Confusion reigns this week as bitter rivals swap names, an unsuspecting receptionist gets caught up in international politics, and a local paper scoops its biggest non-story of all time
I’m sorry, have we met?
Peter Rees, planning officer for the City of London, took city tribalism to new heights last Friday when he used the stage at the Movers and Shakers breakfast, in Mayfair’s Dorchester Hotel, to pour scorn on the rest of the UK. When asked what the biggest challenge facing the capital was, he quipped: “Being attached to an unsuccessful country”. Rees was not the only speaker to draw gasps and suppressed chuckles from the gathered crowd of developers and contractors. David Jennings, chairman of the event, dropped a clanger when addressing former mayor and Labour candidate Ken Livingstone by saying: “What will you do when you get in in a couple of years, Boris?”
Don’t quit the day job
Last week’s celebration of five worthy years of research by the National House Building Council’s NHBC Foundation hosted a provocative debate between communities minister Andrew Stunell and Barratt chief exec Mark Clare. Stunell described how his daughter decided to move out of a new-build home into a slightly chilly Victorian property. “It’s just possible that people may prefer an old cold house in which their kids have space to run around in to a cramped new home that is always stuffy,” Stunell remarked. A rather mortified Clare replied, to laughter: “I perhaps don’t think we’ll ask you to do our marketing for us, minister.”
PROPHET OF DOOM
“The end of The World: Dubai island development sinks back into sea after being scuppered by financial crisis.” So went the Daily Mail’s headline for the erosion of the almost uninhabited artificial islands created by Nakheel, the debt-laden Dubai developer. As a metaphor for the gauche follies of the Middle Eastern nouveau riche, it is second to none. However, it all sounds rather familiar, perhaps because almost exactly the same thing was reported in December 2009. Clearly The World isn’t sinking very fast. Maybe because it doesn’t have any buildings on it.
Going anywhere nice for your holidays?
It seems that the Foreign Office has taken private sector outsourcing to an extreme. One of the telephone numbers given
out to British nationals for advice on travel - for example to those enquiring into the currently tumultuous situation in Tunisia - in fact accidentally goes through to a beleaguered receptionist at property management giant CBRE, who is bombarded by calls from worried holidaymakers.
Quentin’s at it again
Stop press! A local Hertfordshire hack
phoned Building Towers last week all in a tiz. Desperate to speak to our very own Quentin Shears, he wanted to find out exactly what was going on at Buntingford Bowls Club after Quentin’s last column about plans for a 10,000-seat croquet arena to be built in Bishop’s Stortford for the Croquet Olympic Games. The journo was, understandably, concerned he may have missed the biggest story to hit the region in, well - ever. I dutifully reassured the young chap that he hadn’t missed a trick. Hertfordshire will not play host to the Games, as, alas, Quentin is not quite real. I am sure he felt very relieved and not at all silly.
Normality is relative
Financial PR, Finsbury, was none too happy with our headlines over Mouchel and its increasingly desperate bids to fend off a buyer, or at least to secure the highest price possible. Finsbury was incredibly keen to stress that the troubled consultant is simply doing “business as normal”. If this “normal” business means fending off a bid, pitched at just half the level of one turned down a year ago, and desperately rushing through a refinancing of debt to drum up some extra interest, Mouchel’s boardroom must be a very interesting place.
No comments yet