Hansom: Tell us another

Rocking it

Jump Studios got in touch with one of my hacks recently to boast it has designed the first UK office for internet performance and security company Cloudflare in London. I obviously have no idea what an “internet performance company” does but it must be doing something right because it’s a Unicorn. A what? Well, a Unicorn company is a start-up valued at over $1bn, the mythical beast being a reference to the statistical rarity of such successful ventures. I once met a builder who described extreme rarity as being “like rocking-horse dung” (except he didn’t say “dung”, exactly). I can see why they went for “unicorn” …

Above all that

Balfour Beatty chief executive Leo Quinn was interviewed in last weekend’s Sunday Times and the subject of his bonus package came up. It’s worth a potential £10.5m over three years. Not that Quinn, who has steadied the ship since he arrived back in January 2015, claims to have given it much thought. “I’ve never calculated it,” he says, somewhat unconvincingly.

Maybe it’s because we’re Londoners

The Museum of London must be frantically trying to distance itself from the Garden Bridge and all the palaver that highly questionable project brings with it. Those planning that beleaguered walkway are still scrabbling around for a missing £56m – perhaps Leo Quinn could help out? – and oh, how they must have looked enviously at the £70m recently pledged towards the cost of building a new Museum of London by Sadiq Khan. Throw in the £110m promised by the City of London Corporation and the amount the museum needs to raise for its £250m cost seems within touching distance. How will this be achieved? For that, let’s turn to the small print. “The fundraising campaign will bring together major philanthropists, charitable trusts, companies and, ultimately, Londoners themselves.” Now where have we heard that before?

Here comes the sun

Ping! An email arrives from Building columnist Jack Pringle, a former president of the RIBA and managing director of Perkins+Will. Some of my hacks are kindly invited to his house in the hills above Cannes at the start of next month’s Mipim. One of the main reasons to go to the annual property shindig in the south of France is to let colleagues back home, freezing their socks off, know how warm it is by the Med. But there’s nothing worse than getting to the Riviera to discover temperatures aren’t much better than those in Blighty. As Pringle says: “Pray for sun.” He doesn’t add: “So we can gloat.”

Best forgotten

Building cover star from a few weeks back ISG has found itself in the news for reasons it would probably like to forget: the firm accidentally dug up a Blue Peter time capsule near the O2 Arena in Greenwich that was not meant to be unearthed until 2050. It was buried in 1998 and contained, among other items, a Tellytubby doll, a Blue Peter badge, a tamagotchi, a Spice Girls CD, and a picture of Princess Diana. It was during excavation works on ISG’s £185m Designer Outlet Village scheme on the peninsula. The capsule is being reburied and no wonder: there’s enough distress in this world without listening to Wannabe and Spice Up Your Life. Stop humming it. Stop it!