HOW WE DU IT : OUR BLOG

If you've got a throbbing head held in shaking hands, while a pink elephant persuades you to tell your partner: "Go fix the stupid tap yourself" when she demands you sort it, don't worry, everything is entirely normal. Normal, that is, for a man who enjoyed his New Year's Eve party the way most of us curiously haven't since we got hitched. Or certainly since the kids came along.

Now enough of our memories and your hangover. Get a strong coffee, your preferred painkiller and a quick shower, because you're about to join the green revolution! No not because you've been inspired by the recent Copenhagen Summit. Everyone knows there's beggar all you can do about global warming. Rather it's because 'going green' is the ultimate get out of jail free card for all her DIY demands. The PC brigade will leave you alone too, plus you might even save some cash too!

But first our penny's-worth on why 'Earth Summits' achieve little. Andrew Leech, director of the National Home Improvement Council said at Copenhagen 2009 that saving energy in the home is at the forefront of fighting climate change. "If we don't do it then we are in big trouble as far as the environment is concerned," he commented.

Now look back 18 years to the first such summit in Brazil. Our government's campaign slogan in 1992? 'Helping the Earth Begins at Home.' Boy, that one really hit home, didn't it?

And nor will it until there's an obvious, real and instant pay off for going green. Until then, most of us just want a quiet life. The remaining few will be too busy going to parties where pink elephants can be picked up to fit wind turbines on their patios. So here goes:

Instant benefit #1: Going green gives you a get out of jail free card next time you're nagged to do any home improvements (including leaky taps). What with all these Co2 emissions, ozone depletions and carbon footprints, you need to do some serious research on the subject before tackling a complex task like leaky taps. Better still, convince yourselves it would be best to get in the professionals (no hard sell, any decent home improvement company should suffice - the important thing is you just DU.IT…).

Instant benefit #2. You can actually save cash. No really, real cash right now. And you'll convince your beloved you're serious about this 'green' thing. Just start playing about with your thermostat. Inevitably you'll be asked what you're doing. Confidently reply: "Turning it down 1o deg., so saving us about 10% on our heating bills and reducing our carbon footprint." Adopt a distinctly adenoidal tone to add authenticity. She'll be well impressed!s

Benefit #3. The joy of battering her with science. This is as uplifting as when your team equalizes at a vital away match in the 89th minute, prompting the home fans to shut up and your lot to start singing: "It's all gone quiet over there," etc. etc. For example, mention that insulating an un-insulated loft will save £150 a year on average. Or, if you want to get really technical, explain that spending a couple of hundred quid on a new boiler, while paying for itself in the long run, will also pump out 1.7 tonnes less CO2 a year. 1.7 tonnes less! Of gas? Let's face it, thinking of any gas as weighing anything just goes against 'common sense', let alone 1.7 tonnes of the stuff.

Benefit #4. When fitting a new boiler most of us should really get in a Corgi registered engineer. In any case, it's a good idea to have your boiler regularly serviced and, once you've got a plumber in, getting him to fix a leaky tap would be so relatively inexpensive as to make no odds and domestic harmony is restored.

By now we hope your pink pachyderm has returned to your imagination and is tip-toeing around inside your head in fluffy slippers in an effort to keep your thumping headache to a minimum. If so all should be well, but check there aren't any elephant-sized holes in the skirting board just in case. If there are forget all the above - just call a zoo and builder immediately. If not, then be thankful for small mercies and let us wish you a Happy, and elephant free, New Year!

Mavis began this week full of joy and fear in equal measure as Friday's Xmas party drew near. She wasn't too old to strut he stuff to some 70s song sensations and besides, there was the ultimate in office interests just waiting to bloom: the Gemma & Jack love story.

Yet the cause of her joy was also that of her fear - Gemma's boyfriend Gary. By all accounts he was a right nasty piece of work who had counted more than his fair share of police cell bricks from the wrong side of freedom. And why, if Gemma truly cared for Jack, didn't she just get rid of him?

