My front wall...

was finished yesterday, apart from some cosmetic painting. I previously mentioned laying four bricks in a June blog and how it took me ages. Well yesterday I managed eight coping stones using loads of cement. It made me very proud. I don't want to come across like some kind of cement obsessive but it was very messy and satisfying. I even used my spirit level so everything was on the level (ha ha, that's an old Masonic joke apparently) though unlike the Masons I didn't wear a tiny white pinafore, have a trouser leg rolled up or threaten to cut my neighbour's throat with a knife. Which I've heard is what Mason's do.

I got to handle my lump hammer which is a smaller version of the one Thor used to carry. Here's a Norse joke. Thor is wandering around Bacchanalia or wherever else they had their orgies and he comes across a girl with a lisp whom he quite fancies. "I'm Thor" he says and she says "Your Thor! I'm not thure I'll ever walk again."

I digress.

Coping stones are the decorative brick things that go along the top of garden walls. They also double as calming objects for the stressed, hence the name. Here in the UK it is not uncommon to issue a coping stone to those who are depressed, the deeper the depression the heavier the stone. The rational being that these stones take your mind off your worries, actually they narrow the focus of your worries from the general to the particular, so rather than worry about bills or relationships or general stuff like that instead you worry about the damage done to your back by having the carry such a heavy object. And once you've learned to cope with the stone you're cured. Well that's the theory anyway. Of course only three professions promote this form of treatment; Psychiatry who use it as a means to reclassify incurable psychosis as builder's back and thus pass substantial numbers into spinal medicine; Spinal medicine who in a recent expose were found to have significant financial interests in walls; and of course the Masons who just have significant financial interests. To cut a long story short yesterday I bought eight coping stones from a local builder who sold them to me via a hatch in a steel reinforced door where all I could make out were eyes peering in a manner similar to those Mexican baddies in Sergio Leone films. The conversation went something like this.

Me, "I'd like eight coping stones please"
Him, over the sound of extra locks being turned. "Eight?"
Me, "Yes eight."
Him, sotto voce to his mate "Barry set the dogs loose we've got a nutter."
Me, "I heard that."
Him, "Why do yer need eight? Most people make do with one, eh? Are you a greedy bastard?" His eyes narrowed "Your not one of them cement obsessives are you?"
"Look I'm just sorting out the top of my wall."
All of a sudden he relaxed, "Oh you're a Mason, why didn't you say so."
Me, "No, I'm not a Mason,"
He, "That's a double negative. So you are a Mason?"
Me, "I am not a Mason, look." I lift a trousered leg.
"You're a psychiatrist then?"
"No, I'm not a fucking psychiatrist."
"Backs then. You're a spinal man."
"No."
"Then you must be really depressed, fuck off away from here." Sotto voce to Barry "Hold the dogs he's a depressive"
Me, "I am not depressed. I'm finishing a wall."
I could hear him and Barry discussing this and they eventually decided I might be telling the truth. The hatch slid back to reveal what I took to be Barry's piggy eyes looking me up and down.
Barry said "You sure you've not got a knife? You look like a Mason to me."
He stepped back and a dog yelped.
"Mind the fucking dog you dozy bugger!"
The two original eyes reappeared. "Okay, we'll sell you eight but you've not to let on where you got them from."
I sighed, "Okay."
As I drove out of the yard wondering how they managed to stay in business a large truck arrived and written on the side was North Manchester Primary Health Care Trust, NHS, followed by the legend "Coping Citywide"

Hmmm.