Paul Gauguin: Painter in Paradise

Gauguin, Voyage de Tahiti lands upon our shores as a compelling welcome distraction to an otherwise calamitous September of hurricanes, earthquakes, civil unrest and threats of WWIII. Despite its languorous title, it promises no Tropical bliss or frangipani blossoms as it whisks us away from our daily contrivance and the Autumn chill for the Paradise atolls of French Polynesia, the backdrop to the last decade in the life of anti-conformist 19th century French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) who had fled modern civilisation in order to live the simple life, immersed in nature.

(pict source)

Few of us will have been aware of Gauguin's life beyond his enchanting Polynesian portraits, and the film by Edouard Deluc attempts to remedy that. Be warned though that any hope for a smooth, fancy-free voyage across lush lands and ombré waters sprawled below heavenly Summer skies is 'compromised' as our voyage is in fact a tale of trouble in Paradise... and this means dark clouds!

Soon the landscapes of the island merge with the landscapes of a troubled mind. This is no blockbuster, no special effect in sight, no big budget, and no unnecessary pathos. It commands however a certain curiosity and sensitivity on the part of the viewer in order to appreciate such a movie. Here we have a painter's tale of Paradise lost.

'Haere Mai', oil on burlap by Paul Gauguin, via Guggenheim Museum, NYC

Gauguin, Voyage de Tahiti depicts Gauguin the artist (Koké as the locals called him) entertwined with the man himself, who had rejected the French Establishment, relinquished wife and offspring who he could no longer financially support, only to get caught up by his demons and by Establishment again thousands of miles later. This is a tale of artistic genius, moral dilemma, financial destitution, a tale of redemption and disillusion, a quest for identity and authenticity, a depiction of mysticism and a rejection of the so-called civilised world.

Paul Gauguin could have enjoyed a comfortable existence should he had kept to the conformist route he had taken as a marine merchant and a stockbroker's assistant, but then there would be no Paul Gauguin the artist. He died a pauper instead, yet rich within from the life and travel experiences he acquired along the way. His frugal livelihood contrasts with his oeuvre dotted across the world in art places and private collections, testimonies to his posthumous glory and recognition. When he relinquished his privileged upbringing and financial stability in order to embrace the artist's lifestyle, Gauguin embarked upon the exciting, harsh, morose, unpredictable, temptation-laced, financially unstable existence at odds with the traditional family life, the picket fence and the prim and proper.

This poster features 'Tehamana Has Many Parents', oil on jute canvas by Paul Gauguin

Vincent Cassel wears Paul Gauguin's role like a glove. One of the most prolific, versatile, immersive French actors of my generation, he excels at playing troubled characters with heart and soul: the known and the unknown, the modern and the period, the suave and the slick, the affable and the utterly despicable. In a nutshell, he lives and breathes and inhabits each of his roles. Cassel took up art classes to get under the artist's skin and learn the ropes like how to hold a paintbrush properly and how to apply paint. He caught the bug and ended up painting for himself in his spare time!

From the outset, the film appears to incarnate French cinéma d'auteur in the manner in which it explores the life of its main character. The methodology is by way of a close-range character study, down to the minutiae of glance, heartbeat and sigh. It strives for detail, and an intimate - intimist - soul journey, a stark-naked biopic portrayal in its varied facets that distills the character with spirit and truth, no embellishment or happy ending for the sake of it. It soaks in the atmosphere and takes us on with it.

'Orana Maria (We Hail Thee Mary)', by Paul Gauguin, via WikiArt

The film hasn't been out a week that it is already being criticised for its lack of objectivity. It conveniently - controversially - glosses over the fact that Gauguin then aged 43 fell in love (in lust?) with a 13-year old local Tahitian girl called Tehura (also known as Teha’amana), whom he then married. The girl was a juvenile! A closer look at Gauguin's biography reveals that his private life was dissolute: a life-long philanderer who contracted syphillis along the way, which he then transmitted to his conquests. Some will wave it off as an element of Bohemian territory - oh lovely!

Yet not looking at discrediting the critics, it must be added that the History of France and the world at large demonstrates that however morally wrong it was (is), the mature man-young girl 'paradigm' was (is) no rare occurrence, especially in the Arts, the Royal courts and under certain ideologies!

