Well, well, well.

I've already introduced myself on Bullamanka - about 3 years ago - but the announcement was received with all the effervescence of a lead balloon. We're a pretty demonstrative group that way. But for those few Few? who omitted to archive my auto-introduction:  I'm an architect in private practice in Devonport, Auckland - one of earth's favoured places. So I hear.  No doubt you know my dear personal friend Phillip "The Kiwi" James and his wife Susie, from whom I bought binoculars on ebay I was converted to preservation around 1988 Good move!, fortuitously encouraged by a visit from the remarkable Henry Chambers.  Who's dat? My company has managed to make a respectable living Making a respectable living, you say? We'll be on the next flight. The pasty-faced group wearing socks with our sandals and carrying sketch pads along with the incontinence pads will be us. from this stuff since then, and the place of heritage and the business of its conservation have become dangerously mainstream in the past 4 or 5 years.  As long as you're an old timer, and your heart's in the right place, and you're making a living at it, and you've got room for guests-- lots of guests.......

 

I've cast myself on the collective bosom And a firm bosom it is! again in the hope that it remains more active - if less technically specific - than Preservation_L, which seems to have enjoyed a post mortem spasm in the past 24 hours.  The hell with them, dead or alive, spasmating or not. However, if they should decide they need an experienced Humor Czar of their own, I might be enticed into taking on the responsibility of collecting their dues, too. The fact is, although I'm desperately and unrepentantly foreign, I have always rather enjoyed my conversations with North American colleagues Then you must be a fart smeller, too!, and these discussions tide me over between APT meetings (I've been to 4 in the past ten years). I've been to one (or maybe two) in the past 27; I'm not sure whose record is better.

 

So forgive me if I listen in to savour the flavour of the discussions (you'll note I can't spell either Maybe you could get a job writing stories about storeys at the Old House Journal, ya goddam u-inserting wog), and if you don't mind, I'll just lurk away quietly for a while. As long as you promise to interject frequent stupid and/or insulting comments (and they're not directed at me), we'll give you a try. If you need to know more - my waist size etc There are some things gentlepersons --especially blubberbutts of a certain age, like me-- don't discuss.  In public or in private.  However, if you'd like to send us your bank account information, we have several Nigerian friends with whom you might find it rewarding to correspond. - just let me know.  You stand there by the computer, just as I stand out by the mailbox waiting for Pinhead dues to arrive.