Fresh air, banter with the lads, brick dust under my nails. Now that's what I call job satisfaction ... but then I had the terrible realisation that they’d mistaken me for Michael Barrymore

If I told you I had a lovely time with three builders on a building site in Margate this week, you’d probably imagine something sordid was afoot. But you’d be wrong. I was accompanied by a camera crew and I was working. The current vogue among TV commissioning types, you see, is to request a “taster tape” for a programme idea. This, as you may have guessed, is a five-minute illustration of what the real thing might deliver. The televisual equivalent of a wine-tasting.

I won’t tell you exactly what my gripping idea is, in case one of the 600 other gay television presenters currently fighting for work reads this and steals it. But, suffice to say, I wasn’t there to make the tea or try out some limp jokes about erections. I genuinely wanted to learn about how to build a house.

My flip-flops were deemed unsuitable, so I put on proper boots, a high-visibility top and a fluorescent yellow hard hat – let’s face it, Margate isn’t the place for glamour wear, whether you’re on a building site or not. The three, charming workers I blended in with each had nicknames: Ginger, The Bastard and Super Sperm.

First, they showed me how to operate a digger machine. Turns out I have quite an aptitude for it. I dug a perfect three-foot-deep hole much admired by those in the trade. Ginger said my hand-eye co-ordination was very good. Next, I mastered the concrete mixer, loaded 12 wheelbarrows with wet cement and filled the hole in again (I confess that Super Sperm helped a little towards the end when I got tired). This is the basis on which the foundations can be built, apparently. I had no idea.It was deeply satisfying; I got sweaty and messy, but I just didn’t care. A whole new world opened up to me. I had thought that writing books was a more solid, longer-lasting form of creativity than standing on stage and telling jokes. You can hold a book in your hands, and people can read your words any time, any place, even after you’re dead and gone. But to build a house! That is something far more important. People live and die, laugh and cry inside your creation. It must be the ultimate thrill – one I hope I haven’t left too late to experience.

I had terrible backache the next day, but when I think of my big, butch hole filled with chunky concrete I mixed myself, it seems to be a far more worthwhile suffering than the twinges I get in my shoulders after being hunched over the computer all day. Fresh air, cheery banter with the lads, brick dust under my nails. Now that’s what I call job satisfaction.

Since then, of course, my interest in building sites has been a lot more intense than it was previously. I stop and peer inside concrete mixers to see if the men have got the consistency right. Has the hole been dug neatly and deep enough? Are footwear and headgear regulations being adhered to? I forget that I’m a renowned homosexual whose perusal of builders at work might be misinterpreted.

I emerged from a visit to my dentist in Devonshire Place yesterday and found myself loitering by a group of shirtless men busy digging a hole in the road that I wasn’t at all happy with.

“Awright?” one them asked.

“Not really,” I replied. “The sides could be straighter, and aren’t we forgetting our protective goggles?”

I realised this was a mistake the moment the words left my mouth. I’m suffering from hole envy, and we can only hope it will soon pass. I bid the gentlemen good day and minced on my way.

For some reason they kept shouting, “Awright? Awright? AWRIGHT?” until I was out of earshot. It was only later, when I got home, that I had the terrible realisation that they’d mistaken me for Michael Barrymore. Goodness knows whom they’d have thought I was if they’d put their goggles on. Larry Grayson, I shouldn’t wonder.

I’ve gone off the idea of being a builder now.

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website