Soaring with the pigeons above David Blaine
Home is where the heart is
Having a partner who understands your job has its upside, but it's not always plain sailing according to Dame Sally Powell.

Powell, deputy for regeneration at Hammersmith & Fulham council and deputy chair of the Association of London Government, confides that her husband Iain Coleman, Labour MP for Hammersmith & Fulham, has been having a go at her about the borough's homelessness problems. "He constantly nags and berates me for some of the accommodation in which we place homeless and vulnerable people," sighs Powell. Dinner guests, be warned …

That old chestnut
Autumn is just around the corner and one Peterborough housing association is set to go seasonally bonkers for conkers.

Richard Hall, chief executive of Axiom Housing Association, is honing his technique in preparation for the World Conker Championships in the Northamptonshire village of Ashton.

Hall is believed to be the only housing bod currently involved in this highlight of the playground sports calendar – but not for long. Next year a whole Axiom team will enter, resplendent in corporate t-shirts.

They came, they saw, they … sorry.

Celebrity transfers
How do you convince your tenants to vote for transfer? Glossy offer documents are so last year. What you need for the transfer of 2004 is a docusoap star. No, seriously.

Jeremy Spake, the camp airline steward of Airport fame, is Peterborough council's new ally on the road to transfer. Spake is the star of the local authority's video explaining the wonders of transfer to tenants. Judging by his efforts on TV, things are bound to go smoothly from here on in.

Mmmmmmmn … cake …
The Atkins diet has filled many a newspaper column inch over the summer and even the Audit Commission, ever-keen to slim down bureaucracy, has got in on the trend.

The lead housing inspector for the North, has now joined the carb-shunning throng and has lost "several pounds at least," according to an impressed colleague.

The brave slimmer's name is Nick Atkins. Coincidence or destiny? You decide.

Just get up and go
I was fortunate enough to make it to a Northern Housing Consortium event last Thursday, at York Racecourse. The racecourse was also playing host to a different type of home: the national convention of motor-homes.

What the world needs now
Partnering – a meeting of high ideals in a bid to change the world for the better? No, according to one long-suffering housing worker. "It's the sublimation of mutual loathing in pursuit of funding," he opined.

Boxing not so clever

The London mayor’s City Hall HQ affords panoramic views – and a prime vantage point for watching magician-in-a-box David Blaine. As Livingstone quipped at the launch of Shelter’s London Housing Aid services on 15 September, “the graphic revelation includes the tubes going in and tubes going out. If David Blaine does manage to survive, we will not be suddenly turning it into a Starter Home Initiative idea”.

Shelter director Adam Sampson, meanwhile, wondered aloud whether Blaine’s glamorisation of sleeping in a box might lead to a rise in street homelessness.

Source

Housing Today