They also had sample jointed pieces of timber that visiting kids (and me) could pull apart and refit to show how the place was put together.

I shall miss this blogger when he finally packs it in. Sometimes he writes about his childhood, very odd tales they are, if I see one of those I'll pop it on here.

Another good one today, Spitalfields but in Suffolk??? https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/06/peter-minter-brick-maker/

Are you a Mason? Or was this your audition photograph and they turned you down?

I love this one. The part where her tea warehouse working husband became the Mayor of Bethnal Green, but his employer wouldn't give him time off to do it so he had to get a new job. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/05/beattie-orwell-centenarian-x/

A member of the Blackadder cast there.

I laughed when this popped up in my youtube suggestions, then it occurred to me that some artificial intelligence/algorithm is convinced that it is my sort of thing. God knows what'll come next.

No point striking if no one notices.

Yes, we younger old people will never know the incredible joy of being crouched head down hanging on for grim death and chucking in a few extra bits of coal to get the last bit of speed out of our steam powered motorbikes. Or running out of oil on the way home and so having no lights to see by.

In Germany special highway snipers are employed who will take a pot shot at anyone with their high beam on when approaching other panzers, I mean vehicles. They are sticklers for the rules you know.

Another https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/11/crudgie-motorbicycle-courier/

Here's two motorcycle related tales from the site. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/07/17/doris-halsall-civil-servant-despatch-rider-o/ https://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/10/bob-mazzer-at-the-ace-cafe/

It does look a tad too posh for the likes of scum like me.

Policeman jumping a gap in Tower Bridge in this one. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/02/pc-lew-tassell-in-the-pool-of-london/

Jimmy Saville interfered with my hamster and stole all the petrol whilst spreading Covid. There, that should get picked up by google nicely.

A friend from work was having eyesight problems, had to keep getting his prescription changed. This actually turned out to be a benign tumour pressing on his optic nerve. Weirdly two people from the same office had this at different times. Anyway, the cure is an operation where they go in up the nose and cut it away. My mate said he was very pleased he had such a big hooter because otherwise it is open up the head time. When people went to visit him afterwards he had a badly mis-shaped nose and two giant black eyes. After getting lots of sympathy (and grapes) he said that he had actually woken up unmarked. His wounds were actually from when he stood up out of bed to urinate into a bowl (behind the curtains I should add), felt woozy, fainted and fell face first onto his bedside cabinet. On the plus side, his eyesight returned to its usual state straight away. Unfortunately he had to buy new glasses again as he had thrown the old ones away at some point, not realising it was a tumour and not old age affecting him.

I think the bigger question is being ignored here. Have carpenters ever worn what looks like a square paper hat (Chippy Minton)?

Pugh, Pugh, Barney, McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubbe. Ingrained in my memory since I was a small child.

There could be treasure as well. The Old Chest Hospital site used to be the manor house for the Bishop of London, Bishop Bonner, also known as Bloody Bonner for his love of burning Catholics (everyone should have a hobby). There's a Mulberry tree still on the site that he is said to have tied heretics to whilst they were whipped. If you google the tree you get this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethnal_Green_mulberry_tree The whole redevelopment is now held up by a court case because they wanted to uproot the tree and put it somewhere else.

I have hatched in some dark grey asphalt so it is clearer to the non planny type people at my next meeting where the vehicles actually go. Not all road markings are white at the moment as you can see.