The Foreman

I don't know what it is about construction and hard rock at the moment - last week I gave you news on a Kier contracts manager being part of the 'original Iron Maiden', this week I learn that Capita Bobrowski has helped to build a 'Runaway Train" for the stage set of ACDC's 'Black Ice' World Tour (pictured). Reports that one or two of the UK's rail contractors bid for the work on the basis that they had plent of experience creating runaway trains are entirely unfounded. Arf.

An amusing story from my man on the inside at Makers Freyssinet this week, who wrote in to tell me about the good samaritan efforts of a colleague of his.

Makers Freyssinet is apparently working on the refurbishment of the 'Jubilee Bridge' at the small town of Inverbervie in north east Scotland. And because it's so remote, the workforce are lodging locally in the local hotels and B&Bs.

Anyway, this led to one of the workers having a chat with a local dignitary and offering to paint the town's statue of a relation of Robert Burns at the south end of the bridge. The townspeople gratefully accepted and our man became something of a local hero.

By coincidence a TV crew turned up in the town while the workers were still there, making a documentary about Burns. And so the worker got interviewed for the show.

Sadly though, the interview took rather more than one take, because one particularly impressed (and inebriated) local kept coming up to the worker and interrupting the interview to get his autograph. Still, it's nice to be appreciated!

I was just reading a local paper the other day when I happened across a story about a man who was up in court for smacking his colleague around the head with a block of concrete on a building site somewhere.

Yes I know, sounds like a lovely chap. I'll keep names and locations out of it, but there was one bit of detail that stuck in my mind - the judge, in his summing up said that the unfortunate man who was hit with the concrete was "rendered unconscious".

An innocent accidental pun, or an example of what passes for humour in our nation's courts? Only his Lordship knows for sure.

Fans of heavy metallers Iron Maiden are in for a shock - there was another band called Iron Maiden which pre-dates Bruce Dickinson's mob.

The original Iron Maiden was formed by Paul O'Neill, now a sub-contracts manager with Kier Construction, in 1970.

"We played heavy rock, and wanted a name like other bands of the time, such as Led Zeppelin," said Paul (pictured with band, centre). "Our bass player Derek Austin (left of picture) came up with Iron Maiden, and we all liked it."

With guitarist Ian Boulton Smith (right of picture) and Paul on drums and vocals, the band gained a sizeable following. At their peak, they headlined an outdoor concert in their hometown of Bolton before 6,000 fans.

However, tragedy struck in 1976 when Ian was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He died a year later, and the remaining members of the band decided to call it a day.

Paul took a job with Kier Construction, where he has been ever since.

But the band's name would live on after being taken by another heavy rock band from London - who would, of course, go on to terrorise ear-drums around the world.

So what were the original Iron Maiden like? Well, you can hear for yourselves. In 2005, Paul compiled four studio songs plus a bootleg recording on a charity CD, Maiden Flight  (pictured, with Paul as he looks today). It was released under the name 'The 1970-76 Bolton Iron Maiden' after legal advice from the existing Iron Maiden, who were otherwise highly supportive.

"They have been brilliant for us," says Paul. "They advertised the CD on the Iron Maiden website, and it had 57,000 hits the day it appeared. We've since sold 2,000 copies, the proceeds of which go to Cancer Research and MacMillan Nurses Cancer Care.

"In 2006 we did a reunion concert, for which Iron Maiden donated loads of t-shirts and memorabilia, and that raised £3,000."

The CD is available from The 1970-76 Bolton Iron Maiden website or for download at Itunes, with all proceeds going to charity. And the more serious fans of Iron Maiden can read an appreciation of Maiden Flight on this website. 

Encouragingly, construction was well represented at recent bash to celebrate Britain's Best Green Companies. Our intrepid leaders from a group of contractors and building material suppliers found themselves rubbing shoulders with the top brass from Tesco and PricewaterhouseCoopers at the makeshift garden party in Covent Garden. As with many awards nights, emotions were running high in anticipation of the results. Anyway our boys put in a blinder with Willmott Dixon and Skanska UK coming in a respectable third and fourth. Cause for celebration you may think? Not a chance. Skanska is apparently smarting from being pipped into bronze. Rumour has it that Skanska staff think their boss drives a greener car than Willmott's chief executive. It's a row that could run and run - rather like the Smart car Rick Willmott is said to be driving nowadays. Perhaps Skanska is just green with envy.

Here's something I thought I'd never say: a pork pie entrepreneur has bought the company that fabricated steel for, among other things, the Heron Tower and Landsdowne Road Stadium. John Gatenby, of Vale of Mowbray, gobbled up the company and its subsidiaries, all of which were in administration, last week. I don't want to sound like I'm missing the bigger picture or anything, but at first sight, I can't see an obvious reason why steel fabrication and a pork pie manufacturing are an obvious "fit", as executives are prone to saying. But then I suppose in these trying times, you've got to earn a crust any way you can.

Fancy a change in career? I might have just the thing for you. ACT-UK, which is basically a simulation centre for construction trainees who can't be trusted not to fall over the nearest digger on a real site, is hiring actors. Apparently they have to undergo "intensive training" before the opening of the centre in Coventry in September, when they will play construction professionals and members of the public. Presumably most of that "intensive training" is going to be needed to make sure the luvvies can make a decent fist of playing a bricklayer, site manager, and so on, without coming across like a total numpty. Now, I'm no Laurence Olivier, but wouldn't it be cheaper and easier just to hire one or two of the many thousands of construction workers currently unemployed to play themselves? I know most of them probably aren't budding thesps, but surely it can't be too much of a stretch...

Newly-crowned Brazil football champions Corinthians, now home of tubby, buck-toothed striker Ronaldo, decided to hire a scissor lift to 'raise' their title celebrations to a different level.

The ceremony certainly proved memorable - though not quite in the way the Sao Paolo team envisaged. Watch the video to see why...

I was absolutely shocked this week to read about a survey which found that Britain's construction workers are turning to booze to combat the mounting pressure of work.

Apparently we drink an average of 28 units a week.

As I said, I'm shocked - I thought it was much higher than that!

Anyone who's seen a rough-knuckled subby down the pub after a hard day's work, or tired and emotional company boss at a construction awards do, knows that 28 units is extremely conservative. I've seen people crawling across the Sahara with less of a thirst than most contractors.

In any case, 28 units isn't a bad thing. The government's own guidelines say that men shouldn't regularly exceed 3-4 units a day. Which means you can drink 28 a week and still consider yourself on the straight and narrow.

Now if builders drank an average of 28 units while they were actually on site, then I'd agree that you'd have a problem. There's nothing worse than a wobbly skyscraper...

It seems if you have a failed construction project in this country - and let's face it, there's a lot of them about - you call in the receivers and move on.

If you're lucky, you've got a bit stashed away, so you hide out in your big house in the country for a while, away from the angry creditors, until it all blows over. But in China it looks like they have a different way of doing things.

Last week Chen Fuchao threatened to throw himself off a bridge in Guanzhou, southern China, because he wanted to kill himself after losing £184,000 on a construction job that went South.

Police did their best to talk the man down and it looked like it might have worked, were it not for the fact that a passer-by went up to him, greeted him with a handshake, and pushed him off the edge.

Luckily Fuchao landed on an air cushion that had been placed below in the event that he jumped. Initially I thought the passer-by must have been a creditor but it turns out he was just fed up with the traffic jam Fuchao was causing.