Inside and Out

Fifty six short years ago, on this very date, I was dragged into the world as the offspring of a Jewish-American wife of a US serviceman, and some anonymous Scottish dude who had it off with her on at least one occasion while her husband did his duty on the USAF base near Prestwick airport. Being the mid sixties, the relaxed attitude towards the children of unmarried mothers wasn't as prevalent as it is now, so yours truly was sent packing to an orphanage of sorts before having ownership transferred to my lovely adoptive parents who did their job superbly. I only have one photo of my birth mother - taken in the back yard of the address she was packed off to in Aurora, Colorado shortly after my disgraceful appearance presumably. None of my birth records or subsequent historical details exist from the time, so I can never be sure about the exact details of my ancestral lineage, or birth family details. It's a shame, and instils an insecurity that children with certainty about the

Well......that was interesting eh?  To be honest, the year of 2020 Anus Dominoes wasn't that bad in overall terms in this particular household. Thankfully, and gratefully, there were no deaths of loved ones, serious illness or injury, unemployment or massive financial hardship to endure, unlike millions of others who have suffered loss in all its forms throughout the year. Countless families and households are in dire straits, and under massive pressure because of the effects of some bumpy particle things measuring a mere 60 nanometres across. As I write this, the next "lockdown" has just started, and I'm looking at another blank order book, with only one job in the diary. As this is strictly a review of last year, that'll have to wait until another time however. So without further ado, let's get to it: My favourite property of the year: One of the things I have to swallow without complaint in this job, is spending time in houses that I couldn't afford to

As I recently basked in my own ability to swerve the Coronavirus, and with a smug, firm belief that I'd already had it last February, it became apparent last Thursday that not all was well in the Skinch bodily-cavity of life. After Tina's positive test result on Sunday, and my own subsequent negative test the following day, my ever-present cough suddenly increased in severity, a pain began to spread deep within my chest cavity, and a general feeling of malaise took hold. After spending the first six hours of Thursday in bed nursing a painful headache, and feeling most definitely light-headed, I emerged to imbibe a cocktail of caffeine and out of date prescription painkillers in order to manage the drive to the COVID test centre for the second time that week - this time with a sense of inevitability of an outcome. An outcome which was confirmed before 7am the following morning with a text from the NHS. A positive test result. I didn't have any particular worry about this to

It's been a while since I've been able to post anything, due to the fact that I've been pushed to the limit over the last seven months. Since May, and the lifting of the original lockdown conditions, the property industry has boomed in a way I've never seen before - a result of pent-up demand, another tax concession for the middle classes, and a psychological unrest within the minds of the aforementioned caused by the pandemic. The desire to move to the countryside has rocketed, and as a consequence, property transactions in my neck of the woods have gone through the roof. This pattern continued unabated until this morning. My missus, Tina was tested on Sunday afternoon after showing some Covid symptoms, and the result pinged through to her mobile phone at 8am this morning - a big fat, inevitable POSITIVE. I say inevitable because she has been working like a dog at the local secondary school, in the position of providing pastoral care and support to the 14/15 year old a

Business expenditure is very much like the legendary phenomenon of London bus appearances - Nothing for ages, then five come all at once. It happens in cascades generally, and is often the result of having to update one certain element of the technology which has either failed, or become obsolete. Lady Luck also plays an important part. First thing to pack in was my 2 year old iPad Pro. The home button just stopped working, which was a royal pain while out in the field. My job requires speed and accuracy, and all the bits of kit I use are purchased with the sole intention of being part of an effective workflow process. It all just needs to work. After a quick visit to the Apple Genius Bar in Newcastle, it became apparent that a new unit was my only real option. £868 later, I was back in business.  My desktop computer - a mid 2013, 27 inch iMac has been my workhorse computer for seven years - relentlessly churning through intensive photo-editing tasks pretty much without a rest during t

As the majority of white, middle class UK office workers sit on their arses all day, watching Sky TV on huge flatscreen TV's, drinking in the afternoon, and constantly pissing about with their expensive mobile phones at the expense of the taxpayer, I'm out there in the trenches trying to eke out some sort of living........ Oh sorry - did I say white, middle class UK office workers? I meant doleys and asylum seekers of course. See how the paradigm has shifted in the world of benefits over the last three months? The furlough scheme is essentially a welfare safety net system for middle class people, and has been absolutely essential for the prevention of a total collapse of the UK economy by taking the pressure of paying wages from the hundreds of thousands of firms unable to trade during the height of the pandemic crisis. Unemployment could possibly have reached tens of millions without the intervention by the next Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. (Those old Tories will choke on thei