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Jp macmanus

Desert Orchid said:
I 'built' my previous house, a huge house for a guy from a one-earner, large family originating in the village slums.

When I say I 'built' it, I mean I sourced the plot, drew the plans, organised the financing of it, liaised with an architect, negotiated with a selection of builders to get the right balance of spec and cost and was on site as often as possible to make sure it all went well.

The builder we eventually went with was superb to work with and, I believe, very honest and I'm not sure he made an awful lot of money on the project.

Over time, when we wanted work done, painting, decorating, new bathrooms, etc, I can't think of a single tradesman I didn't think was a total cowboy bar one painter who seemed only to want enough for him and his family get by modestly on, and one plumber who asked for a tenner after spending three hours fixing a leak in my toilet. When I objected and told him he was doing himself he replied, "No, I could have done this in half an hour but I enjoyed the chat with you and it kept me away from the wife for the evening!"

And all the other guys wanted big money for routine jobs, three and four times per hour what I was earning as a senior lecturer. To be entirely honest, it made me very resentful and mistrusting and to this day I only know one tradesman, a sparks, who hasn't struck me as ripping me off.

And things have got so much worse since Brexit. They all seem to use it as an excuse for high prices.

In our current house we needed the bottom of the doors shaved after we got the carpets fitted. There were nine doors and I reckoned half an hour per door but was willing to pay the joiner what I reckoned was an honest day's pay: £250. The guy priced job 'per door', which was working out 'way more than that.

And that seems to be what they do; break the job up into piece meal items and charge per item, same way garages end up charging fortunes for routine maintenance servicing.

Can you imagine a nurse charging an employer £10 for administering a medication, £20 for changing bedlinen, £30 for a bed-bath, etc?

But the world seems to have accepted these practices and that's why some of these tradesmen are driving about in megatrucks and living in £600k+ homes when they're effectively only working four half-days a week. At times I think 'good luck to them' but it means it takes me ages to find a tradesman who will do a good job for a price that doesn't feel exorbitant.

My brothers and I have often said our mother was right. We shouldn't have gone to university, We should each have taken up a different trade. We'd have been millionaires by now. The five of us could have formed a housebuilding company if we were a brickie, joiner/carpenter, plumber, electrician and decorator.
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On your last paragraph, does money matter? Would it have made you and happier?
 
Slim said:
On your last paragraph, does money matter? Would it have made you and happier?
Click to expand...
💯% THIS.

I would no doubt have more money in the bank today had I done any of the following: gone into law after obtaining my law degree, crawled to the likes of Brough Scott at the Racing Post, crawled to the Stanford lads at Flutter.com, crawled to a load of venture capitalists and prospective angel investors to have a properly-funded start up, crawled to Dermot Desmond and agreed to let him fly me to Dublin re Betdaq, and various other things besides - but I'd have been miserable as sin my whole life if I'd done any of that and instead I have lived life on my own terms, I've got a roof over my head, I eat and, above all, I'm happy.

I'd prefer a course of root canal treatment to being any of the professions listed in this thread and my own personal experience is that there are plenty of decent people out there who will do a job I can't do - and don't want to learn to do - at a fair price.

Slim's got the right idea (ie same idea as me broadly speaking) about life from what I've read of him here.
 
Desert Orchid said:
I 'built' my previous house, a huge house for a guy from a one-earner, large family originating in the village slums.

When I say I 'built' it, I mean I sourced the plot, drew the plans, organised the financing of it, liaised with an architect, negotiated with a selection of builders to get the right balance of spec and cost and was on site as often as possible to make sure it all went well.

The builder we eventually went with was superb to work with and, I believe, very honest and I'm not sure he made an awful lot of money on the project.

Over time, when we wanted work done, painting, decorating, new bathrooms, etc, I can't think of a single tradesman I didn't think was a total cowboy bar one painter who seemed only to want enough for him and his family get by modestly on, and one plumber who asked for a tenner after spending three hours fixing a leak in my toilet. When I objected and told him he was doing himself he replied, "No, I could have done this in half an hour but I enjoyed the chat with you and it kept me away from the wife for the evening!"