'Tahitian Pastorale', by Paul Gauguin, via WikiArt

Digression aside, such straightforward revelations in the film would have dented an already morally-questionable complex, flawed character but a glossing over ends up as a disservice and as an unvoluntary form of complicity. Truth hurts, so does its misrepresentation by way of a lie.

Those of us who had been blissfully unaware of Gauguin's dirty little secrets until today, are likely to be left confused, tainted, unsure as to whether still respect the artist, or dissociate his paintings from the man: respect the oeuvre but dislike (repudiate?) the man. Artist and man being intrinsically entertwined, this is simply impossible. My only surety in this is that I will never look at the portraits of Teha'amana and her virginal, innocent girl friends in quite the unbiased way I used to.




It remains that Paul Gauguin was a creative genius, the precursor of Modern Art and a visionary in his own right. His Art navigated the troubled waters of his soul in a spellbinding way. To see and think of him as a painter solely is restrictive: he was an accomplished artist whose Art encompassed printmaking, engraving, sculpture, ceramics and decorating. His creations are showcased in the most prestigious modern art galleries of the world, including Guggenheim and the Art Institute of Chicago, as further testament to his worldwide recognition.

"Gauguin was radically creative throughout his career. He never stopped experimenting with new methods, and his art continues to fascinate because it remains unpredictable, contradictory, and enormously varied in medium, form, and content." - Artist as Alchemist, the Paul Gauguin exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago (June 25 - Sept. 10, 2017)

Gauguin, Voyage de Tahiti, directed by Edouard Deluc, starring Vincent Cassel, Tuhei Adams, Malik Zidi and Pua-Tai Hikutini, out now in France.

P.S: There is an interesting parallel to be drawn between Paul Gauguin and Scottish novelist, poet and travel writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894): both artist contemporaries from the second half of the 19th century, travellers and adventurers, who both died in Polynesia (Stevenson in Samoa), in middle age. Stevenson documented a particular segment of his journey to France as a short story, 'Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes.' If Stevenson is still fondly remembered in the Cévennes to this day, it is because - according to a local politician and historian - 'he showed us the landscape that makes us who we are.' Such a statement may well apply to Gauguin too, in relation to Polynesia.

Lovely & Nice

Towards the back end of the 19th century, as the quaint small fishing harbours and coastal villages of southern France (Provence and Côte d'Azur) started morphing into the famed vacational hotspot now known as the French Riviera, Nice already was at its cutting edge: it had metamorphosed into a pretty butterfly, opening up to the pleasures of the sea and spreading its wings towards the future, embracing the Belle Epoque follies and later Années Folles (Roaring Twenties)... Its seaside mystique and splendour stretched beyond WWII, yet with less of its earlier upmarket gusto and panache, but this is a story for another time.

La Réserve, c.1900: a fantasmagorical - surrealist - folly that could have been dreamt up by Magritte!

Nice by name was Nice by nature back then: an almost pristine natural canvas of dramatic proportions, lending its coves and curves to architectural wonder, integrating the natural environment - its masterpiece - with style and elegance. The reworked landscape became imbued with a tangible frond of the exotic: imported Phoenix canariensis palm trees and other floral exotica that would lend themselves beautifully to the Orientalist trend of the times.  

Saint-Nicolas Cathedral, c.1935: testifies of the importance of the Russian community in Nice

La Promenade des Anglais would come to epitomise the renowned coastal seafront with dreams of odysseys to faraway exotic locales. A French Ipanema, a wide, tree-lined, five-mile sweep of a boulevard which was (and still is to this day) a destination point for leisure pursuits, parades and ceremonies, dotted with elegant Winter homes that later doubled as Summer villas, set in landscaped grounds and a seaview to boot.

Excelsior Régina Palace, 1912: fit for Queen Victoria

The properties unashamedly belonged to British and Russian aristocracy (and later the nouveau riche) who - it seemed - altogether led the way in terms of the resort culture before the French had even conceptualised it, at least outside their colonies. Progressively the Winter resort turned into a seaside resort with the construction of residential apartments, and leisure establishments such as luxury hotels (palaces) and casinos celebrating luxe, leisure, insouciance and joie de vivre. 

Nice, Jetée-Promenade, c.1900: an exotica showcase to itself!

In terms of turn-of-the-century architecture, we find a marked influence towards neo-classicism, with oodles of orientalism and a hint of Victoriana: Le Negresco Hotel is a perfect example. Or how about the (now defunct) Orientalist-inspired casino of the Jetée-Promenade? The concept was influenced by the Brighton Palace Pier, while Crystal Palace was the initial inspiration to the project instigator, marquis d'Espouy de Saint-Paul. The casino was designed by British architect James Brunlers. There is no denying that Brits shaped the French Riviera.

