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It was the last Bakewell tart that triggered the dispute. I confess I am a tad partial to Mr Kipling’s little cakes. And having taken the last one from Mrs Bingham’s goodie cupboard I slung the empty box in the peddle-bin. I thought I would get the 'good-boy' look. Dear me no. I got the naughty look.

It’s the rules don’t you know. We are surrounded by bloody rules. For heaven’s sake said the rough edge of my tongue, can’t I simply dump the cake box without bloody rules? I spend all day and every day surrounded by JCT Contract rules, NEC Contract rules, ICE Contract rules, rules abroad, rules for Sub-contracts, NOMS, DOMS, Inters, GC Works, Oh hell rules, rules, rules. And now I am naughty-boy scowled at because I broke the rubbish rules.

And truth is, I actually don’t know what the rules are. I am simply eating a Bakewell tart and stumbled. I am just the same as all you builders; all you actually want to do is build the bloody thing. True? And yet and yet, you are surrounded by, overwhelmed by, beaten up by rules. Rules for doing the job, in the small print, rules for health and misery, rules for planning, rules for not letting a hammer make a hammering sound. So, what do you do as a builder? Well I tell you what you do, you just get on and build and you say sod the rules. And I don’t blame you one jot. There is just so much that a man can stand then he gives up. Much of the real people, the real builders have given up trying to understand the rules.

As for me with my Bakewell tart box, I haven’t a clue, which bit goes in the black wheelie bin or the green one or the orange sack or the black one or that stupid hessian job. So now I give my Bakewell tart box, the little tin-foil cup, the cellophane wrapper to the cat along side JCT minor works rubbish. Yes I am a naughty, naughty boy and I don’t care. Wow, I feel better for that!