Where gossip lives
Welcome to Nowhereville
Alas, poor Sunderland. Despite the best efforts of the Sunderland Arc regeneration team and Sunderland Housing Group, the city still isn't getting a ringing endorsement from residents.

In a poll on the council's website, just a quarter of respondents said Sunderland was a pleasant place to live. Far more – 37%, in fact – said it was unpleasant.

Mind you, one in eight respondents said they didn't even know where the city was.

Talent has moved
As part of the overhaul of the Housing Corporation, the quango is to get a beefed-up communications team. It has already launched a website to encourage "highly creative and visionary" media types to apply. The website has even got a new slogan: "Affordable Homes, Strong Communities" has been replaced by the more touchy-feely "Where Talent Lives".

It's all Greek to me
England may have crashed out at the quarter-final stage in Euro 2004, but the Greeks showed us how it should be done – and not just on the football pitch.

Another good lesson our Mediterranean friends could teach us might be how to turn around a major construction project quickly when the deadline is looming: the Olympic stadium for the Athens games in August is now all but complete. Er, Thames Gateway, anyone?

Anyway, no doubt construction efficiency was foremost in the mind of Steve Douglas, London director of investment at the Housing Corporation, during his recent trip to Portugal, where he watched England lose to the hosts and Greece trounce France.

Sorry, the dog ate my report
The great summer of sport may be turning into something of a damp squib for Britain, but the imminent round of annual reports should provide some entertainment.

The early running looks set to be made by Sentinel Housing Group, whose effort this year will include flavoured pages and a number of recipes contributed by tenants.

The theme of the report? "The taste of things to come". What else could it be?

That's politics
Tyneside is taking some time to adjust to some of its newest residents – the Lib Dem councillors at the civic centre, in particular.

Outgoing Labour councillors publicly refused to leave their long-held offices because they said the Lib Dems wanted too much space.

Allegedly the Lib Dems, who won control of the council at the elections last month, wanted to keep their existing Opposition offices and take over Labour's rooms as well. The cheek of it!

Happily, though, the Lib Dems have now changed their minds and everyone's toys are back in their prams.

An offer you can’t refuse

How popular do you think Hull council is with central government at the moment? More than you might think, it seems. A bleary-eyed Social Animal spotted not one, not two, but three Cabinet ministers at an early morning event last week in Westminster to plug the town’s urban regeneration company. Surely, though, it would be mischievous to suppose that deputy prime minister John Prescott, MP for Hull, had leant on chancellor Gordon Brown and education secretary Charles Clarke to attend?

Source

Housing Today