"it's going, it's going! honk honk!"
a former steeplejack, he ended up making more money from demolishing chimneys than repairing them, and his method is sight to behold
- step 1: cut a hole in the base of the chimney
- step 2: brace the hole with wooden supports
- step 3: cover the base of the chimney with firewood, used tyres, anything that burns
- step 4: start a fire
- step 5: hang around the base of the chimney, waiting for it to topple, using a plumb line suspended from the top to see when it starts to move
- step 6: casually walking away as hundreds of bricks smash into the ground behind him
i think my favourite part of this is where he'd go around checking the wooden supports were tight enough, by smacking them with a hammer and listening to the noise they made
sure enough, he got popular in the uk for being a one man time machine, a nostalgic look at the working class, and his absolute love of steam engines, but for me it's the "ah, it'll be fine" school of demolition
