Gordon Brown: A splintery plank, but what kind?

Any old wood can look good with varnish or even a veneer. Simple plywood, if treated with care, stained and polished can look quite respectable. The Dad of an old friend of mine can coax it to look like mahogany as long as you do not get up close.

How does Gordon fit into the Thornill Wood Scale?

The TWS has five basic catagories:

1. Hardwood: Solid, robust but rigid and hard, so awkward to work with.
2. Softwood: Usually pretty solid but often soft. Easier to work with and more flexible. Bit knotty.
   
3. Plywood: Not often from quality sources, but is stronger and stiffer than it first looks, if sometimes frayed about the edges. Can be polished and varnished to look almost as good as a Hardwood and if treated well can comfortably take all weathers.
   
4. MDF: Nasty, ugly, thick and inflexible. Can be toxic when working with it due to it being made up of a collection of rejected ideologies stuck together. Chippy with it.
   
5. Chipboard: Old, soft, rougher version of MDF. Suitable for walking over. Soaks up liquids easily but then rapidly disintegrates. Best not seen outdoors.
   

You might be surprised, but I find Gordon a Hardwood. Bit splintery, mind, and not cut out to the right shape for my liking, but hardwood, nonetheless.

Cameron is still in the softwood rating AFAICT. Anyone who says Kennedy is chipboard is not speaking on my behalf. Farage appears to be Plywood at the moment. Blears, Reid, Hewitt, Hodge MDF'ers all.