Hansom

Crunch match

A couple of my colleagues were at Upton Park, home of West Ham United, on Sunday to eat prawn sandwiches in the executive box of Stratford-based contractor PA Finlay. Michael Finlay, the firm’s boss, was in ebullient mood as he watched the Hammers “crush” Middlesbrough 2-1.

No doubt he will be hoping for a similar home win over the next few weeks when lawyers representing him and hundreds of other businesses based in Marshgate Lane, Stratford, meet for showdown talks with the London Development Agency. They’re hoping to thrash out a relocation package following the LDA’s decision to order the compulsory purchase of their offices to make way for the Olympic village. With the Hammers in such fine mid-table form this season, I’m sure Finlay will be hoping to find somewhere equally handy for home games.

The Rubaiyat of Jack Pringle

It seems that the RIBA’s president has grown more philosophical during his tenure. At a recent lunch with Building, he declared: “Life’s too short for bad wine,” before casting his eye towards the bottom of the wine list and plumping for a very nice bottle of pinot grigio. Amazing how running the RIBA for a couple of months can make you appreciate the brevity of existence and the importance of alcohol …

Caught out

Funny bit of gossip for you … During the fifth Ashes test at the Oval there was a housing project being built overlooking the ground. It seems that the QS was doing some work on the ground floor while listening to Test Match Special. Imagine his surprise when legendary commentator Henry Blofeld noticed some builders at the top of the very same project:

“It doesn’t look like they’ll be doing much work today!” chortled Blowers. The QS was straight up the stairs to tell them otherwise …

Licence to build

Never mind seducing beautiful women and infiltrating evil-doers’ subterranean lairs, it seems James Bond might find himself grappling with some more prosaic venues in future. My informant here is Gordon Evans, an associate at PCKO Architects. Pitching PCKO’s design for the £60,000 house to an audience of his peers at the RIBA’s small-practice conference last Thursday, he ruefully admitted that the firm’s design might not be as cool as a rival bid by MR2. It seems it has designed a very cool ski-slope house that’s “probably going to be in the next James Bond film”. Let’s hope they’re not calling it £60k is not Enough.

Pot luck

Building emerged victorious in its first annual pool tournament against QS Gleeds last week. The hacks’ team, led by features editor Mark Leftly, set off at an electric pace with Gleeds partner John Murray being taken to pieces by a potting performance that would have made Dennis Taylor proud. Worse was to come for Gleeds as an accidentally potted black ball scuppered the chances of the QS’ big guns Ken Carter and Julian Barlow in a tooth-and-nail encounter with Building’s deputy features editor Katie Puckett and reporter Rich Heap. Better luck next time, chaps.

In the meantime, if any other firms would like to take on Building’s fledgling pool team then email your challenges to hansom@cmpinformation.com, along with promises of jugs of beer and ample bar snacks …

Where there’s blame …

Many thanks to the PPP Forum for its annual dinner at the Royal Courts of Justice last week. Despite a turgid speech from schools minister Jacqui Smith – which took longer to close than most PFI deals – most dinner guests ended up having a stimulating evening. Best of all, contractors got to experience a moment of schadenfreude when solicitor Ashurst’s table suddenly collapsed just before dinner – which, of course, was in no way hilarious.