That sinking feeling

Mark McConnolly, the National House Builder's Young Graduate of the Year wins the award for most innovative design at this years awards ceremony in London's most prestigious venue.
The glittering event was hosted by a top entertainment legend who didn't want to be named as his career was going pretty well so far.

The bespectacled young star was presented with the award for outstanding use of advanced techniques to save the need for waste water piping on sinks. The groundbreaking idea was hailed as the first in a major push towards efficiency and an ecological answer to the laying of many wasteful pipes within modern housing estates.

The NHBYGY committee chairman said "we need just this kind of new blood to jazz up our tired and jaded design teams. It's good to know that our futures are in the capable hands of very clever youngsters like Mark"

McConnolly said "I had been relaxing on a Monday morning and trying to think of ways to pay for my Glastonbury ticket when the idea popped into my head. I put down the bong and quickly sketched the design onto the back of an eviction notice". He continued "my next idea which is a closely guarded secret, is to do away with the overflow on baths and have the water going over the edge just like an infinity pool I saw in the pictures of chairman's fourth house in Marbella"
   

Eeyore decides

The Campaign to Protect Rural England question the house construction industry site selection process.

Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

Cloak and digger

A six month investigation has uncovered a conspiracy between the house building industry and the UK border agency. A secret meeting held over several minutes had outlined government tactics designed to curb the politically sensitive immigration issue facing beleaguered politicians. In exchange for a land grab free for all and 'turning a blind eye' on NHBC claims, housing developers had promised to build such poor quality homes that new immigrants would turn their noses up at them. Whistle-blower Sam Harding, who wanted to remain nameless, recalled the minister's opening words to the consortium:   
"look you feckin cowboys, build shit houses and you can put them wherever you like, how does that sound?"

"deal!" shouted the consortium chairman and that was it. Everyone piled out into the limos and we all got hammered at the club.

The unnamed whistle blower went on to say that subsequently he was made redundant for no good reason "all I said was that I didn't think customers would notice the difference" 


Recent immigrant Khaled Jumaraigum who was seen carrying his entire belongings in six plastic B&Q bags said "I'm so relieved. I spend most days going back and forth to the diy store to replace and repair all the things that break, fall off, crack, creak, drip, hiss, spark and frankly I can't wait to get back to my corrugated lean-to in Calais. At least it was relatively dry, warm, draught free and you knew when the leccy would be on"   


Unfortunately things have gone from bad to worse as British born new-build owners had already occupied the French camps and fights had broken out over the ownership of the ram shackled huts and tents. Mr and Mrs Watson from Orpington, who had been in Calais for a few months said "we were happily settled in our corrugated lean-to which is a vast improvement on our three bed semi on the new estate, when a fellow from Eritrea served us with an eviction notice, bloody cheek!"


Thomas Bibbington-Smythe, a government spokesperson said "I think we rather goofed this one up a tad, but when I tried to meet the consortium chairman to get them to jolly well fix the problem, he didn't turn up but rang to say he'd definitely, definitely, definitely be round next Thursday...or Friday"

Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

No Santa don't!

Thousands of new-build householders are frantically making arrangements to spend Christmas with anyone who hasn't had a house built in the last two years. Last week, a senior lecturer at Warwick university carried out stress tests on roofs of an unidentified new-build in Hertfordshire.
The test revealed that although the tiles could handle a rough landing by a correctly loaded sleigh, the truss's could not be relied upon to carry the expected loads of this years vehicle.
Among the bizarre presents expected to overload the sleigh this year and wished for by the Pissemoff board, is a list of disgruntled customers and enough nails to keep the existing houses up until the guarantees are exhausted. The biggest single present though was expected to be a book of excuses, which was made from a small wood hurriedly cut down by contractors disguised as goblins (but you couldn't tell the difference, honestly). The final straw though were the thousands of paper notepads requested by unhappy buyers to be able to log the snagging effectively.

Joseph Daniels, from roof truss supplier BB (Bradford Balsa) denied that truss's were below minimum loading standards and cited several examples of where more than eight seagulls safely landed and took off from houses he had supplied and he provided photo proof, although Gemma Khan from Mrs Wilson's reception class questioned the authenticity of the evidence. 

Threegulls

Santa was suprisingly upbeat about the whole thing explaining that ever since his accident last year on a Pissemoff estate where the sleigh disappeared into a hole in an estate road, he avoids landing anywhere near them.
"you can spot the sh*t estates easily from the air and I just land on greenhouses thinking I've got a better chance on them, than landing on the boll*cks they build nowadays"  

Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

bad form

A man after midnight

The Pissemoff site office is the usual set of containers with two levels, outside stairs, steel door, a couple of windows and chintz curtains. It sits about a hundred yards from my foxhole and I've noticed that for the last few months they have been leaving the light on randomly (like my children do)
As part of my observational log I had been recording when the light was left on and when off. There appeared to be a pattern but it took me a while to work out that it was actually morse code. Three alternate nights on, then three alternate weeks on, then three alternate nights on, repeated - wasn't that the same message sent from the Titanic?
I now wonder which one of the fluorescent green clad muppets is the ABBA fan.

