FRONTAL-LOBE RANTING

Ukraine 

What brave people. What a great, principled president. 

And to those who have been apologists for enablers of Putin, I hope you feel ashamed. You are crypto fascists at best. 

'Useful Idiots' as Lenin used to call them.

These people are usually on the fringes of politics. On the right, Trump, Farage and Bannon who blame the European Union for antagonising poor Mr Putin, and on the left Diane Abbot, Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Burgon, who blame NATO for doing the same thing.

Liberty. And fuck Putin.

'Oh, he's no worse than our leaders.' I used to hear down the pub.

Well, he does happen to have his dissenters murdered. I'd say that was different for a start.

They don't call him the Demagogue of Democracy for nothing yet I've had Facebook 'friends' who thought he was great.

I de-friended them. Can't be bothered with people like that in my life.

More important is to NOT forget the people who are under his cosh at the moment. Celebrate their bravery and refusal to bow down to his murderous whim. Ordinary people attacked by military-might commanded by an international pariah for reasons of spurious imperial drivel.

Let's do all we can to help the Ukrainians.

Baron Harkonnen

The other day I went to see a George Duke tribute band. They were magnificent, playing Fusion which is one of my favourite forms of music. The keyboardist was really funny - like a little kid. He kept putting both thumbs up after we applauded - so un-rock and roll! What a player too - the feeling he had for his music was incredible.

The quiet parts of the music are not a green-light for drunk people to chat loudly. But that didn't stop the people in the front row.

Annoying person at George Duke tribute concert

I think you can tell this really annoys me - as much as people talking or on their phones at the cinema or people putting their feet up on a train seat. It's so inconsiderate. If you want to goof about loudly go back into the pub; don't spoil the concert for others.

An ex-girlfriend is a huge Stevie Wonder fan. She went to see him in Hyde Park and there were people talking all the way through it. She was incredulous. A living legend is playing live in front of you and you're talking about crap with your mates.

Anyway, the person who really annoyed me was sat in front, looked like the guy in the photo in a wig, ate with her mouth open and couldn't say please or thank you to the staff. 

Entitled witch.

Work sucks

I've got my 2 last jobs starting this Friday. I'm replacing some setbacks on some buttresses on a Church in Barnes - St Michael and All Angels.

Setbacks on a buttress

Set backs are the stones with angled, sloping fronts which allow water to cascade off. Quite a straightforward job and I'm doing it with my old mucker Fyfe, who will be leading the charge.

I won't be sorry to be leaving the profession. Most good tradesmen will tell you that the majority of contractors don't care at all about quality, and the standard of tradesmen these days is patchy. The reason people leave is because of the lack of quality control and the lack of appreciation for their efforts. 

About 3 years ago I worked on a project for a prestigious cemetery in London. The job was split between our contractor (I was subbing for them) and another contractor who had never done a job like this. The architect had never worked on a restoration project either. He was absolutely clueless, and had to be guided by experienced people in my contractors company in order to get through the process.

The other contractor had clearly never handled stone before (they couldn't believe the weight), used a cementitious repair mix on the stone which bled white everywhere and at the end got someone to hand-paint the grey cementitious mortar white to make it look like lime.

Both the architect and the other contractor won awards for their work. 

And that is why people leave.