Builder Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience

I'm comedian Rhod Gilbert and this is my work experience.

This week, I'm a builder.

I couldn't wait to be a builder.

Turning up to work six weeks late and wearing your trousers so low,

passers-by can see how many Coco Pops you had for breakfast,

is my idea of a dream job.

A major home-builder had lost their minds and agreed to let me

join the skilled workforce

on one of the largest residential developments in the UK.

Should be a laugh. I am so bad at DIY.

I can change a plug, I can change a light bulb

and I can change a battery. But apart from that,

the closest these hands have come to manual work

is probably peeling a tangerine.

I've seen that Cowboy Builders on TV a few times

but knowing you don't make a load-bearing wall

out of crushed digestives doesn't make you Bob the Builder.

So I pebbledashed down to Pontypridd High School

where building Buddha Steve Jones would start my training.

When Steve started building, Elvis was still in the building.

In fact, Steve was building buildings

before Elvis had even got in the building he left.

This is where we start. This is the beginning.

By the end of today, you will be able to build a wall

and you'll be confident in any of the skill areas

-that we teach you today.

-I don't believe it.

I can't even put a picture up, Steve. Honestly.

In my house, I've got... Around the bottom of the walls,

I've put the pictures leaning against the wall

-where they're supposed to go up.

-You will be able to build a wall

and you'll be able to put the pictures up in the house.

I've never been this excited in my life. I know I don't look it.

If I could build a wall by the end of today, I'd be over the moon.

-You will...

-I'll be over the wall.

'Steve was like a motivational speaker trapped in Hulk Hogan

'but even he couldn't help himself winding up the new kid.'

That was my first trowel when I started out.

And as you can see, how much that has worn down over the years.

That trowel was not the same size as that,

-I don't care how long ago it was.

-Rhod, I swear to you...

You want me to go out onto a building site and go,

"Hey, have you seen how much a trowel wears down over the years?"

And then all the builders laugh at me.

If you're filing your nails down, that's going to go shorter

-and shorter, so it's the exact same.

-My nails aren't made of metal.

Yeah, but they're still going to go shorter.

Don't believe it.

'My hands are soft as a poodle's puffer jacket,

'so I couldn't wait to gain my first-ever practical DIY skills.'

This is genuinely one of the most exciting moments of my life.

The thought that I might be able to do some DIY for the first time ever.

Cos if I could build a wall and tile a bathroom

and do some grouting, put some pictures up,

I might actually feel like a real man.

At least Steve has made sure...

..that I look the part.

Unbelievable.

All dolled up like Barbie the builder,

I headed out to Hulk Stevegan's real man shed for a building masterclass,

where Steve immediately overloaded my brain with techno-waffle.

This is a brick.

I was going to say, I could tell it was a brick.

I was ahead of you there.

This is the face which is the most important part of the brick.

That's the feature, that's what you look at.

Most important part of the brick!

On each side, that's the arris of the brick.

-That's the arris.

-Yes.

-There's a lot more to this brick than...

We haven't finished yet. Never hit the brick in the face

because you're spending a lot of money on this brick.

So if you're going to hit somebody in the face with a brick,

-always use that side, is it?

-Yeah, make sure you hit that side.

-Or the arris.

-Or the arris.

-That's nice and sharp.

-Yeah.

I'd learned how to use a brick in close hand combat

and was moving from thick as brick shit to brixpert.

First of all we've got the mixer, we need to produce our mortar.

That's the stuff in between the bricks?

That's the stuff in between the bricks.

It's important that we get the mix correct.

It needs to be like whipped cream, a creamy, creamy mixture.

-A creamy, creamy mixture.

-Creamy, creamy, whipping cream mixture.

-That's the texture. Creamy, creamy, whipping cream mixture.

-Yeah.

As we studied Hulk Stevegan's creamy mixture,

I realised there was MORTAR being a real man than I'd thought.

