"What do you charge an hour for this job?' said the Polish joiner who had been detailed to help me lift a huge piece of slate, the plumber and the tiler had more limited English comprehension.
It was a question that I had been anticipating for a while, now that East has comprehensively met West as far as building work goes.
Although at an ideological level the Cold War may be over there are still secrets that have to be closely guarded.
First I tried a straight deflection, "I told Geoff I'd swop the slate for a bigger one for nothing."
"No, this job here" he said motioning to the stove and chimney.
"Well I don't have an hourly rate, I just give them a price for the whole thing, materials as well"
"So how much would this job be then?"
"Well....it's about a thousand" I said trying to round everything down to something that sounded vague and not worth any further elucidation...
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