PWC UK Limited

Pensioner who destroyed 19th century religious artwork insists she had permission to restore painting… and she isn’t finished

PWC UK Ltd — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:31:38 +0000

A pensioner who destroyed a 19th century work of art in a DIY restoration job today insisted she had been given the go-ahead by a priest.. and that she is not finished yet.

Cecilia Gimenez, 81, was vilified after ruining a 120-year-old fresco of Christ by covering it with a thick layer of paint, but insisted: ‘I had the best of intentions.’

The image of Christ wearing a crown of thorns, displayed at a church near the city of Zaragoza, was described as resembling a monkey after Cecilia’s bid to restore it.

But the volunteer church worker insisted she had permission to carry out repairs on the Elias Garcia Martinez artwork Ecce Homo (Behold The Man).

Friends said she is suffering panic attacks and has been unable to leave her home, just yards from the church, after finding herself at the centre of a media storm.

She told Spanish TV: ‘We have always repaired everything ourselves here. The priest knew about it. Of course he did.

‘How could I do something like that without permission? I did not do it in secret. Anybody who entered the church was able to see me painting.

‘I had nothing but good intentions and always believed I was doing the right thing. Besides, I hadn’t finished the painting!’

Ms Gimenez, who had been accused of carrying out the work without permission, used oil paint and a brush to ‘restore’ the fresco.

Juan Maria Ojeda, local councillor for culture, described the restoration job on the artwork in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church in the small town of Borja as ‘unspeakable’.

Building headache over staff levels

PWC UK Ltd — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 18:37:49 +0000

Plans to allow community groups to buy public buildings is causing a headache for Moray Council.

The scheme set up to save money by cutting the cost of building maintenance has become a strain on staff and services, according to a new report.

The paper published today reveals the council failed to assess the staffing and resources required when the strategy was drawn up last year.

More staff are needed to deal with the caseload of 17 community groups who have launched ambitious take-over bids for buildings in their towns and villages.

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Banksy gets into the Olympic spirit by painting mural of javelin thrower armed with missile

PWC UK Ltd — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 22:34:04 +0000

Banksy paints two Olympic themed stencils on walls in unknown locations
Anonymous painter joins a number of other street artists in putting their take on the Olympics across the UK
Australian James Cochran paints colourful mural of sprint champion Usain Bolt on east London wall
Local councils across London inconsistent on their policy on the Games graffiti

As the Olympics draws ever closer, world-renowned Banksy headlines a long list of graffiti artists who have painted the streets of the capital all the colours of the rainbow – some to celebrate the Games, and some to pour scorn on them.

Walls and shutters across the host city have been sprayed with a colourful variety of street art and graffiti, from satirical takes on Ronald McDonald to celebrations of sprinter and world record holder Usain Bolt.

On Monday, the notorious Banksy added to the collection by putting up two new pieces for his fans to take a look at – if they can find them.

Shard window cleaner safe after incident

PWC UK Ltd — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 23:23:46 +0000

Emergency services were sent to the Shard today – days before its official opening – after a window cleaner got stuck in a precarious position on the 72nd floor.

Ten firefighters attended the scene in central London this afternoon after reports of the cleaner’s cradle on the outside of the building becoming unsafe.

A video posted on YouTube appeared to show the cradle swinging in the wind at the top of the tower, which has 78 occupiable levels.

On-site engineers fixed the problem. An ambulance was on standby at the bottom of the 309.6 metre (1,015ft) high building but the window cleaner was not thought to be injured.

London Fire Brigade, which sent a fire engine and fire rescue unit to the Shard, said in a message on Twitter: “On site engineers at the £Shard have made the window cleaner’s cradle safe & we can all now breathe a sigh of relief.”

The Shard, which is the tallest building in Western Europe and has 31.4 acres of space, will be officially opened by Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabor Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, and the Duke of York on Thursday.

Witness Neil Walsh was waiting for a train at nearby London Bridge station when he saw the drama unfold.

The 30-year-old marketing executive from Dartford, Kent, who filmed the incident on his phone, said: “I go through there every day and always have a gawp up at the Shard to see what’s happening.

“I happened to notice that the window cleaning box was swinging wildly. It was quite erratic, which is what drew my attention to it.

“It was dangling from quite a thin arm and was a few feet away from the building itself, rocking left, right, up and down. It was swinging all over the place. The last few days have been windy and it must have been worse up there.

“I filmed it thinking the box was empty. That was a worry in itself, without me realising there was someone inside, probably cowering in a corner and hanging on for dear life.”

A spokesman for the Shard said: “The wind got up a bit more than we were anticipating and the window cleaner was brought down to ground level. He wasn’t hurt.

read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/shard-window-cleaner-safe-after-incident-7904205.html

Falling unemployment helps the Government – but rising self-employment shows that it’s not worth boasting about

PWC UK Ltd — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 19:46:30 +0000

We are, as everyone must know by now, in a double-dip recession. The amount of stuff that the country is producing is less than it was. So the latest unemployment statistics are a bit of a puzzle. You can see the ONS’s release here: full-time employment is up by 82,000, part-time employment is up by 83,000 and overall, unemployment is down by 0.2 percentage points, or 51,000. Public sector employment is down 39,000 and private sector employment is up 205,000. (On the other hand, the claimant count – the number of people on the dole – has increased).

