Building’s supersleuth uncovers the truth behind celebrity interviews, appeals for help in identifying a missing person, tails the RICS/QS row and meets a double murderer
There is such a thing as a free lunch
When Building met the journalist Toby Young for lunch last week we talked about his plan to set up a free school (see page 34 for the full interview). And of course we had to ask about his notorious stint in New York working for Vanity Fair, which inspired his book How To Lose Friends and Alienate People. On asking him how the magazine produces its flamboyantly written features, we were disappointed to learn that the common practice, as far as Young could tell, was for well known writers to toss the recording of interviews to junior staff who were expected to whip it into sparkling copy.
One can imagine this was so the big-name journos could have more time for free lunches - something Young is clearly used to as he raced out of the restaurant before the bill appeared, shouting over his shoulder: “You can expense this one, can’t you?”
Man of mystery
We were sent a picture of a highly inventive use for the bucket of a digger last week by a health and safety manager who claimed to have been sent it anonymously. There was nothing unusual in the bucket itself, rather it was what it contained: a large amount of water and semi-immersed in it, a naked man, lathering himself up with soap.
Even more inventively, the bucket was hovering above a roaring, timber-fuelled fire. What can it mean? Evidence of a mothballed building site? A protest against timber-frame buildings?
Clash culture?
Here’s a question for you. What links our mild mannered, Tory housing minister Grant Shapps to the radical left or, indeed, punk rock? A grandparent, it would seem, as the minister is the cousin of Mick Jones, lead guitarist in the Clash. One wonders what they talk about at family gatherings. Well, possibly they share a passion for limiting the power of central government. After all, the Clampdown track from London Calling rails against state control, which isn’t a million miles away from David Cameron’s small state, big society, idea. Whatever next? Shapps and Cameron with safety pins through their ears pogo-ing to White Riot? That we have to see.
My well done stakes
It was Building Week at Lingfield Park last week and thousands of punters from the construction industry enjoyed some excellent racing. Of course, the highlight of the week was my very own race - the Building Magazine Joseph Aloysius Hansom Maiden Stakes. It may have been a mouthful for the commentator but it proved a lucky race for Buro Happold’s comms manager Chris White and Building’s Martin Hurn, who both had a wager on the winner, Elsie’s Orphan.
There was also a good omen for Tom Broughton, who rejoins the Building team next week as brand director. The 11-1 shot Toms [sic] Return came late on the inside rail to bag second place.
The coward’s way out
The relationship between the RICS and its rebellious QSs appears to be reaching Blair-Brown levels of animosity. But a rebel’s comment that in years past the RICS governing council “just talked and moaned” may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. As the rebel bent my colleague’s ear about his latest RICS-related gripes, so lengthy and depressing was the tale that a bystander interjected that my colleague’s suicide might be his only way out of the conversation. But fear not, we are made of sterner stuff - keep talking …
It’s murder, this industry
“So how long have you been in the industry?” It’s a question often answered with a weary sigh, but never before with the answer: “A double murder.” Clearly this head of a UK consultant felt he had served his time, although with our prisons full and the coalition no longer keen to build new ones, maybe this was a subtle hint that retirement was a distant prospect?
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