Nice, Jetée-Promenade, 1897: the Orient has landed!

La Promenade would be further celebrated with the advent of the automobile era as a G-spot of sorts. Any show-off driver and social climber worth their salt would make a point of showing up and down the Promenade. Success, it was thought, would rub off if only you showed up on the Promenade, unashamedly pretending to be someone you're not for a part of the action while secretly standing in awe of it all.

Nice unfolds from the Mont Boron, 1891

Only a small number of the original villas are still standing on the Promenade today. Some look sorry for themselves, locked in limbo, in need of refurbishment. Land value comes at a premium on the Promenade and it is likely that some of the older properties are locked down in hostile takeovers, expired leases, inheritance issues, tax conundrum or other legal and financial predicaments, ultimately pending a demolition order to make way for yet another high-rise. In the world of real estate emotion hardly has a say, even less so when the matter at stake is located in a sought-after, world-renowned tourist area.

Nice Opera, 1885: all about flamboyance!

Sorry to rub it in but as it stands today the Promenade has lost its lustre. Now it is easy for nostalgia to cloud one's judgement and I recognise that I sometimes allow it to take over my objectivity, yet I approached this particular subject with an open mind and visited the Promenade on at least three separate occasions that I can recall over the last seven years and everytime the lack (loss) of architectural cohesiveness hit me.

Promenade des Anglais and Palais de la Méditerranée, c.1930: cheek to cheek

Clearly building clearance took its toll. Relentless since after WWII, it has left battle scars in the form of an incongruous mish-mash of styles, some of questionable appeal. Cue the gutted Palais de la Méditerranée, whose Art Déco façade was salvaged at the eleventh hour... in order to be incorporated to the Hyatt behemoth. Elsewhere the Promenade is compromised by styleless cheap-looking condos and other bland hotel chains like Le Méridien (which replaced the stylish Hotel Ruhl). These modern structures may unashamedly steal the seaview; they however steal neither the looks nor the spirit of a time where elegance and refinement were the byword.

Avenue de Verdun, c.1920: just off the Promenade

It is understood that Nice City Council wishes for the Promenade to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site contender, and therefore is currently sprucing up its image. Who are they kidding? In this vanity exercise no amount of landscaping or carpark redesign will compensate for the negative architectural impact caused by waves of property clearances that made way for a non-descript, non-cohesive Promenade.

Nice from the Jetée-Promenade, c.1900: a view at your beck and call

The Nice seafront is certainly a tale for the unashamed: bold and beautiful yesterday, bland and brash today. What remains of its bygone golden age, if not found in pockets in-situ, will be appreciated pictorially in the comfort of your home. Prolific and talented French photographer Jean Gilletta (1866-1933) made sure of that by taking thousands of pictures that wrote all to themselves an anthology to Nice, Marseille, the Riviera as a whole, the southern Alps and further afield! He followed the muse and she never left him! His photography froze people, places and time for posterity, immortalised a depiction of Nice that is both haunting and promising, an epoch where all seemed possible...

Motorcar, c.1925: sweet and fancy!

Source: All photography by Jean Gilletta. Take a peek at his impressive collection... and sweet dreams to you! Hey, happy shopper: all the (repro) prints featured are for sale by the way!

'Bateaux dans le Port de Nice', by Tony Minartz (1870-1944)

Further Reading:

• [English edition] La Promenade des Anglais, by Paul Tristan Roux, published by Editions Gilletta (July 2016), 64 pages
• [in French] La Promenade des Anglais, by Nice City Council
• [in French] Le Casino de la Jeté-Promenade, by Jean-Paul Potron, published by Editions Gilletta (October 2014), 176 pages.

Happy Thanksgiving!

All the way from Old Europe, I would like to wish all of my American friends a Happy Thanksgiving!

I was going to browse through the Martha Stewart website in search of pictorial Thanksgiving inspiration, but I knew that pictures of roasted turkeys would irrevocably turn up and - as a vegetarian - it would be a fallacy and frankly inappropriate for me to post anything to do with dead birds on plates - although ok yeah I was brought up a carnivore (yet beside the point).

