The Bodger's Charter

 

In our previous post Home Improvements, we gave some tips on home improvements. This week we’re giving advice on how to avoid DIY mistakes. If you don’t know what you’re doing, employ a qualified tradesman – don’t bodge it. As Daisy says, if you want a squirrel chased off the garden call the dog, a cat just won’t get the job done.

This handy guide will help you recognise when a project is heading for disaster and save you from the Bodger’s Charter.

All the traditional trades have a patron saint, an angel who keeps a watching eye over them, for example; the patron saint of fishermen is St Andrew, the patron saint of brewers is St Oliver (Reed), and the patron saint of bodgers is Thor. Thor is known for his ability to fix any problem, large or small, with a hammer and brute force. The hammer is the bodger’s preferred tool for all occasions. You can’t knock in a nail with a screwdriver, but you can whack in a screw with a hammer.

The experienced bodger is a jack of all trades, and master of none. The bodger has attempted almost every DIY job there is – at least once. His extensive knowledge of how to carry out a task is usually based on “having a mate who knows a bit about this”. Invariably the results don’t turn out as planned. Classic signs of a bodger at work are mini-meltdowns, profuse swearing, and throwing tools or materials he claims are sub-standard quality. The bodger can often be seen at the DIY store on Sunday buying the same products he bought, and then busted, on Saturday. Serial bodgers can often be found in Anger Management class.

Many bodgers have an assistant who is of very little assistance. This is usually a wife or girlfriend who offers useful advice such as “Do you know what you are doing?” or “I don’t think you should have done it like that?” It could also be the dog who has sneaked off with the piece of wood he has been very precisely cutting and shaping for the last hour. The bodger spends the next 30 minutes looking for it, only to find a mess of chewed up splinters.

The bodger dreams of being able to saw perfect mitres – the angled cuts that join up corners of skirting boards of door liners without unsightly gaps. In reality he knows his joints won’t fit, but he can fill up the cracks with glue and dust and hide his shoddy carpentry with a coat of paint.

The pinnacle of the bodger’s career is the mid-life crisis project. Undaunted by his long track record of DIY disasters he decides he is ready for the big one – the full bathroom conversion. Six months after the bathroom conversion began, the family have gotten used to having no running hot water in the sink, a door that won’t close properly, a shower rail that falls off when in use, and a toilet that takes 20 flushes to work. The bodger has promised he’ll fix it all next week.

Alastair and Daisy