Today Max’s estimating team were going to visit. He arrived in a 2009 Mercedes that was the size of Sussex and was then joined by his estimator who seemed more elderly and confused than Max had seemed when we first met. We were then joined by the plumber and electrician. “Hello, I’m the plumber, Peter”. This was a very carefully constructed sentence so that he didn’t present himself as Peter the Plumber and sound like one of Postman Pat’s friends. Next came the electrician. “I’m the electrician” he said. “Patrick” I said shaking his hand. “I’m the electrician” he said. I felt all of the muscles in my face twinge as I was tempted to ask if his name was a secret for some reason but just ushered him in. Perhaps it’s an assigned Red Indian name like Dances with Wolves. After a brief discussion by the four real men and me describing to Peter and ‘Electrician’ how inadequate the plumbing, heating, electrics and lighting were they took themselves off for a tour of the house. As I spoke to Max I could hear them laughing at our red nose wearing, baggy trouser dropping festival of a house. Bloody cheek. I joined them in the hallway to receive their comments about the house. Peter had a grey moptop hairstyle circa Beatles 1965 and was extremely likeable. He didn’t think that much of our plumbing was salvageable and was confused that we have a type of radiator normally found in old peoples homes which give out limited heat so that the old dears don’t burn their hands. ‘Electrician’ was very quiet apart from pointing out to Peter that most of our lights are on the floor and asking me if I’d like them a little higher when replaced.
This evening we had a visit from Andy Graham whose company is called XLNT. I do have some concerns about a man who’d name his company like a boyband or with the spelling of a twelve year old sending a text. He looked like a third rate rock star whose good looks couldn’t keep pace with his substance abuse but had the presence and confidence of Jose Mourinho. The special one had arrived. His first words, after introductions, were “This is Basil Bailey’s house”. He’d known Basil’s nephew as a child, had visited the house then and also done some work for Basil in his twenties. "This house was the cutting edge back in the day" he said. "Well, this is cutting edge plus forty years" I said. He described Basil as an eccentric, which would be fair and told us that Basil’s furniture business went bust about twenty yeas ago. He didn’t have a business card but gave us a Cd-Rom. I could try this with a disc containing a montage of Crimewatch reconstructions from cases I've worked on. Well, he didn’t actually say it was a cd-rom. He said “I don’t have business cards. You can have this” and handed the disk over. Since I’m at the shallow end of the social competency learning curve I said “Ooh, I love a compilation CD. Any Phil Collins?”. He looked at the plans, was impressed by them and asked some brief questions and made an appointment to return with his surveyor next week. Marianna doing all the talking didn’t deter him from maintaining steely, man-bonding eye contact with me over the top of his spectacles. I’m just dipping my elbow into the tepid bathwaters of manliness so did my best to match this. He had recently returned from Florida and was going skiing in Italy this weekend. It’s always nice to know the lifestyle I may be supporting.
www.xlnt2.com