Then yesterday inspiration took more resonance after I read Soul Mate Coach Dina Robison's eNewsletter. Her Thanksgiving thoughts and gratitude went to the North American Indians, whose land had been forcibly taken over by those pilgrims, preachers and other settlers from Old Europe. Dina said: "Though a special time to get together with loved ones, it's also a holiday that evokes mixed feelings for conscious individuals due to the real violent history that goes along with it and the collective sadness felt for the loss of the beautiful Native American people and culture."

'Old White Man' (c.1908), by Edward S. Curtis, via The Library of Congress

Europeans had come over to America to start a new life (so did some of my ancestors over a century ago), making way to a self-proclaimed 'New World', a European outpost solidly grounded on the society values of western civilisation, with a slant re-interpretation/ re-adjustment of them and - yes - a strong emphasis upon liberal economy and spirit of enterprise.

Ultimately America - the USA - would set the pace and tone to ROW (Rest of World) as the modern 'civilised' trend-setter and a cultural and/ or business model to aspire to. Talking from experience, the reality - or illusion - of The American Dream still sets pulses racing over in Europe. I too am fascinated by the US - from an artistic and geographic perspective mainly (those huge expanses of landscapes, WOW!).

As a European, Thanksgiving is not part of my culture and I have no intention to cast judgements or upset anyone whatsoever. I just thought though that, like Dina, I would pay tribute to those native Americans who tragically lost out on their own land, history and legacy, so that Europeans could build their Utopia.

La Fête du Muguet

Last Sunday, 1st May, was a busy day in the diary. Firstly it is referred to as Labour (Labor) Day as a homage to 1st May 1886 when a workers strike in Chicago (USA) pledging the 48-hour working week (6 days x 8 hours a day) ended in a bloodbath when the police force fired gunshots at them. Three years later, in 1889, the Paris International Socialist Congress decided to symbolically dedicate 1st May in support of the 8-hour working day plight. This would eventually be ratified through Parliament no less than thirty years later, on 23rd April 1919...

Ensley Furnace (Alabama c1906), via Shorpy (Juniper Gallery)

Labour Day, as it symbolically became known as, is recognised in many countries around the world. Labour Day became a paid bank holiday in France in 1947; employees working it would be granted double pay. Traditionally in France on 1st May, trade unions march down the streets peacefully across the main French towns and cities, to perpetuate the tradition, while using it as a platform to voice any griefs they might have, usually with some political connotation. Human rights groups join the march.

Meanwhile each year in Britain the first week-end of May (known as the May Day bank holiday week-end), spans a three-day week-end (i.e. including Monday). Village fêtes traditionally commemorate it one way or another (market stalls, morris dancing, medieval re-enactments, etc.). This year, our lucky neighbours will have enjoyed a four-day bank holiday extravaganza, courtesy of the Royal Wedding celebrations.

Now back to France and on a much more romantic and sweeter note than Labour Day, the French celebrate 1st May by purchasing (or picking in the wild) a few twigs, a bouquet or pot of muguet (lily of the valley). Fabulously fragrant and the darling of couture house perfumes, lily of the valley is also reported to bring good fortune to those who take it home on 1st May (not exactly the latest fad as this French tradition dates back to 1561!). French trade unionists marching down the streets on 1st May wear the flower on the buttonhole as their symbol for Labour Day.

My mum keeps her muguet for a whole year (admittedly the plant has no super powers that enable it to keep that long, especially if cut, or kept indoors in its original pot), before replacing it with a fresh one the following 1st May.

Now that's a fragrant talisman that everyone should treat themselves to, if only to take Spring home and enjoy the wonderfully fresh and infinitely feminine aroma. Meanwhile La Baguette belatedly wishes everyone: Bonne Fête du 1er Mai!

A Week-End Wonderweb 26-02 (Art Nouveau)

Towards the end of the 19th century, at the peak of industrialisation in our Western societies, artists, designers and aesthetes turned to the natural world for inspiration and solace, and this is how the Art Nouveau movement came about, as an extension of William Morris's Arts & Crafts, feminine, voluptuous, foliate, adorned, with emphasis upon the curved and linear, while fauna, flora and nymphs became the focus of attention and desire, translated not only onto building façades, but also via illustrative forms (most famously Hector Guimard's signage for the Paris underground), and Applied Arts: interior design, furniture, glass and pottery ware.