-Can I feel your creamy, creamy...?

-Yeah, get in, Rhod.

Oh, God, that is creamy, Steve. It's heavier than it looks.

-It's a nice feel on it, isn't it?

-Oh, beautiful.

Where you've got to be careful with this,

the more you play with it, the wetter it becomes, you know?

-The more you play with it, the wetter it becomes?

-Yeah.

We make sure that when it's in the mixer...

'Hulk Stevegan was right.

'I had to be careful not to play with his creamy mixture too much

'cos we didn't want it running down the walls.'

Definitely not in the top half of the group.

'His over-creamy mixture was seeping out of my cracks

'and Hulk Stevegan stepped in.

'I'd greedily stuffed too much in my brick gaps, or perps,

'as real men call them.'

Your perps are a little bit wide,

they're probably twice the thickness that they should be.

I used to work with a guy and they used to call him Billy Perp

cos his perps were always big and he could never...

So perhaps you can take that crown off him today.

-Rhod Perps.

-In a good way, mind.

'My massive perps were perplexing.

'But soon my perps hit a perple patch

'and with my perps perping perfect just two hours later,

'Hulk Stevegan was crying fat, creamy, creamy tears

'at Wales's answer to the pyramids.'

That's really good for a first attempt.

-Is it?

-I'm proud. And you should be proud.

-You're not going to cry, are you?

-Almost. I'm welling up!

Already a master bricklayer, time to move on to tree flesh, AKA wood,

and I was handed over to a real woman, carpenter Sian.

You can fit everything I know about carpentry on a woodpecker's pecker,

and Sian's triple X-rated commentary wasn't helping.

That's it. Long strokes. Not too fast.

You sound like a porn director.

"Long strokes, take your time."

-Thanks for that.

-"That's it, just there. That's it."

Blow your dust away.

-Yeah, they probably wouldn't say that, though.

-No.

Sian had given me some basic safety tips.

Long strokes, watch the line, not the saw,

and if it goes numb, falls off,

and gets eaten by a passing dog, stop sawing.

But I was flying.

Sian was my muse and wood was clearly my medium.

Right, well, I'm going to leave you to put this one up,

and let's see how far you can get on your own.

I think this is my thing. I think I've found my calling.

If that is flush against there, then that sits like that.

Which is not good.

Ah, shit.

That is not flush there, is it?

I'm sure that this isn't exactly how you're supposed to do it...

but I go by results.

Shit.

I was determined not to let the window frame make me look a twat.

But my maths are terrible and when Sian left the calculations to me,

I knew she was either mad, stupid or all five.

Writing on a table feels quite workman-y.

I'll probably... They write on bits of wood, don't they?

Take away 603, borrow one, pay back...

114.5, 114.5 is 11...

So is this 114.5?

No. But then, I did saw some of it off.

0.5. I don't know why I'm measuring this now.

I've literally forgotten completely what I'm doing.

You could be the best measurer in the world,

but if your maths are off,

it doesn't matter if you're John Le Mesurier,

woodwork that should work won't work.

I'm pretty happy with that.

A few coats of paint, I reckon that'll be all right.

The day had been fun so far, but for my final challenge,

things took a serious turn as Hulk Stevegan

delved into my personal life with an incredibly intrusive question.

-Have we ever done any tiling?

-No.

-None at all?

-No.

'Like a dog with a bomb, Steve just wouldn't let it lie.'

Have you seen anybody tiling in the kitchens or bathrooms, showers?

-Only from a distance.

-Oh, right.

'Steve had cut my soul clean open

'and then he just started applying tile adhesive

'like nothing had happened.'

So, if you want to make up a bit of a pattern

out of the red and black, whether you put two reds, two blacks,

-one red, one black, three blacks, two reds.

-I'm thinking...

What colour would you want to go for now?

-Black, please, Rachel.

-Black.

-What colour would you like?

-Black, please.

I can see what you're thinking.

