YEAR OF THE HORSE

Joyous celebrations! 2026 is the Year of the Horse, a kind of Chinese Auld Nags Syne. 

Quick, speed dial the 'chinky'. Whoops! Forgot we can’t say that anymore. Scrub that last sentence, replace with – telephone the purveyor of Oriental world cuisine. I’ll have Singapore noodles, spare ribs with a side of sweet and sour chicken balls. Don’t spare the horses though, I’m starving!!

What sort of horsey year will 2026 turn out to be, I wonder? Let’s see what’s in my fortune cookie…

I can predict the future

Will it be a Red Rum sort of year? Yay or neigh? By some peculiar quirk of fate, this load of jockeys in charge of the country might actually smash the gangs, boost growth and lower our energy bills in an unprecedented grand national triple win much like our four-legged hero did back in the 70s. Don’t bet on any winnings from this ‘acca’ any time soon says the cookie.

Red Rum - three times Grand National winner

My second cookie predicts a Shergar scenario where our once mighty ‘island of strangers’ (he said it not me) mysteriously disappears, sunk by a tidal wave of protests, pollution and poverty. No-one ever did find out what happened to this infamous nag. By the same token, no-one is ever likely to pin-point exactly where it all went wrong for Britain.

Whatever happened to Shergar?

And a third cookie (munch, munch) reveals hot-to-trot fortunes may well turn out to be a Mr Ed. Muppet Miliband wakes in the shower one morning to find that all his crazy net zero schemes were just a bad dream. As he soaps his nether regions, he wonders if the pits have re-opened, Government coffers are flowing with revenue generated from North Sea fossil fuels or Britain’s motor industry is booming thanks to increased production of petrol cars. Hang on, was that all a dream?

Trust me - I'll bring down your energy bills

Bollocks! I’ve just dropped a sauce-smeared chicken ball onto the keyboard. This is what happens when you’re lunching and blogging on the hoof.

These fortune cookies are so scrummy though, I’m just going to have to continue chomping my way through the entire box until I’ve uncovered a fortuitous prediction featuring golden unicorns or a sure-fire winner in the 3.30 at Kempton Park.

Mmmm - bloody tasty!

Happy Year of the Horse to you all!

WOOD PANELS - KINKY BIT

If ever there was a need for something kinky to take our minds off this awful wet weather, our lack of medals in the winter Olympics or the continual scraping of the political barrel in a bid to oust Hanging-on-by-an-ear Keir then this is it.

Rally the DIY troops, unexpected sunshine forecast. There’s not a moment of timber cutting time to lose!

Wood panelling efforts are now directed to the corridor’s kinky bit which we’ve saved until last.

OMG - this looks difficult

Getting kinky

This kinky corner section is made up of 3 separate wall areas, none of them equal in size so any attempts to make things look symmetrical are well and truly out of the window. You can only do your best with what you’ve got to work with.

As before, beginning at the bottom then working up each section. Start by dry fitting the bottom horizontal rail, cutting out individual pieces to accommodate electric sockets or other sticking out items.

Begin at the bottom

To get everything to flow neatly round the kinks, the other half has created a mitred edge on one end of each long horizontal piece. I hope to disguise these unsightly joins with a ton of decorator’s caulk.

Sort of mitred joints to get round the corner

Add your vertical side pieces to each of the larger sections followed by mitred top pieces to create two big squares. In a photo both squares look almost the same size but there is about a 10 cm difference in the width of each one. I guess I could have fiddled with the width of the vertical pieces to try to get round this but as I want to keep everything looking the same then I’m just going to leave it as it is.

Create each side square section first

You might have noticed that I've not added vertical pieces to the smaller middle square. On the dry fit, I did put some in but it left a ridiculously tiny area in the middle which would have made the whole panel run look odd so executive decision taken to not use additional verticals on this bit.

Finish each square with pine mouldings

Finish the middle section with a horizontal rail then add pine frame mouldings to the inside edge of each square section. Looks better than I thought it would do and aside from the mitred MDF joins, not as complicated as I anticipated.

Top with pine bead

Top all three sections with thin pine bead and dado rail then caulk every gap to within an inch of its life.

Caulk every single gap

Add dado rail

Our kinky bit finished. It’s a miracle - not a tear shed or a voice raised this time. Must be this glorious sunshine or perhaps it’s the Valentines Day effect. Kiss, kiss. Hug, hug. Darling, pass me the glue gun. Yes, Honey Bun.

Kinky bit finished and ready for priming

WOOD PANELS - RAD WALL

Just how much more rain is going to fall? Having seen off not-so-dry January, it now looks like flood-alert February is going to continue to bring more of the same.

