Bob's back.....worse luck.....

The builders are back, which is a massive pain in my bottom. And if you cast your mind back to May you will know that I don't particularly welcome this reappearance of Bob and all his builder chums. They aren't working next door, although that did go on for bloody months, honestly it must like a palace in there now. No, they have set up camp somewhere closer to my heart, somewhere were it hurts me more, that's right in the bosom of my restaurant.

I hate you Bob

I hate all your friends too...

For the love of Gordon Ramsay's Mother is nothing sacred?! You take a week off to relax and recuperate and wander aimlessly round the boulevards of Paris and come back to dust sheets, painters, hammerers, bodgers, standing abouters, and general chaos. The first time I realised something was afoot was when I spotted the large bottle of Pepsi Max and box of Jaffa Cakes perched on table 26 beside some sparkly polished glasses and cutlery. We don't do Jaffa Cakes and large bottles of Pepsi freaking Max. Obviously.

"Who the fuck left this shit?", I shouted out at no one in particular.

"'Er mine mate", came a voice from the wilderness. And as I lifted my head up to find the unknown voice the full splendor and magnitude of the work revealed itself to me. I spotted the Jaffa Cakes but not the pink walls. What does that say about me?

"The walls? They...they...sweet baby jesus in the manger....they're pink!" I stood there aghast at the horror of it all.

"Nah mate...", says yer man "...they're wine nat pink."

"Ohh They're wine nat pink...", replies I in a huffy mocking way. "That's pink, sweet mother of ....that's pink!"

"Anestly it's wine, your just nat looking at it right", continues Leonardo.

"How the hell am I meant to look at it? It's wine alright, rose bloody wine." Restaurant walls shouldn't come with viewing instructions, it's not meant to be a seeing eye poster. Oh look I can see Yoda!

It's true the restaurant needed brightened up but this was ridiculous. As I ventured round the restaurant, avoiding tins of paint, broken glasses, more Jaffa Cakes and men not doing anything I discovered that the "pink" walls were only in one section, my section. Or what used to be my section, I think there may be a reevaluation of who does what over the next week. Don't get me wrong it's not a macho thing, it's just way too bright for my liking. I feel I should be offering people shoes not fillet steaks.

The varied collection of builders, plasterers, hammerers, bodgers, sawers, and assorted assistants/tea boys were all supposed to be done by 4.30. It was now 4.20 and not a child in the house had been washed and not a fucking tool put away. I was stressed. Don't they know I'm off the smokes and as a consequence as tense as a bag of rottweilers in a nursery. It wouldn't have taken much to push me over the edge and into a frenzy of swearing and quite probably foot stamping too.

"Aye......", says the lead bodgerer "...we'll have you open for five son, never worry". There was nothing in the way he said it that had me convinced. Shit if he had been wearing a black and white coat you would have thought he was a cow meandering through a grassy meadow on a summers day such was his relaxed attitude. Cunty balls. Honestly it was like setting up a restaurant in a lumber yard. Whatever one of those is, someone else said it.

What I needed was a montage, a clearing up and putting stuff away montage. But real life doesn't offer such a thing. Worse luck. So I tried to help. But I was as useful as Yoda is tall. I have a simple policy when it comes to binning things, if if looks shit, talks like shit, smells like shit then it probably is shit so I bin it. But it appears that one mans shit is another mans double cut bevelled u- bend hammer saw or something like that. I was like one of those kids you see helping their dad in the garage with a brush and shovel play set. I finally got fucked off with it all when I was moving chairs one at a time from one side of the restaurant to the other only to be passed by one Jim Lad carrying three at a time. So I left them to it and went for a smoke pear. A lovely juicy pear.

And then, just like one of those make over programmes, the bodgerers and bluffers and painters etc all disappeared and I was left standing, alone, in a half painted half built restaurant. With many many Mods (I hate Mods by the way, I think it's the ghastly hair and silly jackets that annoy me so much) booked for dinner the race was on to make the place presentable. We got it done, but only just. It's at times like that when I would normally turn to the silky satisfaction of a hand rolled cigarette. But not any more, now it's pears. So disappointing.

I have a full restaurant booked for Friday night. They had better have it all completed by then. There are only so many pears I can eat before I go proper mental.