You're thinking of this pattern, aren't you?

-What about on the next row, Rhod?

-Black, please.

-On the left or the right?

-Oh, God. Erm...

-Left.

-Left.

-No, right!

-What about above the red?

-Black, please.

-Black. What about above the black?

-Black, please.

-You're going for black again?

-Yeah, please.

What colour would you like now, Rhod, above the black?

-Black, please.

-Black.

-Can you carry on from here now, Rhod?

-Yeah.

-And then I'll come back and assess it.

-OK.

-Is that OK?

-Yeah.

'I was still raw from having my soul exposed

'but the tiling was taking my mind off it

'and I was as close to happy as someone tiling can be.'

God, this is a piece of piss.

I've been too harsh on myself all these years.

How exciting is this? I can do DIY.

Look at the speed I'm working.

Wouldn't get a workman working this fast, I'll tell you that.

'My hands have seen less work than Boris Johnson's hairnet,

'but Steve dashed back with feedback on my splashback

'and my splashback wasn't slapdash so he gave my back a slap.'

We did discuss a pattern.

-I'd give you a choice of red or black.

-Yeah.

But you didn't give me the choice on the first tile.

You just stuck a red one up. I wanted an all-black wall.

That red was a really bad choice.

-But don't you think it looks nice?

-It does look nice, yeah.

-It looks really nice.

-It's a talking point.

'It was time to down tools at the building school

'but before I left, Hulk Stevegan wanted to see

'if any of his real man stuff had rubbed off on me.'

How's your confidence levels now, Rhod,

-after your training session here?

-Sky-high, mate.

I never ever, ever, ever thought

that I would ever do any piece of DIY.

You're a different person now to what you was when you came in here.

You'll walk out of here proud now today.

I have every faith in you, Rhod. Good luck on your journey.

'The building Buddha was right. I was halfway to being a real man.

'All I needed now was some really manly real man tools.'

You've done the construction department here proud today.

Look at that.

I don't want to seem ungrateful,

but I think far from being the envy of the building trade,

if they see a new brickie with his name on his own trowel,

they're going to kick the shit out of me!

They'll be dangling me off the top floor!

You haven't got a nice My Little Pony sandwich box

or something that would really set it off?

I was only 48, but it was time I left school

and got some work experience.

The scent of 1,000 exposed bum cracks

led me to the massive Newport site.

I looked like a tool and felt like a spanner as I met my new boss,

John Harris.

-John.

-Good morning.

-Hiya.

-How are you doing?

-Thank you.

Erm, erm...

Yeah, please tell me you've got something else I can wear.

You'll need to take that off, I think.

John gave me a guided tour of all the different trades on his site

and introduced me to some really real men,

bricklayers Darren and Kieran.

Between them, they knew more about building walls than Donald Trump.

This is a single garage.

We normally get this built in about two days.

Basically, take it up 21, that'll be the first lift,

21 courses of brick. They put the scaffold up.

And then we go up then, eight courses then.

And they put a wall plate on and then the roof goes on it.

I'll level with you, Darren, I've got absolutely no idea

what you're talking about, mate. None of it.

-Bricks, I know that one.

-Yeah.

-Bricks, roof.

How many bricks do you reckon you could lay in an hour?

I don't really work by the hour, to be honest with you.

I've only laid about ten bricks in my entire life.

The average brickie is laying 700-800.

Some lay up to 1,000 a day.

So, I'm going to have to work about an 80-hour day, is that right?

-Yeah, probably, yeah.

-To get it done!

Oh, creamy, creamy mortar.

I'd have to lay faster than a battery hen

and my perps would have to be perp-fect.

And real men got paid by the brick, so if I slowed them up,

they'd literally have no roof over their heads.

-You get paid by the brick, then?

-Yeah, per brick.

I knew that brickies kind of had to work hard,

get the bricks up, but I thought that was just to hit deadlines.

I didn't realise you actually got paid per brick.

