Hansom

Injury time

As England's World Cup campaign got under way in Germany this week, the UK's construction industry continued to work tirelessly to warn the world about those most lethal of football accessories - the flag. After big-hearted BAA banned them from its Terminal 5 site, news reaches me from the Health and Safety Executive that a Manchester builder has broken his leg whle trying to attach the emblem of St George to the roof of his home in Worsley. The unfortunate man, who has not been named, slipped from a ladder and fell 10 ft, shattering his leg in two places. Not much chance of him doing the Crouch for a while then …

Break a leg, your Lordship

Construction's High Court judge, Mr Justice Jackson, certainly chose an unfortunate week to injure his achilles tendon. Not only did the news divert press attention on his big day at the Wembley trial in London, it also had repercussions north of the border. It appears that the Law Society of Scotland, which had invited His Lordship to its conference in Edinburgh just days before his Wembley ruling, was left without its star speaker. All was not lost, however - at the eleventh hour our very own legal beagle Tony Bingham agreed to step in. So, Tony, perhaps you could enlighten us as to the events that led up to Jackson's mysterious accident?

Almost on a screen near you

Rudi Klein, barrister, professor and ursine friend of subbies everywhere, has finally come to the attention of ITN news. He received a call a couple of Fridays ago asking him to comment on live television about the Wembley judgment, which was due to be delivered the following Monday. Rudi agreed, although it would mean driving in from Shropshire. After further anxious calls from the producer to check his availability, he duly made the journey and was in good time to be chauffeured to the new Arsenal ground, where the interview was to take place. Except that is didn't - at the last minute the item was pulled to make way for a report into the 7 July bombings. It's a cruel business, journalism.

Elbow-deep in trouble

You've got to admire the fighting spirit that pervades consultancy Jxohn Rowan & Partners. When times were hard in the early 1990s, the management was forced to scale back the business. But the cost-cutting was not limited to the slashing of expense accounts. Senior management, including managing partner Stephen Gee, drew up a rota, donned a pair of Marigolds, and cleaned the loos themselves.

How could we forget?

Many apologies to the Mott Stadium Consortium for the oversight in our article "Gunning for Glory" (9 June, pages 22-25). Somehow we managed to state that Arup was the structural engineer at Wembley when, of course, it was actually Connell Mott MacDonald and SKM. Not that the project has been in the news much recently or anything …

Butchered

Building's five-a-side football team came crashing to earth on Friday at the Willmott Dixon charity tournament - a fitting occasion to grace the last days of the old Highbury stadium. My colleagues inform me they were unable to retain the cup owing to the searing heat of the sun. Our vanquishers, from PRP Architects, went by the name of the Smithfield Butchers and played with a ferocity that only architects can muster. Building was pipped 3-2 after a controversial last-minute penalty decision.

The fastest cuppa in town

Some bosses might be proud of their company's fleet of branded cars or lorries, but Gleeds' John Murray takes a personal interest in a different kind of fleet - his tea trollies. Fed up with never being able to get a hot cuppa in meetings, he has invested in a string of sleek, state-of-the-art models, personally testing their corridor-handling properties. When I visited last week he was very pleased to demonstrate, boasting, "Look, they're completely noiseless!" Eat your heart out, Jeremy Clarkson.

"I just never heard it coming..."

Credit: Colin Wheeler