DIYERS.

Happy New Year To You All.  Here's  another one of my anecdotes for you. 

    DO IT YOUR SELFERS ( BILLY BODGERS).

This is a creature that thinks it can fix anything.  It is often seen in stores like B and Q and Wickes.  Some people want a new set of golf clubs or a “nice” jumper (don’t forget the aftershave and socks) for Christmas.  Not Mr. DIY.  Oh no!  He (the majority are of the meat and two veg variety) wants a new Black and Decker Workmate and a Matsui cordless drill.  Some people read Mills and Boon romances.  Mr. DIY reads the latest Screw Fix catalogue.  

He eats, sleeps and drinks nuts, bolts, rawl plugs and screws.  His life time ambition is to “do up” (wreck) an old barn or slaughter works in the countryside.  God loves a Trier.  But this creature really is really trying sometimes.  He makes Frank Spencer look like a competent, time served tradesman.  

May I digress just for a sentence or two?  I once knew somebody who told me they worked with a man in a furniture removal company called FRANK SPENCER.  It must have been really reassuring for the owner of the house when they read his name on his badge:

 “Be careful with that priceless vase Mr. Spencer”. 

“Let’s not stand on occasion, call me Frank!” 

I once lived on a jam butty estate near a man we nicknamed:“Billy Bodger”.  He lived in a new town house with a front garden the size of a postage stamp.   Billy would open his shed and take out his ancient, cylinder, push lawnmower.  The blades were set to cut the hairs off a snooker ball.   Billy Bodger would sweat and toil SCALPING his poor front lawn for half an hour.  By the time he finished mowing (ploughing) his minute and immaculate (not) Wimbledon tennis lawn.  It would look across between the battlefields of Passchendaele and the Somme.   His garden actually looked better when he went on holiday for a few weeks. 

He was a jack of all trades and a master of none!”  

Sounds like myself.

I think he invented the Manchester screwdriver: the claw hammer.

There are people who serve apprenticeships and go to college to learn about, bricklaying, carpentry, electrical wiring and plumbing. 

Then of course there are you “bodge it and scarper” (cowboys) and Billy Bodgers of this world.  All one needs is some fuse wire, Sellotape and a Manchester screwdriver (claw hammer).  Their motto is:

“If in doubt, give it a clout”. 

He’s been doing it to the television for years.  They had a power cut last week.  They couldn’t watch any television programmes for two whole days. 

He decided he will have no more.  He marched down to the GAS showrooms and ordered a new Calor gas television!  Well they don’t have mains gas where he lives!