黑洞社区

Bucks fizz

Good job Balfour Beatty is paying back that 拢19m it claimed last year in furlough money from the government, because its chief executive Leo Quinn positively revelled in detailing how much it was handing back to shareholders over the coming year. 鈥淚t will be a 拢150m return,鈥� he roared. 鈥淚t鈥檚 as large as the market cap of some of our rivals.鈥� He was told he could have bought Kier with that amount. 鈥淎nd had lots of change,鈥� he quipped. He has a point, I suppose.

Man of the match

Quinn鈥檚 respect for Morgan Sindall chief executive John Morgan is obvious. 鈥淭he elder statesman of the industry鈥� he calls Morgan, who has been in the construction game for more than four decades now. To use a cricketing metaphor, Quinn might be prone to the occasional loose drive (see above) but Morgan is definitely a straighter bat. Was his firm, wondered my hack, working up a bid for the fit-out of Google鈥檚 new headquarters at King鈥檚 Cross? The answer is almost certainly a yes but Morgan wasn鈥檛 falling for that so easily. 鈥淎s market leader in fit-out, we keep our eye on most things.鈥�

The answer to everything

Talking of diplomacy, Keller chief executive Michael Speakman struck such a tone when asked about what it was like working in Brazil when covid-19 struck. The geotechnical specialist was on the way to pulling out of the country before covid hit and sold its business there in April. But how had it been working in a country whose president, Jair Bolsonaro 鈥� who recently told his fellow countrymen to stop 鈥渨hining鈥� about coronavirus as deaths from it topped 260,000 鈥� is considered to be a byword for not taking the pandemic seriously enough? 鈥淚 share your concerns,鈥� was Speakman鈥檚 fence-sitting reply.

Among the dozens of jobs the lucky person will be asked to do is 鈥榤oving Thomas between meetings and making sure he鈥檚 always on time鈥�, 鈥榬emembering birthdays and buying gifts鈥�, and 鈥榤aking a fancy dress costume鈥�

A little prick

It might pain readers of a certain vintage to read the Twitter ramblings of Ian Brown, one-time lead singer of the Stone Roses and one-quarter of a band who made an album revered by the generation brought up on it. Alas, all good things must end and Brown, judging by his posts, now seems to be a covid sceptic and anti-vaxxer promoting conspiracy theories about it all. Sigh. I mention this because one of my team was talking to Gleeds鈥� UK boss Douglas McCormick about life and he happened to mention he was due to get his vaccine shortly. 鈥淚鈥檓 very much looking forward to it,鈥� was his heartening observation.

The little boy鈥檚 room

A quite extraordinary job advert lands on my desk. Thomas Heatherwick, the chap behind the Garden Bridge, placed an ad recently for a PA. The role was to 鈥渕anage Thomas Heatherwick鈥檚 personal life alongside studio related tasks鈥�. Nothing too demanding, then. Among the dozens of jobs the lucky person will be asked to do is 鈥渕oving Thomas between meetings and making sure he鈥檚 always on time鈥�, 鈥渞emembering birthdays and buying gifts鈥�, 鈥渕aking a fancy dress costume鈥�, 鈥渙rganising Thomas鈥� holidays and travel plans鈥�, 鈥渕anaging completion of Thomas鈥� house鈥� and 鈥減urchasing household and personal items for Thomas鈥�. It all sounds like the demands of a supermodel, so perhaps the CVs haven鈥檛 been flying in. One Twitter wag summed it up rather well, I thought: 鈥淪eems they forgot 鈥榩ack and check Thomas has his lunchbox鈥� and 鈥榚nsure Thomas has been to the toilet鈥�.鈥