The Architects Registration Board (ARB) has erased (not just removed or deleted, but erased) a former Architect, Andrew Joseph Guy, aka (allegedly) Chris Ede, Person A, Karen Oman and Jane Baker, from the UK register of Architects for unprofessional conduct.

This was absolutely nothing to do with his Architectural practice, but all to do with his being an arrogant silly boy with grudges against eight different people or organisations.  Rather than being up-front about his disgruntlement, he decided to post false poor reviews under four different pseudonyms (allegedly). As he was the only common contact across these eight separate persons/organisations, it was relatively easy to make the link.

Clearly the ARB felt that this arrogant behaviour was dishonest, lacked integrity and undermined the reputation of the profession. Erasure was the only viable remedy.

Lessons learned:

1. Don’t post false reviews,
2. Don’t post anonymous reviews,
3. Don’t post under pseudonyms (but if you do, don’t use the same psedonyms across multiple review sites or pages.)

Regards,

Mickey Mouse

Just before Christmas, I collapsed as a result of poor blood oxygen saturation. A chest infection had prevented life giving oxygen from getting to my blood.

What do the collapse of Carillion, the feared collapse of Capita, the lack of confidence in PFI, the failure of The Green Deal, the failure of rail companies around the UK (as opposed to those in other countries, many of which make money out of UK rail passengers), and numerous other examples of private company fiascos tell us about the privatisation and outsourcing of essential services by central and local government edict following slavish adherence to political dogma? It doesn’t work. The oxygen required to make it work is being diluted into shareholder dividends and directors’ salaries.

What does the manipulation of local government elections by mandatory deselection of moderate labour councillors (masquerading as reselection) by slavish adherence to Momentum’s political dogma tell us about a future labour government? It is not going to work. The oxygen required to make it work is being wasted on futile dogma.

I despair when I see so many resources being frittered away from the many into the personal accounts of the few.

Following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, BRE have confirmed the details of the tests that are now being carried out on samples of ACM cladding submitted by councils throughout the UK. The test was devised by an ‘independent panel of experts’ on behalf of the communities department and performed on the core of test samples after the external aluminium skin had been removed from the panel.

So are these the same tests that were performed by test houses to confirm the fire rating of Reynobond panels before Grenfell? Is this how British Board of Agrement (up at the BRE site in watford) tested and certified the panels that it is claimed were installed at Grenfell Tower? Were such tests even carried out or was reliance made on ‘desktop assessment”? Or are these more stringent tests – tests that common sense should have told the specifiers, the regulation makers, the installers and the ‘Value Engineers’ were required? A spokesman for Unite has suggested that we should stop attacking the existing regulations and, by inference, that we should stop vilifying those who have worked within those regulations.

(Since writing the above, it has been reported that “even the Government’s newly-formed fire advisory body said the fire tests only examined the filler inside the aluminium panels. But because the cladding system has not been tested, it considers that some buildings could still be deemed to be safe, assuming the entire cladding, insulation and cavity block system worked to expected standards.”)

It appears now that investigations are being carried out on everything that might have contributed to the cause of the fire, the rapid spread of flames, the existence or otherwise of adequate warning, the effectiveness of compartments during the remodelling, the lack of sprinklers, the inappropriateness of the advice to stay in the flats, the lack of additional fire escapes, the restricted appliance access etc., etc. Is there to be a similar attack on regulations covering theses aspects also?

Without appearing to be #betterinmyday, I am confident that we would never have entertained the use of such materials, regardless of whether someone, somewhere certified that they achieved an acceptable level of fire safety or had carried out a ‘desktop assessment’ to assert acceptability. My duty as an Architect was to look after the interests of not only my paymasters, but those of my paymasters’ end users.

Wrapping a robust and inherently safe building in a polythene bag and allowing it to be set alight is wrong. Insisting that the regulations allowed it to happen is also wrong. Don’t hide from your responsibility to tell the regulation makers that they are wrong.

Do the right thing, whatever the cost.

Motoring up and down the country, from East to West and round the M25, I am bombarded with hoardings attached to motionless farm vehicles or abandoned lorries, inviting me to login to one web site or another to purchase kitchens or computers, attend a questionable night club or fire paintballs at unsuspecting mates.  However, as we approach this momentous referendum, a more insidious message is now being displayed – ‘Leave’.  The thought must be that a subliminal message will be delivered straight to the brain, and the general motoring public will be unable to prevent their hands from hovering and then placing a mark against the ‘Leave’ box.

There is nothing more likely to make me rebel against such a subliminal instruction.  This even more likely when that message is delivered by politicians who make a habit of raising my hackles.

