The final account

Bath time treats

We’re glad to hear that our intrepid reporter Graham Stow, by day a director at Complete Construction Management, is getting due credit for his writing skills by his bosses. After penning his experiences at the newly opened Bath Spa last month for QS News – and a fine job we thought he did of it – Stow received a very special present at a subsequent staff meeting from his superiors – no less than a shiny new rubber duck.

On the cheap

Proof that you can buy anything on eBay comes in an item on the online bidding site spotted by reader Patrick Murdock, a partner at Surrey-based firm Yewell Consulting. A seller called ‘tkzb01’ was offering coursework for a degree in QSing amounting to 17 separate pieces of work which all amounted to a first class degree. The amount for such a priceless piece of work – £9.99. “Surely a QS degree is worth more than a tenner?” asks Patrick. We sincerely hope so.

Is there a diary room?

Big Brother is hitting construction sites if events in Malaysia are anything to go by. The country’s public works department is installing surveillance cameras at selected government sites to monitor the performance, or otherwise, of contractors. Works minister Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu told the country’s quantity surveying national convention about the plan earlier this month. It’s already been tested on a bridge project that was completed in eight-and-a-half months. Did they have a diary room on site?

RICS refurbishes

We happened to spot the RICS HQ being covered in scaffolding during a recent walk around Westminster. Is Daniel Libeskind or Zaha Hadid adding a futuristic extension to the venerable Victorian pile? Nope, it’s just a clean-up reassures an RICS spokesman. “It’s just general maintenance,” the spokesman says. “There’s a bit of work on the roof and on the windows. It’s nothing structural.”

The APM goes green

The Association for Project Management has announced a clutch of firms nominated for its annual awards. APM’s press release touts the “wide-ranging shortlist” – from ship builders to the PMs on the Welsh Assembly scheme. But one nomination may raise a few eyebrows. On the shortlist for the Enterprise Project of Year gong is a scheme for harvesting cauliflowers. HortLINK Caulicut, a project that apparently for the first time has automated the cauliflower picking process, is the brainchild of Wayne Kimberlin at Pera Innovation. Wayne is up against two other projects: The replacement of escalators at Moorgate tube by Metronet and the adding of a 7th carriage to all 59 Jubilee line trains by Tube Lines, the Amey-Bechtel consortium. We wish him luck.

F+G gets ambitious

We received an intriguing corporate gift this week from Faithful+Gould. A director of the firm was kind enough to bestow upon us a pen. But this is no ordinary pen. According to its marketing blurb, the Fisher Space Pen works “in freezing cold of -45C, in blazing heat of +120C, in the gravity free vacuum of space, underwater, over grease – even upside down!” It’s also used by NASA. Could Faithful+Gould’s plans for world domination extend even further than we thought?