On the night of the party itself some, if not all, of these questions would be answered. The first came in the large and nasty form of Gary at the party. He stormed towards the couple. Jack bravely told his workmates to sit down as they stood up to help. Jack was half Gary's size but, as the brute raised a fist, a flurry of practised moves had Gary on the floor begging to be let go as Jack applied a painful arm lock as blood spouted from the bully's nose. Jack was clearly a practitioner of some kind of "Wing Ching Fooey" as Mavis called it.

So Jack was both a lover and a fighter. For that night at least Jack and Gemma (not to mention Mavis) could enjoy their growing affection. So a happy ending? Or just the beginning of more thrills for Mavis and her trolley? Time would surely tell….

DUing.IT: The story so far…

If you want the low-down on a company, forget espionage, nabbing the accounts and suchlike, the person who knows all the really juicy stuff is the Tea Lady! Ours is called Mavis and if you want know who is doing what - and to whom - she's the lady to sit down with, have a cuppa and gossip. You'll go away stunned at what goes on behind the doors of DU.IT, the London Handyman & Building Services company! And don't worry if you miss a posting or two as we'll keep you up to date on the goings on here at the Mavis Just DUing.IT page on the main DU.IT blog site. You can even have a chinwag direct by replying to Mavis's postings on Twitter.com (Duitbldg). So have tea, have fun, but above all have a gossip you naughty thing you!

Are those sleigh bells we hear through the gently falling snow? Is the fire ablaze at home, a nice fat goose in the larder and a tangerine-coloured PS3 250GB (custom made) in tiny Tim's stocking? No, it's Xmas and it often goes like this….

The weather's milder than in April, only wetter. According to Pete Pessimist (divorced three times) the only frostiness on December 25^th is found in the familial relationship. All that's needed now is an accident needing a trip to A&E. So you check out the Royal Society for the Protection of Accidents (ROSPA) for advice and what's the first sentence you see? CAN THE HOME EVER BE SAFE?

Whoa! I just want some Xmas safety tips, not my undies redecorating! With money tight you go to Money Watch, the online personal finance blog - so how come the fist item you read is on how 200,000 of us end up in A&E during Xmas thanks to DIY accidents? And as a festive tipple elicits a faint smile, Money Watch informs us 16% of DIY ends in £600 worth of damage, while according to insurers Allianz, many home and contents policies don't cover these claims!

At this point many would consider jumping off a bridge. But hold on Tiger, I think we can take all this depressing advice, turn it on its head and come out a winter winner!

Start by deciding what home improvement would most please your beloved. Then find someone reliable to do it. We say that not just because that's our business. First, those figures of DIY disasters are true, including the one about lack of insurance cover. Above all, as the great Noddy Holder said: "It's Christmaaaaaaaaas!" So the only tool you want to be holding is a bottle opener. This way your wife gets a nice surprise and crosses off an item of her list of things to nag you about and you have fun. Remember that?

Above all, don't do what a guy we know called 'John' did (names changed to protect the guilty.) 'John' hires a couple of tilers to retile the heart of any home, the kitchen. It just so happens his tilers were Jehovah's Witnesses and, as a result they don't celebrate Xmas. Why, they'd even tile your kitchen on Xmas day if you were dumb enough to ask them!

Only what John didn't ask is that the job be done well ahead of the big day. So come the night of the 24^th, the job wasn't done. And yes, 'John' was dumb enough to ask the tilers back on Xmas without a word to his family

They made a neat job of the tiles. If only the same could be said of the turkey and trimmings served a 2 o'clock… a.m. Suffice to say 'John' and wife have gone their separate ways.

Now as they say on Crimewatch, such disasters are very rare, so please don't have nightmares. And as even the ROSPA advice sheet writes, have fun. So from all of us at DU.IT, we wish you a very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year - cheers!