Whether it’s putting up scaffolding or playing with Lego, I have no manual skills whatsoeverThere are jobs that use the head, those that need a heart and those for which you have to use your hands. The trouble is that you will normally be far more amply rewarded for one than for the other two put together. Jobs using your head will usually bring home more bacon than those using your heart or hands. The relative pay packets of most people working with their hands must have been shrinking since the iron age.Apart, possibly, from cooking, I’m not blessed with “hand” skills. I was crap at Lego and never moved on from that. I tell a lie. I had a go at being a scaffolder when I left school, and was hopeless at that, too, which could have had far graver consequences for myself and others than playing Lego. So, I’m not blowing my own trumpet when I say it’s a crying shame that most jobs using hands don’t pay more. It seems so unfair. I looked on, slack-jawed in admiration, the other day as a plumber took apart my oil-fired boiler, reassembled it and, lo, there was heat. It’s the same with sparks, chippies and builders of all shapes and sizes. I observe them at work knowing you could leave me with the same materials and the best tools until the end of time, and I would contrive to create nothing of any use or value. Continue reading…
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