-How much per brick?

-40p per brick.

-40p a brick?

-Yeah.

-And some guys can lay, well, 800 or 1,000 even.

-Yeah.

-So 1,000 bricks at 40p...

-Some of them can, yeah.

-..that's 400 quid a day.

-Yeah.

-Or £1.40 for me.

-Yeah. Be all right!

My fledgling confidence was wavering.

I'd only built one wall and it hadn't even reached my knees.

And John was keen to stress that my neck

and a lot of other necks were on the line.

Every trade here is on a price.

So if I hold them up...

It costs them money.

God. It's only money, though, isn't it?

It's only money, yeah. It's only money.

That's what I'm going to say to them.

But it's programming as well, so...

So it's only money and programming.

-Customers.

-And customers.

It's only money and programming and customers

and that they have food on the table and their kids have shoes

and they can pay their mortgages.

Whether they have to declare themselves bankrupt.

It's only all that stuff. Come on, lads!

-Come on.

-Have a laugh about it!

Darren's kids, they're not big eaters anyway, are they?

No, no, no. I don't think so.

I was as ready to do hard, physical work

as a mole snoozing against a ripened peach

and John was worried I'd jeopardise the entire housing estate.

Seeing how I fitted into the bigger picture

might give me a wake-up call.

So, how long would it be to finish one of these from scratch, John?

Roughly around 20, 24 weeks.

Obviously, we're building 30, 40, 50 at a time.

Yeah, I'll do one and we'll see how we go.

-We'll see how we go with that!

-See how we get on, yeah.

There's just so much for me to botch.

'I was joking around nervously,

'but if I held up his house-building factory line,

'John'd come down on me like a tonne of bricks and something told me

'his mixture wouldn't be anywhere near as creamy as Steve's.'

How quickly will you know whether I'm cut out for this?

-I'll know pretty quick.

-You'll know pretty quick?

-An hour or so.

-An hour or so?

I'll know whether you can lay a brick or cut some timber.

-So, if I'm still here after an hour...

-Yes.

-..tomorrow.

-You've done well.

-I'll be doing all right?

-Yeah, you'll be doing well.

-Do you kick people off pretty quickly

-if they're not up to scratch?

-Yes, we do, yeah.

-Pressure's on.

I think the big worry is for tomorrow that I fall behind.

The pace these guys work at is pretty impressive.

It's been explained pretty clearly to me today

that there's a domino effect. Boom, boom, boom.

A knock-on effect on everyone else if I hold things up

and I do not want to be that first domino.

It was time to do real jobs with real men with real families

and real kids who wanted real food and real Christmas presents.

Shit was getting really real.

First up, brickying with Darren and Kieran,

where John wanted to see a garage by the end of the day.

I just hoped my mortar would be as creamy as it ought to,

cos I was determined not to let John boot me off site.

Basically we've got a garage ready now for you to run in.

Grab a trowel and we'll give you a quick show how to do it.

-I've got my own trowel.

-You've got your own trowel,

-you want to use your own, do you?

-Looks like a shovel.

Personalised trowel. I like that, that's very nice.

I thought...

-this might get the shit kicked out of me on site, I thought.

-Maybe.

In the business, Darren was known as the Chosen One, Golden Bricks,

El Bricko, and he wouldn't let me near his sacred bricks

without a quick induction.

Tap him in so he's flush with the line.

Tap him in, you said.

-Bricks are him, are they?

-You can have female or male ones.

All depends how many holes.

THEY LAUGH

So, we'll leave you in peace now over here to crack on and have a go.

I was going as fast as I could but me keeping up with El Bricko

was about as likely as Nigel Farage winning the Eurovision Song Contest.

I think I'm doing all right. I'm...

incredibly slow but I think the quality is all right.

Is this really slow?

-Yeah, quite slow.

-Quite slow.

-Yeah. But it's nothing that...

Like, an apprentice would be exactly the same, like.