Disclaimer: This story is satire,  this means it is for entertainment only and is not true apart from the lights randomly being left on. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

I see the mist clearing

Trading standards have begun investigating after an initiative launched by house builders appears to break laws on mis-selling. Back at the beginning of the year, a consortium of builders, sick of being asked stupid questions by new buyers approached a far east company to supply crystal balls to new customers. The purchasers were to refer to the ball in all circumstances for all questions regarding their new purchase. In the event that no acceptable answer was forthcoming from the ball, the buyer would simply ask the ball to provide a contact number for a telephone conversation.
Things were going fine with many buyers reporting better response from the crystal balls than the site managers, until Barry Jones asked his why the boiler only worked for an hour on Saturday and an hour on Sunday at precisely eight pm.
Unfortunately Barry threw the crystal ball in anger at his television one Sunday just as the boiler turned off again. Barry 'borrowed' a replacement from a traveling circus after having his fortune told. He returned expecting to meet a talk, dark electrician waiting to fix his boiler but as he placed the new crystal ball on the kitchen table, the swirling inside cleared and a message read: "Barry you're a feckin idiot, your old crystal ball was made of glass"
Shocked by the clear response he asked the ball what was wrong with the boiler. Immediately the crystal ball indicated that the special needs electrician had wired the boiler into the Virgin Media box so whenever he was recording x-factor the boiler also came on.

Barry dutifully asked the crystal ball for a number to contact customer services and the mist again cleared with another message. "Get a grip Barry, I'm not a bloody clairvoyant!"


Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

Muddy hell

Last week the international mud wrestling community announced that although their major sponsor had pulled out of the world championships they were delighted to welcome Hovis Homes as the replacement. Hovis Homes spokesperson Melanie Sanders said she was delighted to support this growing sport and welcomed the championships to the new build estate. She explained that they had mud in vast quantities all over their estate roads and although there was a rumour that a long time ago somebody told somebody that they'd heard that once upon a time they were supposed to clean the roads up for the existing occupants but it was assumed this was one of those myths your grandparents told you to frighten you to sleep. "I don't know what all the fuss is about from our existing home owners" she said "They get a ringside seat at a world championship for free, what more do they want, bloody ungrateful bunch?"

Melanie was summonsed to a board meeting immediately after her outburst and told in no uncertain terms that her seat on the board was now assured and that they hoped she spent her generous bonus well.

Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

Cheesus crisis

There was shock last week at Pissemoff headquarters as the head of compliance delivered his special report at the extraordinary general meeting arranged following the news that the local cheese firm had gone into administration with little chance of a rescue bid. The engineering director was speechless when it was explained that they had run out of cheese triangles and that it could be some months before supply could be re-established. Most of the currently active sites had been shut down and redundancy notices issued.
Good fortune must be smiling because Herbert Gough, a site foreman working on the 'Greyfield Heights' estate in Melton Mowbray, found a stock of laughing cow triangles in a skip nearby and drove them to the most needy sites immediately. Herbert was given a special award for 'outstanding devotion to duty' and was singled out by the engineering director in a rousing speech -

"You have earned the gratitude of us all at Pissemoff and we are hugely relieved that we can once again check the accuracy of the squareness of our walls, well done Herbert!"

Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

Little match grrr

House building executives are angry at employee use of matches in place of Rawlplugs to attach brackets, sockets, shelves etc to walls.

An incandescent Samantha Rogers criticised the lower management in allowing this practice –“it’s just not on” she said, “We spend many tens of pounds every year on the thousands of unskilled workers we have, in an attempt to make them build to our specification”, She continued, “We have a responsibility to our shareholders”

Ms Rogers has issued an email to all senior managers to ensure that the current arrangement of collecting fallen leaves in the far East and having the stalks removed by young children and sent by container to the UK will continue in exchange for mentioning the children’s names on tweets.

Mark Richards, a part time carpenter , said that he preferred matches since the stalk approach often meant things fell off the wall before he had chance to be made redundant and moved on to another developer. He explained that this was “a total waste of my effing time, putting up with ungrateful whinging home owners”.

“only last week I put back a shelf that had their Great Uncle Malcolm's urn on, only to be shouted at for hoovering the place after I’d finished – I can’t bleedin’ win can I!” he said. 

Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

Honey I shrunk the estate

After coming under increasing pressure from their majority shareholder - Beelzebub holdings, Pissemoff sought to maximize the number of houses they could squeeze into a given area (utilising other peoples land where possible). This was causing a serious shift in the seating positions of members of the Pissemoff board and some embarrassing sounds as well. However, after being inspired by actually getting to the end of a Stephen Hawking book - "George's Secret Key to the Universe" and watching his favourite serious film about ray guns and stuff, whilst sitting quietly and not fidgeting, Mr Callousgreedypig was delighted to fanfare their latest recruit from Sir Clive Sinklayers arsenal of ancient technological disasters.

The C6 Profiterator

This was Pissemoff's second investment in technology this year after Mary Doyle broke the glass on the photocopier at the Christmas party. She did return to work within a week or so but was walking gingerly for some time after that and had a 'special' chair which nobody else was allowed to use.

The C6 Profiterator will miniaturise anything to more or less scaled version of the original. The variation in scale of various objects went unnoticed by quality control as it was well within the 50% tolerance of fit that Pissemoff have been getting away with for years on walls, kitchens, tiles, pipes, cable sizes etc.

Before                              attr: Sarah777

After                              attr: Sarah777

Unfortunately Cynthia Klein was initially unable to get into her new property owing to the failure of the Pissemoff site manager to include the keys in the miniaturisation process despite promising on his Gran's life that he did. All was not lost though, as Cynthia's former life as a police drug enforcement officer, before her arrest, inspired her to use the key as a battering ram. A Pissemoff executive was overheard chuckling at Cynthia having invalidated their guarantee before she even got inside. Dave, the NHBC compliance officer was assured that shrinking him down to do his viewing was temporary and completely safe. He now works as a Feng Shui consultant in an ant colony. 

Sadly, Cynthia's cherished Fiat 500 was written off by a clumsy brickie who was playing snap and got carried away with the intense stress and raw emotion of the game. Cynthia now drives a horsefly to work while her insurers argue with Pissemoff (good luck with that) 

attr: Ron Arad

Colin felt awkward initially with his daily drive but eventually enjoyed some of the attention he received.

The children were a little confused by their bedtime assault course but were otherwise happy.

Colin finally lost the plot when he suffered a double hernia whilst upgrading the sim on his new phone.

He wrote to Pissemoff to voice his dismay at yet another lack of foresight and failure to 'think things through' and to hope that Mr Callousgreedypig's gonads got caught in the next blast from the C6 Profiterator, since clearly the first blast only got his tadger and brain which according to Cynthia was one and the same thing anyway.
 

His letter was unfortunately never read, as Mr Callousgreedypig, angry at the overwhelming cloud of confetti like mini letters, cut himself shaving and found another use for it...

The C6 Profiterator project was abandoned after Colin got his wish. Mr Callousgreedypig was attempting to reverse the effect on his tackle by asking a site electrician to swap the live and neutral wires round (they don't learn do they). His testicles were last seen in low earth orbit and now account for two additional tides on Earth and to this very day the workforce refer to him (quite accurately it transpires) as nothing more than a big p***k.


Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

Mass hysteria

Emergency vehicles were sent to Pissemoff  Homes Headquarters this morning in what was initially described as a ‘mass hysteria’ event.

A fleet of ambulances and police cars raced to an incident within the main administration building.

Six staff were treated with oxygen and wrapped in thermal blankets in the main car park as police investigated the circumstances.

A spokesperson for the company said that there was “nothing to see and to move along”

John Bradshaw from a garden ornament company in the next unit said that he made the emergency call just after the postie had been earlier on, but could offer no explanation as to the cause of the situation.

On site Police ‘gold’ Commander Bill Watson said that his force had acted in a swift and timely manner in response to a serious incident in the early hours of the 15^th but wouldn’t expand on this, as the situation was still on-going.

Later in the day we spoke anonymously to one of the office workers affected by the event, Mary Doyle who said that Alice had opened a letter and immediately keeled over. Darren then picked up the letter and went the same way. Three further colleagues similarly collapsed before Mary called 999. Whilst waiting for the emergency services, curiosity got the better of her and she succumbed as well.

Police were piecing together the story when Mary Doyle realised she was still clutching the letter in her hand when she came round. It read:

Dear Mr Bradshaw,

         I simply had to put pen to paper to express my complete delight at my new gnome.

Never have a seen such a beautiful design. The paintwork is top class, the finish and construction outstanding, and what’s more it was delivered at amazing speed.

I’d like to say a big thank you to your incredible friendly staff for all their help and advice.

Yours sincerely

Mrs Trellis, North Wales


Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , well done!

1972 a good year?

The RMS Queen Elizabeth is destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbour.