Sources (top page down):

• 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I' (1907), by Gustav Klimt, featured on Canvas Replicas
• Alpha Stamps, Art Nouveau collage sheets, Perfume Labels, by Gatochy via Flickr
• Vase (1893-96) designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, made by Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company, currently on display at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art
•  Art Nouveau façade in the Northern French town of Douai

Further resources:

• Art Nouveau explained by The Artchive and ArtLex
• Art Nouveau architecture by Europa 1900.

A Week-End Wonderweb 04-12 (Saint-Quentin)

European hub halfway between Paris and Brussels, London and Bonn, a strategic station stop on pre-TGV* international railway lines (Paris-St-Quentin-Brussels/ Aachen/ Köln/ Amsterdam/ København/ Москва), home to artists, free thinkers, formerly known as the French Manchester thanks to its strong textile manufacturing and trade legacy spanning centuries, the most Flemish of French towns is also a beacon of Art Deco style and more, with two jewels in the architectural stakes, namely its magnificent gothic basilica (as a tribute to Quentin, a martyr) and 500-year-old town hall; a no-mercy outpost, taken over by the Prussians in 1870, flattened out by the Germans in WWI, and again damaged in WWII, at the heart of war cemetery graveland, only a few miles away from the notorious Somme Valley, here is a town of contrasts, a land of invasions, a pool of invention, disillusion, vision and reinvention, welcome to my hometown of St-Quentin, Picardie.

Sources (top page down):

• Brooklyn Museum Libraries & Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection, Church of St-Quentin, France, 1907
• The U.S. NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), Archival Research Catalog, View of ruins in front of the Cathedral of St. Quentin, France (October 14, 1918), ARC Identifier 530770 / Local Identifier 111-SC-28224
• Nathalie Hachet @ La Baguette Magique, St-Quentin basilica, Quentin's ossuary
• Pascal Stritt, Le Parcours Art Déco, detail of an Art Deco façade (rue de Baudreuil)
• id., stained glass detail on St-Quentin train station's listed Art Deco façade
• Inventaire du Patrimoine Culturel de Picardie, La Cotonnière de St-Quentin (cotton mill), 1950s branded stationery. Let us note that by the end of the 1950s, La Cotonnière employed over 2500 workers spread across 7 manufacturing sites in St-Quentin. Find out more from La Baguette Magique.

Additional Resources:

• Aerial views of St-Quentin from here.

* TGV = Trains à Grande Vitesse, the French fast trains

Priceless & Homemade

There are some things that money can't buy. For everything else, there's card, cash, gold bars, Travellers cheques, or bank of mum & dad... The things that money can't buy include those little treasures, allegedly insignificant family heirlooms at large that risk a death sentence with the passing of every generation, memory-ladden hand-me-downs that appear so trivial to those outside the family circle, objects devoid of a price tag, a clear/ obvious monetary value benchmarked against carats, gems, the fine antiques market, artistic worth, art movement, exclusivity etc.

At least two of the three objects I am about to describe here are commonly found in old Corsican homes, including mémé's house, and sadly likely to be overlooked by the younger generations. These artefacts are likely to fare poorly in terms of hard cash on the BBC Antiques Roadshow, nonetheless they are priceless to me, for they embody my family heritage (and that of hundreds of other local households) in its most simple aspect: the humble testimony of a pastoral tradition, of everyday life like it would have been, in its bare simplicity. These objects may 'only' appear to be a disparate collection of wooden bits that some consumerists couldn't wait to relegate to the dustbin (or in a last minute bout of empathy sell off at a jumble fair), but they are likely to 'talk' to sociologists and ethnologists. And for me, their 'talk' is (familiar) music to my ears.

U Spurtellu: a small yet sturdy, rounded and perfectly formed basket, handmade using either myrtus or chestnut wood twigs. My grandma's spurtellu is, I reckon, at least 150 years' old and not a single grey! This little unassuming basket had a clear purpose back in the day (and mostly until just before WWII): used by land-owners and peasants picking olives from their trees, as the first process towards the production of olive oil. The spurtellu was also used as a measure, enabling these local/ cottage industry olive oil producers to keep track of the quantity of olives they had picked. Ingenious and simple, all the same! More recently our spurtellu has been used to bring back fresh chicken eggs from a cousin's garden, or to pick peaches from the tree. It also had its hippie moment in the 1970s, holding an arrangement of dried wild flowers!