And all the other guys wanted big money for routine jobs, three and four times per hour what I was earning as a senior lecturer. To be entirely honest, it made me very resentful and mistrusting and to this day I only know one tradesman, a sparks, who hasn't struck me as ripping me off.

And things have got so much worse since Brexit. They all seem to use it as an excuse for high prices.

In our current house we needed the bottom of the doors shaved after we got the carpets fitted. There were nine doors and I reckoned half an hour per door but was willing to pay the joiner what I reckoned was an honest day's pay: £250. The guy priced job 'per door', which was working out 'way more than that.

And that seems to be what they do; break the job up into piece meal items and charge per item, same way garages end up charging fortunes for routine maintenance servicing.

Can you imagine a nurse charging an employer £10 for administering a medication, £20 for changing bedlinen, £30 for a bed-bath, etc?

But the world seems to have accepted these practices and that's why some of these tradesmen are driving about in megatrucks and living in £600k+ homes when they're effectively only working four half-days a week. At times I think 'good luck to them' but it means it takes me ages to find a tradesman who will do a good job for a price that doesn't feel exorbitant.

My brothers and I have often said our mother was right. We shouldn't have gone to university, We should each have taken up a different trade. We'd have been millionaires by now. The five of us could have formed a housebuilding company if we were a brickie, joiner/carpenter, plumber, electrician and decorator.
Click to expand...
I'd say 80% of my dealings with tradesmen have been positive even though I had one lucky escape with a roofer.Personally I believe you cannot equate the pay of a tradesman to the pay of a teacher or nurse -the reason being they have no guaranteed income on a Monday morning and are subjected to jobs being cancelled and bad debts.I'm happy to pay that premium to good people but won't allow myself to be tipped off.
 
Ian_Davies said:
💯% THIS.

I would no doubt have more money in the bank today had I done any of the following: gone into law after obtaining my law degree, crawled to the likes of Brough Scott at the Racing Post, crawled to the Stanford lads at Flutter.com, crawled to a load of venture capitalists and prospective angel investors to have a properly-funded start up, crawled to Dermot Desmond and agreed to let him fly me to Dublin re Betdaq, and various other things besides - but I'd have been miserable as sin my whole life if I'd done any of that and instead I have lived life on my own terms, I've got a roof over my head, I eat and, above all, I'm happy.

I'd prefer a course of root canal treatment to being any of the professions listed in this thread and my own personal experience is that there are plenty of decent people out there who will do a job I can't do - and don't want to learn to do - at a fair price.

Slim's got the right idea (ie same idea as me broadly speaking) about life from what I've read of him here.
Click to expand...
Great post.
 
Ian_Davies said:
💯% THIS.

I would no doubt have more money in the bank today had I done any of the following: gone into law after obtaining my law degree, crawled to the likes of Brough Scott at the Racing Post, crawled to the Stanford lads at Flutter.com, crawled to a load of venture capitalists and prospective angel investors to have a properly-funded start up, crawled to Dermot Desmond and agreed to let him fly me to Dublin re Betdaq, and various other things besides - but I'd have been miserable as sin my whole life if I'd done any of that and instead I have lived life on my own terms, I've got a roof over my head, I eat and, above all, I'm happy.

I'd prefer a course of root canal treatment to being any of the professions listed in this thread and my own personal experience is that there are plenty of decent people out there who will do a job I can't do - and don't want to learn to do - at a fair price.

Slim's got the right idea (ie same idea as me broadly speaking) about life from what I've read of him here.
Click to expand...

You and me are more alike then we like to acknowledge. That's a deep post.
 
The Glackin report also examined the role and activities of other prominent owners, Dermot Desmond and Michael Smurfit in the JMOB purchase and subsequent sale to Telecom. No adverse findings were found against either man.

Dr. Smurfit stepped down from his role as Chairman of Telecom (the state owned telecommunications department who paid £9.4m) following the controversy.
 
Slim said:
On your last paragraph, does money matter? Would it have made you and happier?
Click to expand...