-I'm only as shit as an apprentice?

-Oh, you're not that good yet.

But you've got to pick the pace up now and go for it, all right?

Pace, pace, pace.

We're on a price, boys.

'I started laying faster than Hugh Hefner on heat,

'throwing down bricks like prisoners on a roof.

'If I'd been a singer, I'd have been Brick Astley.

'If I'd been an actor, I'd have been Brick-ole Kidman.'

Oh, he's racing now, boys. He is racing now.

Rhod, you only get paid for tidy bricks!

I can't talk now, Darren, I'm on a price, mate.

You get on with your own job there, Darren.

'We were against the clock and the clock was getting its ass kicked.

'But my back has done less work than Katie Hopkins's conscience.'

My back is absolutely killing me.

-Right, there is a secret for your back.

-Yeah?

Yeah, just man up and get on with it.

If your back's not hurting, you're not working hard enough.

My back's hurting.

-Kieran, is your back hurting?

-Yeah.

-Everyone's in pain.

'I'd smashed through John's one-hour probationary period

'and he hadn't kicked me off site.

'I was having really creamy, creamy man banter with El Bricko

'and actually starting to look the part.'

I think my arse is just starting to show as well,

it's just starting to...

Trousers just started to come down at the back.

And my pants.

Perps in the wall and perp on show.

My bum perp is just starting to appear. Didn't think I'd get...

Just don't get cement in that perp, it hurts.

Do they teach you the arse thing in college and stuff,

get an NVQ or something in it, do you?

Yeah, NVQ in where to park a bike.

'I'd managed not to fall behind

'but in my effort to keep up with El Bricko,

'the quality of my work might have fallen a smidge.'

I was trying to do it, like, at pace,

I was trying to pick up the pace a bit...

We could use it, take it over there

-and put a climbing wall up for the children.

-Yeah.

I put my builder's arse into it.

Yeah, it looks like you built it with your builder's arse.

'Some say you can see the Great Wall of China from space,

'but you can see space through mine, and apparently that was a problem.'

But I thought possibly a design innovation.

A little letterbox or a cat flap or something like that.

Marks out of ten?

-Minus 38.

-Minus 38.

-Minus 38, yeah.

-So it could've been worse.

-It could've been much worse.

-It could've been minus 40, minus 50, easy.

-Yeah.

I wanted to be kind.

'Build it and they will come, the saying goes.

'They being bloody John in my case.'

I think we're going to have to just take it down and

-clean it all up.

-Yeah.

It wasn't good.

-It looks all right.

-We'd never accept that.

We've counted it all up and you laid about 80 bricks,

so you would have earned about £32,

but, unfortunately, it's going to cost you a bit more than that now

because we've got to take it all down.

But as you take it down, I need you to clean it all up as well,

-put it into the skip.

-Bastard.

LAUGHTER

Well, it's not right, is it?

'Hadrian's Wall had marked the limits of the Roman Empire.

'Mine marked the limits of my building skills.

'And the real world was a lot less forgiving

'than Hulk Stevegan's loved-up classroom.'

It's just disappointing to try a job

that you think you'll be completely useless at

and, erm...find out you're right.

'My wall and my confidence had both collapsed

'but I'd cost El Bricko money and held everyone up,

'so sympathy was in short supply.'

Come on, we want to build it back up, hurry up.

-Run.

-I can't run, it's health and safety.

We'll make an exception.

'After my wonder wall,

'back beat the word was on the street

'that the fire in John's heart was out.

'But maybe John was going to be the one that saved me,

'because he gave me another chance.'

Well, I'm determined that I'm going

to find something I'm good at because at the moment it's...

no irony, we're in a place where the streets have no names

and I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

'John hoped water would be more my thing than mortar,

'but you could fit everything I know about plumbing

'on Christopher Plummer's plums.'

What's the worst that can happen, then, John,

if I don't get this right?

