Sticklers for detail are thick on the ground this week: billionaire property owners insisting their wires are not crossed, the company that won’t be called a contractor and a ferocious fight for a full stop
Hyde and seek
Good news for all those billionaires snapping up apartments in London’s best-known über-luxury development, One Hyde Park, in Knightsbridge. As well as the former-SAS security guards, the fur fridges and the 360º time-delay mirrors, residents can rest assured that even beneath the plasterwork, their abode is nothing short of perfect. One M&E contractor working on the scheme said they had never seen such attention to detail - which made working on the project something of a nightmare. Apparently, every wire is checked by a spirit level, and if it is not perfectly vertical it has to be redone before being plastered over. For the Candys, beauty is more than skin deep.
Better out than in
Aecom’s UK boss, Bill Hanway, once began an interview with this magazine sitting in his office, listening to jazz. Alas, it seems Hanway may have been getting a little too cosy in there of late. I am reliably told he has received a missive from on high to show his face more often around the business - bad news for a man who likes to hole up in his glass-walled retreat listening to the smooth sounds of New Orleans Dixieland. With an ever-growing workforce, there will be more people to please more of the time now. Come on, Bill, they don’t bite.
Put a stop to it
What’s in a logo? Quite a lot, it seems, especially if you’re Nick Shepherd, managing partner of Drivers Jonas Deloitte. When Drivers’ acquisition by Deloitte was first mooted, the assumption was that the new company would be called “Deloitte Drivers Jonas”. But Deloitte’s marketing department was so obsessed with keeping its trademark green full stop after Deloitte that it simply had to stick it on the end; hence, we have Drivers Jonas Deloitte. Apparently, the negotiations over the pesky punctuation took as long as the integration talks themselves.
Loyalty for hire
It is clear that Peter Hendy, boss of Transport for London, is a keen user of mayor Boris’ new bike hire scheme. It would be unfair to say the
57-year-old Transport for London commissioner doesn’t look like the core target market for the bike rental project, but he is maybe stretching the demographic. Nevertheless, Hendy seems anxious to prove his loyalty to the scheme. He told fellow panellists at a transport fringe event at the Labour conference that he is keeping his proof of journey receipts to be able to demonstrate his dedication to Boris’ flagship policy.
Keep it clean
Carillion’s fight to remain known for support services this week caused much eye rolling among the contracting community. The company originally switched from a “construction” to a support services classification two years ago, which attributes more value to its shares and presumably some sort of kudos for being known as a company that doesn’t get its hands dirty. This week it successfully fought to retain the tag. So sniffy is Carillion about being called a “contractor”, I gather, it is reluctant to talk to the construction correspondent on one esteemed national newspaper. Gosh, I hope I am still worthy.
The lone Ranger
Kulveer Ranger, the transport adviser to the mayor of London, braved the Labour party conference for the second year running this week, despite being Boris Johnson’s
right-hand man. Labour shadow transport minister Sadiq Khan teased him: “It’s again a pleasure to see Kulveer here at the Labour conference. I’d thought maybe he’d taken away some knowledge and wisdom from last year, but alas it didn’t happen.” But Khan cut him some slack: “I appreciate that here at the conference I do the easy questions and Kulveer does the hard ones.” Transport for London’s world-weary boss, Peter Hendy, mulled this over for a second. “And I do travel information,” he said, deadpan. It’s good to have the roles defined.
Send any juicy industry gossip to hansom@ubm.com
No comments yet