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

Teambuilding

 

One of the unnoticed benefits of Coronavirus and social distancing has been the complete demise of Team Building courses. For those of you lucky enough to never have experienced a team building course, I should explain.

When the management of large corporations realise the business isn’t performing as well as they hoped, and they have no real idea how to fix things, they send the whole work force on a team building course. It’s intended to boost morale and foster team spirit. Attendance is mandatory for employees because “you’re really going to enjoy it and come back a better person”.

Team building courses are an export from America. This country has contributed many wonderful inventions such as rock ‘n’ roll, spaghetti westerns (OK most were made in Europe), the personal computer and spandex. To keep the balance they have also inflicted some monstrous crap on the rest of us, and team building courses are high in the top 10.

The courses are often a 2 – 3-day residential programme, so it intrudes on your personal time. The one possible saving grace of the whole sorry event is that they might have a free bar. If it doesn’t, then you really have been screwed.

So, you get to spend three days in the company of your fellow employees. You already suspect that half of them are dicks and a team building course is the perfect stage for them to prove it.

The course is always run by a team of insanely cheerful idiots. They encourage you to exchange hugs and high fives and bond with your colleagues. They love an inspiring theme song and they probably have a dance routine for you to learn. They repeatedly use annoying buzz-phrases like “positive mental attitude,” “let’s deep dive this,” and “winning is baked into our DNA”. I suspect that most team building organisers eventually end as members of whacky religious cults.

The courses always involve a series of pointless exercises. A favourite is to take turns falling backwards off a chair and a group of colleagues will catch you – this builds trust. What you really want is for the whole team to back up a few paces and let your manager fall flat on the deck. That would also teach a valuable lesson – how to laugh your arse off. Even worse, in the cringe sessions you might get invited to talk about your inner feelings or tell your colleagues why you think they are such a valuable member of the team.

If you really want to know the true meaning of friendship and loyalty – get a dog and take them for long walks on the three days you would have wasted ‘team building’.

Alastair and Daisy

Superheroes

 

This week, Discussions with My Dog pays tribute to the guys and girls who make it their business to save the world - Superheroes. They may not have a great deal of dress sense – most superheroes insist on wearing their underpants over their tights - but they make up for that with amazing powers and an unerring sense of duty.

Daisy’s opinion of some of your favourites

Superman – this guy has it all; the ability to fly, super-human strength, bullet proof pecs and x-ray vision. Who didn’t dream of having x-ray vision when they were 6 years old? The main problem with Superman is he’s too good - he makes all other superheroes a bit redundant.

Batman – remember the old Batman from the 60’s TV series, played by Adam West. He told corny jokes and could escape from the most impossible situations with an ingenious invention stored in his utility belt. Check this out
Then Hollywood ruined Batman by giving him a dark and moody makeover. Who wants a superhero who hangs out in an underground cavern, probably listening to grunge music and generally sucking the life out of everything.

Wonder Woman – Daisy thinks WW is very cool. Daisy would like to borrow her lasso of truth to find out where I’ve been hiding the dog treats.

Cat Woman – obviously not one of Daisy’s favourites.

Spiderman – not an ideal dog owner. Every time he stroked the dog, a sticky web would be left in their fur.

Incredible Hulk – what a rotten super-power. Say you are in the garden fixing a broken panel in the fence and you hit your thumb with the hammer. Next thing you know you’re waking up 3 hours later in nothing but a pair of knee length jeans (the £90 Levi’s that you only bought last week) and wishing you had gone for stretch fit and you’ve trashed the whole fence in your furious green rage.

Alastair and Daisy