Well, the worst thing that could happen

is you're going to get a leak.

All the boarding, all the woodwork, a leak would ruin it all.

Leaks are very bad at this stage.

OK. I'll bear that in mind.

'I've seen muscly plumbers with big tool boxes in the movies,

'but a lot of them weren't even Corgi-registered

'and hadn't taught me much about fitting radiators,

'so I was pretty nervous about plumbing one in.'

I can confidently say I've never used a drill in my life.

I haven't botched it up that bad yet.

I feel like I'm doing all right.

'My plumbing was plumb and not a drop of water spilt.

'I'd popped my drill cherry and hung the nuts out of my first radiator.'

-Ho-ho, look at that!

-That's pretty good, that's pretty good.

-Pretty good?

-It's pretty good.

That is the first thing I've done right since I've been here.

Well done.

'If I'd been an explorer I'd have been Christopher Plumbus,

'et cetera, et cetera.

'Aaron looked like he was going to celebrate long into the night

'and I couldn't wait to see the look on John's bastard face.'

I just fitted a radiator, mate.

-Any good?

-Aaron said it was good.

Perfection, it was. Come and have a look.

Out of ten, I'd give you a ten, nine and a half.

Quality's very good.

'9.5!

' Minus 38 on the bricks and mortar to a near perfect ten on the water.

'I'd finally got my real man wings and I was here to stay.'

-What you do now is plumb it in, yeah?

-Yeah.

Oh, shit!

Get the bucket. Behind you.

It was all going so bloody well!

And now we've bloody flooded the place.

Why is there water coming through the ceiling down below?

When I cut that pipe, it didn't even occur to me

that it was full of water.

I'm really gutted about that, I was doing so well, mate.

I was flying. I got too overconfident.

'Pissing piss pipes.

'My arcing plumb spread soiled the room

'and once again John made me repair the damage.

'I was no more a plumber than Noel Edmonds on a banana boat

'is an effective coastal defence strategy.

'But at least word hadn't got round.'

-Fucking water goes everywhere...

-LAUGHTER

CHEERING

Cup of tea, please.

Heard all about your work.

-How bad you did.

-RHOD LAUGHS

Not you as well.

Have you heard anything positive about my workmanship?

-Not really.

-What, you haven't heard a single positive word about it?

They said that you really are a trier.

"You really are a trier."

I'm having a bit of a mare at the moment.

I thought builders... I thought the standards are going to be sloppy,

I thought I'd be all right, I'll find a skill,

I'll do it pretty badly and that'll be fine, that's what builders do,

isn't it? But on a site like this, everything's done to a standard,

everything's got to come up to a certain quality.

It's getting on my nerves, frankly.

I'm failing at every... every hurdle.

'Against his better judgment,

'John agreed to give me one last chance to get my real man wings

'but it was out of the frying pan and into the deep fat fryer.

'That's right, I was going to be a chippy.'

You'll be doing a little bit of cutting,

a bit of measuring and a bit of fixing. It's quite straightforward.

I've done a bit of cutting, bit of fixing.

Straight away it needed fixing.

You can use a tape measure and eight saw.

The only thing I felt very confident with,

ever, really, is a tape measure.

If you're looking for a full-time measurer, John...

I don't think we'll have anything for full-time measurers.

Do you get paid by the millimetre with measuring?

Not on measuring, no.

'I'd be working on a timber-framed garage roof with carpenter Ben,

'who'd cut more wood than Pinocchio's hairdresser.'

It says, "Danger, do not climb," Ben.

-That's only when it's attached to the ladder.

-Oh.

It's all right now, is it?

I did keep three points of contact on the ladder at all times.

Three points of contact?

Well, what was that - telephone, e-mail and a letter?

Yeah, that's it!

'By now I was so desperate to get my real man badge,

'I was prepared to saw through my own genitals to get it.'

You need to find somewhere comfortable, really.

Do I straddle it and then do that?