I've never been a great believer that more money makes you happier but it can certainly make life more comfortable, not having to worry so much about being able to pay the mortgage or bills.

This is much more a social philosophy issue.

You're told when you're young that if you work hard at school, get good qualifications, go to uni, etc, then the world is your oyster. It isn't.

You live with your life choices.

At 17 and just leaving school, I was offered the chance to start full-time in the finance dept of the local authority who were going to put me through the CA course at Glasgow Uni. I turned them down because I wanted to do something with my languages. I still think that was a mistake.

At 23 I was offered a place on an 'elite' computer programming course - true - with no guarantee of a job at the end of it but the stat that nobody who successfully completed the course had failed to get one. Other ex-schoolmates who had gone into computing were telling me they couldn't spend the money they were earning. But the very next day I was offered a full-time teaching job and was getting married the following spring and needed the money so opted for teaching. I'll never know if that was a mistake but I'll always wonder.

Teaching can be hugely satisfying but it is a pretty dreadful job these days and I would always try to dissuade any young person from going down that road. It is the least appreciated job in the country by both governments and the general public.

Would I be happier with more money? I don't know.

Do I regret becoming a teacher? Yes.
 
Nobody ends up happy. The Great Man does not chase money. He chases absolution. He needs to be seen doing good because he cannot live with what he did to rise.

Look at the dynasties. Public smiles. Private wreckage. Broken families. Addiction. Estrangement. Death.

So what is the point of all that wealth if those closest to him crumble?

Maybe the fortune is not the reward. Maybe it is the price.
 
Interesting discussion.

When we were first married our flat was so cold the inside of the windows used to frost up. Then came all the Irish unemployment, poverty and 60% + income tax rates, of the 1980s so fear of a return to frosty glass caused me to work, study and take business travel like a lunatic to avert any risk of discomforting my family ever again. Was absent more than I should have been to be honest.

Then when I hit sixty ~5 years ago (yes I know - that is hard to believe!) I realsied that just enough was plenty and we had amassed just enough assets to live as we wished for a couple of decades.

So I immediately stepped down from the career job (which I loved, just to be clear) sacrificed a lucrative renumeration package and now spend my days doing whatever the f%*& I feel like with the people I feel like doing it with.

I am happier.
 
Slim said:
You and me are more alike then we like to acknowledge. That's a deep post.
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Yes, I like you two and your attitudes to life. I’m your bang average corporate, public service wallah, who spent 41 years and one week of his life providing an anchor at home, so that I could indulge a bit of betting and drinking for myself. Piss easy.

But I’ve always admired from afar, those that actually “Stick it to the man”.
 
As I read some of this, this morning some things don't quite sit right with me and bother me more than they should. As I'm far from as well educated as some of you I think I'm going to struggle to articulate my thoughts in a decent or coherent manner but I'll give it a go.

Ian's post is easy to romanticise someone refusing to bow to the will of others, living life on your own terms and ending up happy and content, two feelings that I've never truly known myself. I do think you have to be a certain kind of person to live that way, I've known a few in my time and the common ground with people like that as Ian quite happily admits to most of the time is as long as he's alright he's not too concerned with others. I think there is certainly a case that most people would struggle to live that way I also think that in life in general for people who aren't prepared to eat shit from time to time, to bend to the will of others and to compromise that there is certainly a price to be paid.

If the end goal of a man is to have a roof over his head and food in his belly not to conform with society then you're not too far removed from any inmate at HMP with exception of they get free gym, educational classes a pool table, and can get in to see a doctor and a dentist much easier than you can. For all of the people I've met who live life on their own terms one common denominator is they end up alone. It makes some sort of sense to me in the terms of people who can't compromise, who feel the need to constantly be right, and will feel a sense of pride that they'll win all arguments they encounter, it doesn't bode well for personal relationships. I mean in the name of being right no-one ever really stops to think about consequences of that. Do you really want to win every argument against your Mrs for example ? You win every argument and you end up with a Mrs who just loses all the time and who needs a partner who feels like she's just constantly been beat. The same can be said with friends if you win every time then you're surrounded by losers.

