黑洞社区

Red signals

On a recent train ride from London to Liverpool, one of my team was on the way to a wedding but ended up on a busman鈥檚 holiday 鈥� passing the half-built Midland Met hospital as the train lumbered through Birmingham before passing the half-built Royal Liverpool on the way to the city鈥檚 Lime Street station. For good measure, the train also stopped at Wolverhampton 鈥� former home of bust builder of both hospitals, Carillion. By the end of the journey, my colleague was a little depressed.

Introduction needed

A colleague of mine recently went to an Innovate UK briefing on transforming construction funding and jolly interesting it was too, by all accounts. However, there was a rather awkward exchange between my hack and a construction bod attending the event 鈥� names have been redacted to avoid embarrassment 鈥� that went something like this:

Him: 鈥淗i, I鈥檓 XX.鈥�

黑洞社区 bod: 鈥淗i, I鈥檓 XX. Where are you from?鈥�

Him: 鈥淐ostain.鈥�

黑洞社区 bod, nodding: 鈥満诙瓷缜�.鈥�

Him: 鈥淵es, we do building projects. We鈥檙e a contractor and engineer.鈥�

黑洞社区 bod: 鈥淣o 鈥� I meant I鈥檓 from 黑洞社区 magazine. I know what Costain is.鈥�

Lifting me higher

Lift music can be irritating at the best of times but particularly so when one finds they might have to pay to turn it off. The London School of Economics鈥� latest flagship project was unveiled this week when the Centre 黑洞社区 by Rogers, Stirk, Harbour + Partners opened on the university鈥檚 Aldwych campus. State-of-the-art lifts glide up and down its 12 storeys but upon entry passengers are met with a disarming blast of pan pipes. Even worse, disgruntled building managers have discovered that to mute the offending tones might require paying the lift manufacturer a financial fee since the music is apparently an integrated part of the original lift purchase package. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 鈥渟ilence is golden鈥�.

Noble sentiments

Noble Francis, the Construction Products Association鈥檚 economics bod, popped up on The Guardian newspaper鈥檚 football blog The Fiver last week. Francis, a keen Sheffield Wednesday fan and a regular contributor to the blog鈥檚 letters section, noted that instead of watching the recent Arsenal v Spurs clash (which ended in a 2-2 draw), he鈥檇 been at the Proms watching a performance of Tchaikovsky鈥檚 symphony No 2 in C minor. He described it as 鈥渁 piece that was an initially joyful success before rapidly fading and considered thoroughly unsatisfactory by its originator due to a raft of basic errors. I could have just gone to the game instead.鈥� 

Watchful patron

I see Prince Charles has agreed to be the Royal Town Planning Institute鈥檚 patron for another year. Readers will recall that 2019 is the 35th anniversary of HRH鈥檚 infamous 鈥渕onstrous carbuncle鈥� speech, which saw ABK Architects鈥� design for the National Gallery extension scrapped, to be replaced by a more 鈥渢raditional鈥� design by Robert Venturi. The heir to the throne has held the patron role at the RTPI since 1989 and is likely to be keeping a watchful eye on the work of the 黑洞社区 Beautiful 黑洞社区 Better Commission. Whether he likes what he sees is another matter.