No, no, that's a bit dodgy, that is.

'Ben's tedious insistence on health and safety

'was rooted in painful experience.'

I know there was a lad who had trousers on in the summer

who tried cutting his trouser leg off

while he had his trousers on with a Stanley knife...

HE LAUGHS

-And....

-No!

-And he cut his leg!

-What's the end of the story?

-Well, the moral of the story,

the moral of the story is take the bloody things off.

Buy a pair of shorts.

'I wasn't sure what Ben had been eating,

'but his wood was harder than anything I'd come up against.'

We're getting there.

Only three more to do after this.

Do you get paid by the...

-I am on a price.

-You are on a price?

-Yeah.

-So you get paid by what?

Well, by BAC normally.

-By bank transfer!

-Yeah!

'I'd come, I'd sawed, but I certainly wasn't conquering.

'Five minutes in, and somehow we were hours behind.'

They've nearly finished theirs over there

and they started at the same time.

-Did they start at the same time as us?

-Yeah.

Am I losing you money going this slow, Ben?

-Probably, yes.

-Yeah?

-Have you got kids?

-I've got four.

Four kids? One or two of them might have to go without this month.

Or you can take one or two with you.

'After mortar-gate and water-gate, if I cost him any more money,

'this could be Ben's son and daughter-gate.

'It was official - the less I did, the more we got done.'

Ben's just cracking on now and I'm just...

his lovely assistant. I'm basically a glorified vice.

-So all I'm doing now is holding stuff.

-Right, if you hold this.

THEY LAUGH

Brilliant!

Bit of double holding.

'I'd discovered a hidden talent.

'As my confidence in holding grew,

'I started to improvise and soon developed

'my own unique range of holding techniques.'

Good holding there, Rhod.

One of the best holders I've ever seen.

I can't hear you, my ear defenders.

I'm basically just fielding abuse now, that's why I'm here.

'Holding was my calling.

'It had been calling me for ages but ironically I'd had it on hold.

'I'd finally released my inner workman

'and even started making excuses like a real builder.'

This garage is about two foot longer than the others.

-Well, there we are, then.

-That's why we're so far behind.

-It's nothing to do with me.

-No!

Why is this garage so long, then, Ben?

Perhaps they own a limo, I don't know.

A bus driver or...?

'John dropped by expecting to find another botch job

'but instead he was blown away

'by the all-new Black & Decker Work-Rhod.'

Ben said I was one of the best holders he's ever seen.

-Is that right, Ben?

-Yeah.

I've never seen a holder quite like it before.

I'd done a little bit of cutting, a little bit of marking,

a little bit of measuring but mainly holding.

You've held them up well, Rhod. Very good.

There's been a few glimmers of light.

My builder's bum was coming on quite well for a while

but ultimately it's all been pretty bad.

There's only one thing, really,

that I've actually been good at throughout consistently...

..and that is holding.

# So I'm holding on

# I'll keep holding on... #

'It was humbling to think one day these houses would all be finished

'and someone sitting in their new home

'could be sitting near something I'd held for someone.'

# Holding on

# I'll keep holding on to you... #

-Will you shake it now, Rhod?

-I'm a holder, not a shaker.

-Fair enough.

Just summing up your week, erm...

I think I'm going to prepare myself

by putting on my protective goggles ready for your assessment.

You've cost us a lot this week.

Programming, time...

-Customers.

-Customers.

-Food on the table.

-Food on the table.

There would have been no food on the table.

-There's none of that.

-There'd be no table, John.

You were good at holding,

-I will give that to you.

-Can I have a sweet?

No.

-Can I hold one for a bit?

-Yes.

You can put it back now.

Sorry.

'I came, I saw and I buggered it all up and I'm a bit gutted.'

But I've had a great time,

they were a great bunch of people, a great community, great camaraderie.

And I've had really good fun.

I just would have liked to have been slightly more essential

on that site.

Hey-ho.