Two years ago this week, just as I was leaving the Messe Munchen exhibition centre in Munich, Germany, my son Fred took the photo below. As it was designed purely for social media purposes, it was staged, posed and very intentionally branded. With the passage of time, it has also become poignant. Moments before this…Read moreRead more
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Messe Munchen memories
Why the industry NEEDS more women
If you’re reading this on Monday 8 March as intended, then you are reading this on International Women’s Day. Now you might think that the very notion of a day set aside to empower women, to celebrate their accomplishments, and to challenge gender stereotypes is strange and even archaic. After all, the UK has now…Read moreRead more
Comment – Gender imbalance begins at home…
Here in the UK, when schoolchildren turn 14 they are expected to make an educational decision that could shape their future careers and even lives. They are required to select which lessons and classes they wish to pursue; and which they wish to abandon for their final years in high school. This is known colloquially…Read moreRead more
Comment – Coming Clean…
About a week ago, I was made aware of an incident on a site in Nottingham here in the UK. No-one was hurt; but reporting on incidents, accidents and fatalities is the biggest single downside of my chosen profession. However, a week on, and having received numerous photos of the incident in question (14 –…Read moreRead more
Comment – The possibilities are endless
It is 1 January 2021 as I sit down to type this. I am sat at a new desk, beneath a new video lighting rig, in my new-look office/studio. On the desk in front of me is a brand new notebook. That notebook is currently empty. Like the year that stretches before us, that notebook…Read moreRead more
Comment – Batsh*t crazy decision…
Disproportionate fine as wildlife crime comes home to roost. Before we begin, I want to assure you that I am as big an animal lover as the next guy. There are currently two boxer dogs under my desk, both of whom came from a rescue home. I once adopted an orang-utan for my daughter. I…Read moreRead more
Comment – A sense of foreboding…
It’s way over eighteen months now since we revealed that the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) had turned its investigative spotlight towards the demolition industry. Indeed, it was initially thought that an investigation into alleged collusion involving as many as six UK demolition firms would have been concluded back in September 2019. As that deadline…Read moreRead more
Comment – And now the wait begins…
I was busily adding some last-minute polish to the pilot episode of the new Construction Collective LIVE show yesterday, so the news of an industrial explosion in Avonmouth passed me by. By the time I emerged from what I laughingly call “the studio”, it had been confirmed that four men had lost their lives. I…Read moreRead more
Comment – The gift that keeps on taking…
It was a year that promised so much: a year for new beginnings, new adventures, and new, exciting plans. But 2020 destroyed all of that. The hope of new beginnings and new adventures quickly became a battle – both figuratively AND literally – for survival. Those exciting plans now lie in tatters; decimated by a…Read moreRead more
Comment – A cacophony of cards
As regular readers will attest, I have opinions and I am not afraid to share them. But when I do so, I am ever mindful of the act that I am just a journalist. I speak from the periphery. I am an interloper. I am, as the rather graphic expression goes, “outside pissing in”. However,…Read moreRead more