So more people are working, and yet we are producing less stuff: that’s a bit weird, though not new to the British economy. The great puzzle of the last four years has been explaining why, despite the recession being far worse for GDP than many previous ones, unemployment did not shoot up in the way that it did in say, the 1980s. Its peak, in November, of 8.3 per cent, was still far lower than the peak in 1993 at 10.4 per cent, let alone the 11.5 per cent-ish the country endured throughout the mid 1980s. So this time around, productivity – the amount that each worker produces – must be falling in a way that is very strange.

http://www.pwc.uk.com/services/window_cleaning.html

Window cleaning curbed after deaths

PWC UK Ltd — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 09:37:47 +0000

Singapore has tightened rules on window cleaning after nine maids fell to their deaths this year from high-rise apartments.

The Manpower Ministry said in a statement that maids are no longer allowed to clean the outside of windows unless they are supervised.

The ministry said seven of this year’s nine maid deaths were due to dangerous window cleaning or hanging of laundry.

Local media have featured dramatic front-page photos of a 29-year-old Indonesian maid as she fell from her employer’s 12th floor apartment window on Sunday, but was grabbed and rescued by neighbours one floor below.

The nine maids who fell to their deaths were from Indonesia, which supplies about half of Singapore’s 200,000 maids.

http://www.pwc.uk.com/services/window_cleaning.html

Employer fined after electrician injures back in fall

PWC UK Ltd — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:41:01 +0000

An apprentice electrician sustained serious back injuries after falling through a ceiling while working in the loft space of a Swindon youth centre.
Richard O’Connor’s employer Roberts and Prowse (Swindon) failed to carry out a specific risk assessment for the work, and failed to ensure adequate measures were put in place to reduce the risk of a fall.
The m&e contractor appeared before Swindon Magistrates in a prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
The court heard that Mr O’Connor, from Nythe, was 18 years old at the time of the incident on 3 February 2010. He was undertaking electrical installation work at The Platform Youth Centre, on Farringdon Road, when he stumbled from a narrow timber walkway and fell onto an exposed plasterboard ceiling that gave way under his weight.
He managed to grab hold of a timber joist, but after a few seconds this also gave way and he fell five-and-a-half metres onto the floor below.
The apprentice sustained three fractures to his vertebrae as well as cuts and bruising. His injuries meant he was unable to work for two months.
Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Damien Milbourne, said: “Richard sustained serious injuries in the fall, but he could easily have been killed as a result of his employer’s negligence.

Removing the zero VAT rating for listed buildings will be devastating

PWC UK Ltd — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:38:39 +0000

Under the new proposals, approved alterations to listed buildings would be subject to VAT at the standard rate.

The Budget 2012 didn’t hold many big surprises, but still managed to pack in a few nasty shocks. One of these was the announcement that the government would be removing the zero rating for VAT on approved alterations to listed buildings.

Under the new proposals, the VAT treatment of alterations to listed buildings would be brought in line with that of repairs and improvements; currently subject to VAT at the standard rate. This would apply to all listed buildings, including private residential houses, those used by charities and places of worship.

The government did offer one sweetener – the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s Listed Places of Worship (LPW) grant scheme, which allows churches and other places of worship to reclaim VAT on repairs and maintenance, would be extended to cover alterations and bumped up by an additional £5m.

Putting the LPW grant scheme aside, the move will have a devastating impact on churches and other charities with listed buildings. The Church of England spends around £100m a year on all manner of alterations, such as installing meeting rooms, kitchens or disabled facilities. Based on this figure, we are projecting additional costs of up to £20m a year. Making £200,000 of necessary changes to aid disabled access, for example, would cost an additional £40,000 in VAT. The upkeep of churches is funded predominantly through voluntary giving – there is no central fund for building maintenance, so raising that extra £40,000 will fall largely on church congregations. To make matters worse, the wealthier donors who might have helped fund the shortfall will have less capacity to give, thanks to the capping of higher rate tax relief on charitable donations.

Indonesia seeks to ban on window cleaning after 8 maids fall to death

PWC UK Ltd — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:33:03 +0000

Eight Indonesian maids have fallen to their deaths from high-rise apartments in Singapore this year, and the Indonesia Embassy said Tuesday it is pushing for a ban on cleaning outside windows.

Indonesia, which supplies about half of Singapore’s 200,000 maids, has asked employment agencies to include a clause in work contracts that prohibits maids from cleaning the outside of windows or hanging laundry from high-rise apartments, Indonesian Embassy Counsellor Sukmo Yuwono told the Associated Press.

“It’s upsetting. These are human beings dying for nothing,” Yuwono said.

Singapore is under pressure to improve the working conditions of foreign maids, who live full-time in one in five households in the city-state of 5.2 million people. In March, the government pledged to mandate at least one day off a week for maids starting next year.

Last week, a court fined an employer 5,000 Singapore dollars ($4,000) and barred her from hiring domestic workers in the future after a maid fell and died from her fifth-floor apartment last year while cleaning windows standing on a stool.

Sky high in Shanghai: Fearless window cleaners at work outside the 101st floor of the world’s fourth-tallest building

PWC UK Ltd — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:12:37 +0000

The wacky workplace slogan of a thousand coffee mugs has never been more true: You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.

Outside the 101st floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center in China, window cleaners are shown preparing for their shift.

More than 30 workers on the window-cleaning team of the supertall skyscraper work in pairs every day.

They have to obtain a licence for high-rise operations and must not have high blood pressure or, naturally, suffer a fear of heights.

They are not allowed items which could fall, such as mobile phones or wristwatches, and must stop working in heavy winds.

The centre is the fourth-tallest building in the world, standing at 1,614ft.

It opened in 2008 and houses the highest observation deck on Earth, while the Park Hyatt Shanghai, occupying the 79th to 93rd floors, is the world’s second-highest hotel.