Boris is a buffoon, whom I first encountered making a complete fool of himself on ‘Have I Got News For You?’  Since then he’s buffooned himself through Boris Island, Boris Calling In Planning Rejections, Boris’s Uxbridge Campaign and numerous other irritating Borisisms.

Gove is a jumped up BBC researcher, who believes he knows better than any profession he researched.  They let him loose on Education with disastrous results; heavens knows what he’ll do with Justice.

Farage (predictive text suggested “fat-age”; perhaps I should have stuck with that)  – I have nothing but disrespect for the gurning, conceited imbecile.

So how would I like UK’s future to be determined by a buffoon, jumped up researcher and an imbecile?  In the words of the great departed magician, Paul Daniels, “Not a lot!”  If you added The Hunt, my disrespect would be complete.  However, Jeremy seems to be towing the Jeremy line and is putting his spinning behind ‘Remain’.  It pains me to say “Good for you,” but for once, for whatever his personal political reason, I agree with him.

Any company boss who rides roughshod through employees’ genuine concerns and wishes is unlikely to survive for long in business.  It may well be that he/she will effect a temporary improvement in the company’s bottom line, but eventually the business will see a downturn in its fortunes.  Such downturn will occur through a reduction in employee morale, a lowering of the ‘health and happiness’ index, poor staff retention, an inability to recruit or a combination of all four.

So why, in this enlightened age of employer responsibility, is a man who has a series of failed businesses and departments behind him allowed to ride roughshod through the lifeblood of the NHS?

How can David Cameron maintain support of a person who purports to have skills in Public Relations, but who has woefully failed to demonstrate those skills in his short political life?

As a sound bite, “7 day National Health Service” is bound to attract support from a public whose faith in the NHS has been eroded by mismanagement, insufficient funding and reduced services.  But look deeper into the sound bite: the Headline destined for the Redtops, and you will find flawed logic, lies and misinformation.

The NHS already runs seven days a week, or should I be more accurate and confirm that ‘junior’ doctors already run the NHS  seven days a week.  It is true that there are probably not enough support facilities available – scans, X-rays, blood tests etc., and maybe there is a demand for weekend consultants’ clinics.  However, such demand is possibly fuelled by the desire of some patients not to intrude on their work time, so the inevitable result is an intrusion into someone else’s non-work time, let’s call it ‘anti-social time’.

So what is this “7 day National Health Service” all about, if ‘junior’ doctors already contribute to staffing the NHS for seven days a week.  Clearly it’s about squeezing seven days into a five day a week budget by reducing the periods referred to as ‘anti-social.’

In order for that to happen, the NHS managers have created shift patterns for ‘junior’ doctors that are unsafe.  They include leave days that are squeezed in between night or late shifts, together with several weekend day and weekend night shifts in sequence.  The shift requirements in many cases are just debilitating.  A worn out doctor is an unsafe doctor and an unsafe doctor creates an unsafe NHS.

You will also find that many aspects of the imposed ‘junior’ doctors’ contract openly defy other principles set out by the UK Government, in terms of equality and non-discrimination.  But Jeremy Hunt’s response appears to be that this is acceptable collateral damage.  ‘Cost effectiveness’, the Government’s excuse for swingeing cuts, is put forward as the reason for the proposed changes.  I believe they should look at another policy that is doing the rounds at the moment ‘Social Value’.

What is the negative value to the country of producing a demoralised, ineffective, broken National Health Service?  Because that is what will become of Hunt’s insistence that he is right and everyone else is wrong!

Allegories sometimes have a habit of throwing up unintended meanings.  Take, for example, the notion that an organisation is driven by its Engine Room, and relate it to the Engine Room of a ship.

An Engine Room only powers a ship; it has no ability to steer in the right direction without signals from the bridge.  Indeed, the Engine Room isn’t even aware of what the right direction is.  It is the responsibility of the Captain and the First Officer to use their skills to steer the ship to the correct destination and send those signals “Hard a Port”, “Hard a Starboard” etc. to the Engine Room.  They may delegate certain aspects of running the ship to the Bursars, Chief Cooks, Maintenance Managers, Chief Engineers etc., who will then delegate further, setting various objectives.  But those objectives have to be related to the direction set up on The Bridge.  If the Captain and First Officer are missing from The Bridge, the ship will wander aimlessly across the ocean.

Intel Inside only powers a computer because Bill Gates has set a course for success and has enthused his Managers to produce an excellent product.  Steve Jobs had the same function at Apple.

Any team needs a Captain, a Leader, who leads positively.