Quite frankly, I’m sick of getting soaked to the skin on the daily walk home from work and only wish that the British climate would hurry up and change for something a little more equatorial, less aquatic. At this rate, I’ll be swapping walking boots for an inflatable kayak as many roads round these parts have turned into urban reservoirs or been closed altogether.

Since gardening is temporarily off the agenda, attention has turned to the unfinished wood panelling project begun before Christmas. Yes, where was I on that one?

Ah, the long radiator wall. On the face of it, this looks fairly straight forward now the rad has been removed but now that I’ve had a closer look then perhaps not.

BEFORE - the rad wall

What I'm hoping for on this wall

For starters there’s the pipework, BT box and fibre optic broadband cable to factor in along the bottom rail. I’ve had to carefully plot the location of these on the lower pieces of MDF then cut out shaped sections to accommodate them. Do this first as you will not be able to dry fit anything until the lower sections can be neatly positioned.

Template and cut round any fixtures

Secondly, the wall is long. Over 3.5 metres long. Most timber or MDF sheets are sold in 2.4 metre lengths so to maintain the overall symmetry, the wall has been divided into two equal sections with all measurements being calculated from a central point for the longer horizontal pieces. Draw a line down the wall at this central point.

Once the shaped horizontal rails have been stuck in place at the bottom of the wall, position the first vertical panels at either end of the entire wall. I have used 5 verticals in total in the design of this section.

Using the middle line drawn down the wall, centre the third vertical panel across the line and stick in place.

Stick end and middle vertical pieces in place

Measure the available gap between the end panel and the central vertical panel. Divide in two to arrive at the mid-point then draw another line down the wall. Do the same on both sides. These pencil lines will mark the place at which the remaining two vertical panels are centred.

Voila – all vertical panels should be evenly spaced along the wall giving a nice symmetrical look to things.

Five evenly spaced vertical pieces

Finally, stick the two horizontal rails on top of the vertical panels taking care that these join together in the middle of the vertical piece.

Horizontal pieces joined across centre vertical

As before I have finished the panels with some pine moulding inserted into each square section, cut to form a neat frame with mitred corners.

Add pine mouldings to each square

Topping the entire section with a length of pine stripwood from B & Q:

Pine stripwood used to cap MDF

Then finished off with Cheshire Mouldings dado rail as it’s been almost impossible to find a rebated dado rail that would fit neatly on the top of the MDF horizontal pieces.

Dado moulding stuck on top of the stripwood

Lastly, lightly sand any bits sticking out of panel joins then use decorators caulk to fill any unsightly gaps.  Re-sand the caulked joints once dry.  Hurrah!  At last the rad wall is ready for priming.

TRUE FRIENDSHIP

Much is being made in the media of Lord Mandy’s and a whole host of other people’s friendship to defunct paedophile Jeffrey Epstein but instead of using this opportunity to be judgy or scandal-monger, why don’t we ask ourselves this - what is the meaning of true friendship?

Freddie Mercury had the right idea when he sang:

Friends will be friends
When you're through with life and all hope is lost
Hold out your hand 'cause friends will be friends
Right till the end

Miss you Freddie

Real friends will hold out a hand regardless of whether that recipient is Jeffrey Epstein or someone else. You don’t drop friends just because they’ve committed some transgression or other. I mean, who among us is perfect? And who are we to judge why it is that people choose to stand by their friends even when society has labelled that person a monster.

I’m not condoning the actions of either Epstein or Lord Mandy. They’ve done what they did for reasons best known to themselves but what I’m saying is that if you value yourself as a true friend to someone then surely that means sticking by them through thick or thin and not dropping them like a hot potato because an unpleasant side to their character has come to light that you didn’t know about or because the world at large is tarring everyone beknown to that individual with the same brush.

‘To err is human, to forgive divine’ as the proverb goes. You can’t profess to know all the inner workings of your friends. We can all make errors of judgement when it comes to assessing people’s characters because there’s no tick box form out there that is used to select friends. Generally, you gravitate to those who support, love or encourage you in your endeavours. And of course, sometimes you get it wrong.

But when you do, surely you can find it in your heart to forgive if you value their friendship both past, present and as Freddie said, right to the end.

True friends of Lord Mandy are not likely to berate him for his choice of non-fashionable undies paraded across the tabloids like After Eight mints handed round the dinner table following a gut busting supper. Instead, I hope they’ll try to understand what prompted him to buy such awful baggy white under-crackers and steer him to trendier choices going forward. Selling state secrets for cash though, that probably is unforgivable even if he is a friend.

Mandy Pants

Epstein died over 5 years ago yet still we’re obsessing over him. He did what he did. He ruined a lot of lives. The continual muck-raking is still ruining a lot of lives. Why must we keep digging through his crusty old laundry basket looking for even more musty old linen to air in public?  Hasn't enough damage been already done?

I hope that given time, all victims will find peace in their hearts and the inner strength to move on with their lives.