Just had a blinding revelation, alas too late to act on, on what my true calling in life should have been. While stuffing myself with slow cooked (in red wine) beef shank (highly recommended) some Strictly thing was on the TV (against family policy to view whilst dining, but I am currently outnumbered by ladies. And my wife was watching the iPlayer version at 1.00 a.m this morning because she missed the original, and at my time of life I can ill afford two consecutive late nights yelling 'what is this ****?!?' at a TV). A woman was dancing and I enquired after her identity. Apparently she is an East Enders actress. "But this cannot be" I declared "for all, and I mean all, women in East Enders look like pre op transexuals who have lead especially hard lives. Mostly in prison. And this lady looks ok" After dodging the missiles and general abuse, the point was put to me that perhaps East End women do lead hard lives, and anyway all my family are from the East End (true, I was the first to be born west of Clerkenwell). And then it struck me. I have wasted 35 years of slaving at various jobs, while all along I should have been playing a woman on East Enders. And now, desolately, it is too late, unless Dot Cotton (about the only character I can name) requires an understudy, and even then I doubt I could smoke the 4,000 ***s a day required to look like that. Anybody else realise too late that they should have spent their adult lives doing something else? Lighthearted if possible, I couldn't really care less if you always wanted to pretend to be an architect (Aussie will get it) but your parents didn't encourage you to do technical drawing GCSE.
A few years ago Mrs Stroller and I were in Colorado and visited a place called Manitou Springs. In the cab back to our hotel, I passed comment to the driver regarding the vast number of craft shops in the town. 'Lot of people here left over from the sixties', he drawled in reply. That's what I should have been - a semi-retired hippie.
I could see you in Eastenders SB, not as a woman I hasten to add, but some dodgy entrepreneur, no disrespect intended!
I think, if I'd had a slightly better memory and a bit less inclined towards mild emotion, I would have made an OK chess super computer.
Years ago, I was a trade union branch officer and regularly organised Health & Safety training for new recruits. I remember talking to one of our consultants about Hi-Vis jackets saying it was only a matter of time before everyone would be wearing them, this was in the 1990s. I later discovered this consultant had set up his own company selling...
If I was blessed with a complexion more like the Cuprinol man and had one of those flat graduation hats, I would have quite liked to have been a bird table.
If, instead of this wiry frame, I was built like a brick ****house, I would have preferred to be a granary. It just seems like the lesser of two weevils. OK, I'm done.
Quite a few years back a work colleague and I looked at taking out a franchise on a micro brewery. Didn't do it & regretted it ever since.
All I wanted to be was a pro skateboarder and nearly made it before it died first time I was a dog town boy Wished I had stayed with it in the lean times as its second coming changed the world Music Fashion and culture I used to buy my Vans skate shoes direct from Orange California Now they are in every town for sale I kept one of my boards and it's in front of me now to remind me Never to miss anything Showing mr pinky to the melons has slowed me down twice for a total of 20 years ... Before you know it it can dissapear ... 8 years I made a pledge to never anything slip ... Hence semi retirement , no debts and live in France from Jan more and work in the UK less
I'd have made a great porn star, but for the fact that I am too short, too fat, pasty-pale, have hair almost everywhere except for my head and am reliably advised that I am generally pretty horrible to look at. Having said that, I still feel I'd have been good at the job as I seem to be able to do the business far quicker than anyone I've ever seen on those sort of films and furthermore, I think I do the job properly as I never seem to need to do it more than once.
I would have made a fantastic old fashioned centreforward in the mould of the Spurs player Bobby Smith.... .............instead I chose to be short, dumpy, old and a WOMAN
This is not a missed opportunity, being, I'm only just going through it now ................... the story goes ............. Just recently, I decided that I'm getting too old to be on the tools so as a registered builder, I can apply to be a building inspector, so I did. I went and paid the govt a lot of money to do the course ( two days and then a exam to be handed in before 3 months ) Get this, everything about this course is litigation overload. Everyone can sue me for whatever reason, if they desire. A 'pre-purchase report' for someone wanting to buy a home is 'passive' only. Not allowed to touch anything or they can sue me. Can't give advice as to how much some repairs might cost ........ or they can sue me. ie: If I suggest approx 5K to repair and it costs 10K, they can sue me for the 5K. Can't offer advice cause it is a conflict of interest. I'm working as an inspector, not builder now. Can't talk to the agent or anyone else, it may cause a change in offer by a agent / purchaser. The whole two days was mainly about ligation .................... I might as well sign up to be a lawyer, I'm halfway there! Anyway, that's my detail.
King hell sounds like a risky business. I'm guessing you are insured to the max. I had what is called a 'full structural survey' done when buying my current home, because it is Victorian and has a lot done to it - cellar conversion etc. The stupid twat didn't notice that the plumbing was pathetic, part of the roof had no visible means of support and some of the beams supporting floors were not tied into the walls. Only discovered when we had some proper builders in to do something. Aside from that, he did a brilliant job of wandering around writing on his clip board. It's taken us 5 years and a lot of cash to sort, and we couldn't sue him for some reason. Luckily it's now a lovely home, and I don't fear that I will fall through the floor/the roof will collapse any second. On the other side a (very large) friend bought a third floor flat and specifically asked his surveyor to check that the bathroom floor could take the enormous cast iron bath he wanted put in. Got the thumbs up and the first time he started to fill it, it went through the floor. He did sue and won, the surveyors had to compensate him and his neighbours as well as rehouse them while the repairs were done. ****ing idiot had forgotten that water weighs something too and should be included (along with the weight of the occupant) in calculating the stress the bath would put on the beams. Lucky my mate wasn't in it at the time, all 20 odd stone of him, otherwise he would have gone straight through to the ground floor.
Nice story there, 'sb' ..... Yes, can go either way. We must have public indemnity insurance ( like doctors ) and it costs about 5k a year, plus all the other ones l have. One guy was asked to do a building report on a block of units. He didn't know at the time that a lady had tripped an fell injuring herself on a dodgy step on the second floor. Her lawyer wanted to sue the builder but he has gone bust. He rang the inspector, hoping he would not report the step. The lawyer was looking to get money from whoever he could for his client. Luckily, the inspector performed a thorough check!
Another winning thread Stan Back in the day, when I'd had a few too many beers, I frequently made the error of thinking I could sing on the pub Karaoke. I can't - I'm tone deaf and my singing voice resembles a squirrel being tortured with a power drill. That still makes me more talented than Rita Ora and Cheryl Cole so I think I should have been a judge on the X Factor.