Planche à Découper (chopping board): unfortunately I never asked my grandma for the Corsican translation of this mundane wooden kitchen utensil. This one however was clearly hand-crafted using local wood, as opposed to a run-of-the-mill smoothed-down version from the shops. Here you will notice the rusticity of the finished product, the pencil markings and the lack of symmetry of the curves. These imperfections make this unique piece even more endearing indeed! Despite not being a keen carnivore, I cannot help but wonder about all the beautifully fragranced tasty pieces of locally-produced meat that got carved on this block of wood by my ancestors, throughout the last century or so...

Cuillère Souvenir (souvenir spoon): an unassuming example of local decorative craft aimed at visitors and the very first tourists, and designed to be hanged on a wall. I am no antiques expert but would be tempted to date this piece back to the early 1900s. This one holds the particular merit of 'advertising' the village of Rogliano, indicating here some sort of exclusivity as it is quite difficult to find decorative artefacts with village names on. Finding vintage objects bearing town names like Bastia (see close-up of the trinket box, top), Calvi or Ajaccio is much more common. Sadly this little spoon has lost some of its curvature along the years, but in my eye it has retained all of its character and quirkiness. It used to belong to Claire, mémé's dearest auntie, and I would never dream of parting from it.

An Attention to Detail (Part 2)

Attention to detail in rusticity is exemplified by mémé's house. Spread over three floors, it demonstrates church and castle engineering transposed to the private humble home, with a medieval vault structure supporting the whole weight of the house and deployed over a steep public path, using noble materials like oak and chestnut beams and stonemasonry. A challenge back in the day, and still a challenge today as no concrete casts, supporting steel frames or breeze blocks are used! This will baffle many a savvy modern architect, no doubt!

As if this was not enough, mémé's house also boasted until 50 years ago a fully-functioning built-in bread oven (alleged to be as ancient as the multi-century-old house) and tiled terracotta surround. Furthermore the property is flanked by its own private stone pavement. It also has a granary and an attic, a dispenza (larder), three fireplaces (the one in the kitchen was used to smoke pork meat into ham), a separate kitchen building linked to the main house itself via a puntu (bridge), two panoramic terraces, two functional cellars (one for wood storage and one for wine-making, complete with stone basin and oak barrels), a chicken pen, a pigsty consisting of a stone shelter built underneath the public path and an open-sky pig yard, a small terraced garden, and three olive trees immediately below the communal path. Thick stone walls and solid wooden floors are defacto, while chestnut windows and French windows are fitted with their own inside shutters, to keep the house safe and cool.

This is a perfect example of a self-contained property, an average peasant/ farmer family dwelling that over the decades/ centuries got improved upon, updated and enlarged to cope with the changing times. For instance, in line with a design trend of the time, one of the downstairs rooms has a beautiful ornate plaster ceilling that was stencilled in 1907 to commemorate my great-grandparents wedding, and has not been touched up since although it is now - sadly - severely damaged. The house was electrified in the 1950s by a family member on holiday from his high-ranking post in Marseille docks: he did a very neat spot-on job, that would shame our so-called electricians out there!



A cosmetic detail: my mum's D.O.B. immortalised on the façade by my grandad

For this is what I have noticed: back in the day, masons, builders, carpenters, roofers, skilled/ unskilled tradesmen and even amateurs/ rookies seemed to make a point at producing quality work, not any of this sub-standard lark that we have come to expect or get accustomed to nowadays, with shortcuts aplenty, poor materials, cheap imitations, and loads of cladding, panelling, plaster-boarding, lashes of paint or glue, staple-gun action and falseties to hide a multitude of sins in minimum time and effort... That attention to detail and pride in a job well done are an aberration for some! The building trade shouldn't be that charade, the lottery it has turned out to be, as - using Forrest Gump's famous words - 'you never know what you gonna get!'

I have been appalled at the extremely poor quality of work and motivation levels of those (albeit self-employed) tradesmen I have personally dealt with. A case of bad attitude, poor habits, lazy quick-fix methods and often not an ounce of common sense! While I'm at it, I would be extremely tempted to publicise the rogue Stockport plumber who carried out a wretched job at installing a new kitchen sink in my home six months ago and charged me over the odds for the extremely disappointing results that awaited me as soon as I opened the under-sink cupboard...

I have countless examples of the sort, and so have my acquaintances... With such low standards today, no wonder you eagerly look back in anger and turn to the past to discover skills, talent and ingeniosity that are so missing right now!