Hansom

Shortsighted generosity

Stanhope director Peter Rogers could be forgiven for being a little bleary-eyed after his company’s ball on Saturday. As the champagne and the torrid summer heat began to take their toll, Rogers was persuaded to put his trademark red glasses up for auction in aid of charity UNICEF. The triumphant winner in the ensuing scramble was Wilson James’ Gary Sullivan (pictured right), who parted with a cool £9000 for the chance to own Peter’s specs. Not everyone enjoyed such success, however. Across the floor, Mace’s Steve Pyecroft was frantically trying to save face by outbidding Bovis for a series of golf lessons – a package that included himself as caddy.

No hurry, Alun

Alun Michael last week launched the government’s accreditation scheme, Trustmark, to protect consumers from cowboy builders. One might have thought he would have made this dramatic announcement in his maiden speech as construction minister, delivered at Constructing Excellence’s Strategic Leadership in Construction Conference last Wednesday. Er, no. He failed to mention the flagship scheme and instead chose to talk about how much fun he had redeveloping Cardiff bay when he was Welsh minister. Good to see where his priorities lie.

Norman in ermine

Norman Foster has long been the king of British architecture, but now he’s got the trappings to go with it. I understand that Foster has recently hired Prince Charles’ former equerry to work as his personal assistant. Quite what the new recruit’s role entails is unclear, but it is fair to assume that he won’t be bringing with him his previous employer’s taste in architecture.

Liverpool 2 Alsop 0

Will Alsop is no stranger to being scuppered by Liverpool council, but now it seems that even the city’s football team is against him. The showdown match in the architects’ softball league between Alsop & Partners and Foster and Partners was supposed to have taken place on 25 May. However, the unbeaten Alsop outfit were stymied at the last minute when the Foster captain called for a postponement, citing Liverpool’s presence in the European Cup final. At least it was probably a better match to watch.

Scent of an architect

If you haven’t caught the Herzog & de Meuron exhibition at the Tate Modern, you should.

It’s a fascinating collections of project models surrounded by the “waste products of thinking” that demonstrate how the final design was arrived at, and which linger in the mind long after you have left the mighty turbine hall. Visitors can then trot over to the exhibition shop to sample the practice’s latest offering – a perfume compiled from (or so they claim) Rhine water, dog, hashish, algae, vin chaud, fur and tangerine. (I fancy I also detected a soupcon of burning plastic.) And I can verify that this, too, lingers long after you have left the museum.

Making privatised utilities fun
Some might say that conferences on the privatised utilities are a bit dry. Not me though, because I know I can rely on presentations by the likes of Simon Grenfell, the head of energy markets at Macquarie Bank. Grenfell was trying to explain how the political basis for utilities markets had changed since the 1980s, but instead of graphs and charts, he peppered his Powerpoint presentation with pictures of Reagan, Gorbachev and other 1980s figures. Sadly, we were cruelly denied further delights. “I wanted to put pictures of A-Ha singing Take on Me and Madonna’s first tour,” he revealed, “but my PA made me take them out.”