Between the controversial business practices of ‘No-Win No-Fee’ personal injury lawyers, and the rising tide of claims resulting from extreme weather events such as flooding, it seems certain that everybody’s insurance premiums are set to rise sometime in the not too distant future. It’s all down to statistics and actuaries, but if the insurance companies are paying out more money, the only place they are going to recoup it is from the policy holders.

Most people you speak to are glad to see the back of 2009: to many it will be remembered as symbolising the worst recession since the Great Depression. But interestingly, 31st December 2009 threw out a nugget of hope for the construction industry, crying in its dying moments, “I wasn’t that bad, please don’t remember me as being that bad – look, I have something good to offer you!”

The panto’ season is in full swing but of course there is another type of entertainment that the winter period is famous for, and the Plastic Surgeon played its full part in the run up to Christmas.

Fans of TV programmes such as Property Ladder or Grand Designs might have noticed there is a key ambition shared by many of the aspiring developers, self-builders and house-hunters in general. And it has nothing to do with the energy efficiency, the number of bathrooms, or even the location.
 

While the papers and news broadcasts have been full for the last fortnight, relating stories of world leaders and environmental campaigners having meetings through the night to hammer out a deal at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, Plastic Surgeon has been keeping up its own round-the-clock efforts to save the planet.

While the Fine Finishers – as per usual – were plying their trade up and down the length of the country, back at the company’s head office, the company’s top trainer, Ian, was turning his attention to a rather different class of candidates.

 

An urgent repair carried out recently by a couple of our Fine Finishers at a hotel in the south west started me wondering about how our work ought to be classified. Basically rain had been getting through a car park deck into the swimming pool hall of the Derwent Hotel in Torquay; unfortunately causing some quite serious...

Generating a blog definitely brings a new perspective to everyday life and should, I think, repeatedly pose the question: are the matters and meanderings that I’m banging on about really of any interest to the people out there surfing the ‘net.

Watching television last night reminded me of why I love the English language so much, the reason being that it is so immensely adaptable. It can be ambiguous, saucy or ironic, as well as sarcastic or bitingly rude – it can be descriptive, poetic or political, while in law and medicine it has to be totally unequivocal.

Calls this week for schoolchildren to begin receiving careers advice from the age of seven met with predictably mixed reactions from parents, teachers, and the wider public; comments varying from cautiously welcoming the initiative, to saying it’s too young or how can it be shoe-horned into an already over-crowded curriculum?