President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto announces that Pakistan will immediately begin a nuclear weapons program.

Anti-British riots take place throughout Ireland. The British Embassy in Dublin is burned to the ground, as are several British-owned businesses.

The British government declares a state of emergency over a miners' strike.

A Lufthansa plane is hijacked and taken to Aden. Passengers are released after a ransom of 16 million German marks is agreed.

Operation Linebacker and Operation Custom Tailor begin with large-scale bombing operations against North Vietnam by tactical fighter aircraft.

Three out of 6 bombs explode in the Axel Springer AG media company offices in Hamburg, Germany, injuring 17; the Red Army Faction claims responsibility.

Seven men and three women hijack a plane from Czechoslovakia to West Germany.

A national dock strike begins in Britain.

Dictator Idi Amin declares that Uganda will expel 50,000 Asians with British passports to Britain within 3 months.

Rioting Maze Prison inmates cause a fire that destroys most of the camp.

Cod War: British Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home says that Royal Navy ships will be stationed to protect British trawlers off Iceland.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army kidnaps Jean McConville in Belfast.

Imelda Marcos is stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant; her bodyguards shoot him.

The Yellow River dries up for the first time in known history.

Persimmon Homes is founded by Duncan Davidson. 

Funkadelic man!

The library gofer

I was intrigued by a tip-off I received last week from a fellow sufferer of Pissemoff's behaviour.
She told me she had seen the same young construction worker toing and froing from the local library regularly for many weeks. I decided to check out the tip and, heavily disguised I followed the fellow from the construction site to the library.

hey mum can you see me?

Mr Anthrop a.k.a. "the chameleon" a.k.a. Liu Bolin

I watched carefully as he checked in the single book he had hidden inside his hi-viz jacket.
He wandered into the children's section after this but I was more intent on finding the identity of the book he had just surrendered than his new borrow, so I sidled up to the returned books trolley to get a better look.
Well blow me down there it was, a Ladybird book I vividly remember reading long, long ago.

Understandably I was disappointed that presumably he was borrowing books for his pre-school infant and did not give me much of an an insight into Pissemoff's plans for the G3 boundary question. I thought perhaps the chap was getting books like 'law for sheriffs' or 'morality for psychopaths' but it appeared not - damn!

I began removing my now pointless disguise when there was a commotion at the desk. The chap was remonstrating with the librarian and waving wildly around appearing to be guiding an invisible roof truss into position. She was trying to explain to the guy that he couldn't take three books out because his company only had two tickets...oh my I thought, he was taking books out for Pissemoff...but they are children's books...uh?

I went back to the returned book trolley and grabbed the Ladybird book and opened it to see this:

Of course, they had used this as reference for their time-keeping. The Pissemoff green highlighter pen on the clock-face was evidence of their contempt for the 8am start time in the planning permission decree - mystery solved! 

I raced back to the desk to get sight of the new books causing the altercation. The first made me worry for the poor unfortunate people whose homes were built to the methods displayed on the cover of this book:

  

The second gave me a sense of foreboding that we might finally be getting replies to the six unanswered letters sent to Pissemoff:

The third was clearly for the gofer's self satisfaction whilst waiting for the bosses decision on the future of the G3 boundary issue and anyway this level of sophisticated humour was likely to cause senior managements heads to implode.

 

Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , it means it is all made up...but it still rankles huh?

 

gunpowder, treason and plot 26

There is huge dismay this morning as many of the leading home construction companies count the cost of last nights devastation. Many thousands of half built homes have been raised to the ground in a what appears to be a series of innocent cases of mistaken identity. The semi constructed homes, it appears, we're thought to be piles of waste wood paneling and pallets which are often used to celebrate the traditional night of Guy Fawkes. In Whimplesham a local resident, who wanted to remain nameless, said "Johnny Johnson and me saw this big pile of wood in the shape of a large square bonfire and thought that rather than nicking the pallets from the factory site like we usually do, we could use this instead. We were a bit put off by the stamping that declared that the wood had a fire retardent rating on it but it went up better than an orange box, woo hoo!"

A foreman for one firm said that he was willing to admit that he himself had attended one fireworks display with his family where he only realised that one of his firms own builds was being burned when he saw a stuffed effigy of himself in high viz jacket and yellow hat tied to the flaming joists.

A senior building firm director said that he had decreed that he would be employing Heras fencing around new builds to ensure that this didn't happen again. Johnny Johnson said he thought this was a good idea as he would then have somewhere to attach the hog roast for next year.

Disclaimer: This story is satire - this means it is for entertainment only and is not true. Mr Anthrop accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of this information - it is all untrue. If you are a house developer reading this , it means it is all made up...but you still feel hurt huh?