I work with plenty of guys who do a job they hate who live pretty miserable work lives and the common denominator for that is the fact they are always doing it for someone else. They don't put up with the boss because they couldn't put a roof over their own head and put food in their own bellies they do it because they have a wife and kids depending on them. They eat shit every day but I have nothing but the upmost respect for them.

I really don't know what the point is I'm trying to make. I suppose it's the fact that whilst I can respect and even envy sometimes the way that people like Slim and Ian can live life on their own terms and the fact they refuse to compromise I don't believe it doesn't come with a price. I also respect the people who gave up on their dreams and just did what they had to do in order to look after others but that also comes with a price. At a younger stage in my life I did whatever I wanted to do, I wanted to win every argument and bow to no-one and thought only of number one. The consequences of which I reflected on when I ended up alone laid too heavy on my mind to continue. Since then I've eaten a lot of shit and did a lot of things I didn't want to do to look after a hell of a lot of people and for the most part I feel better about it or at least i have a smidgen of self respect when I look in the mirror. Yet whilst I'm surrounded by people who speak well of me and I'm sure they appreciate what I've done for them there is still a part of me that wonders as a man who has tried to give everything to those around him whether their loyalties will stop at around the same time as the benefits end. As my body starts to deteriorate from the years of hard graft, as I slip slowly back into a world of addiction and see the reflection of my soul in the bottom of every bottle I drink I know I don't have much more to give. Surrounded by people but still feeling alone perhaps I'm no better off for my efforts.
 
Brilliant, Danny - thank you.

Ultimately, as much as we admire the likes of Slim and Ian, we know they have - with very few exceptions - total contempt for their fellow man. But they are happy with that position, and can manage on their own, thank you very much.

The rest of us take a different path, “sticking it to the man” in minor ways; small victories that we are content with. But for the most part, we want to be liked - we make friends - and want to be wanted. It’s a great feeling, doing stuff for other people. Virtue does indeed have its own reward.

Different folk, different strokes. We are a great mix on this site. And this is deep shit we are discussing!
 
And we can quite happily trot out stories of happiness and contentment when it is anything but. The internet is a funny place where people can hide behind the real them. I know several people who are brash and confident online but in real life are anything but.
 
Slim said:
No where on this forum have I ever said I've cracked life. That's people's perception of me. I endure the same pressures and dillemas as everyone else.
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I was reading some of the recent posts and thinking: "Romanticised? Are you having a laugh? I can't speak for Slim, but he has NEVER romanticised his life - far from it, he's talked about legion life issues and even said pro punters are the lowest of the low as they pay no tax and make zero contribution to society."

I've already said - first line ffs - I'd have more money in the bank today if I hadn't lived life on my own terms, so I think it's blindingly obvious I know there's a price to pay.

The reality is very few people really know each other on this forum - yes, that's partly because we can portray any persona we like, but it's also because some people (who are none too bright, frankly) think they "know" others based on a handful of brief encounters on racecourses, or wherever, at some point.

They don't really know me and I don't really know them - the difference is I have the smarts they lack to know I don't know them (and I'm very glad about it tbh).

At some point in our lives both Slim and I might have put close family or friends ahead of ourselves - we may not choose to talk about it (not everyone wears their every life issue like an attention-grabbing public badge of glory), but then we are not obliged to but it doesn't mean there isn't more - there's always more, often a lot more, with people than what they choose to portray.

It's not Slim's fault or mine if others erroneously romanticise about things we've said or written.

Romanticised?

Stroll on.

Think you know every aspect of everyone you read here, even if you might once have met them?

Stroll ever further on.

Cracking thread, though - much more interesting than JP McManus, frankly.
 
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Don't think that's what i was suggesting. All i was saying was that what ever proportion of your life you've lived as a professional gambler its not exactly conforming to a normal 9-5 and with credit to you that takes some balls. I never suggested your life was easy far from it and what i actually said was doing that most certainly comes with a price.

Was in reply to Slim hadn't seen Ians post.
 

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