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If the shoe fits 鈥�

As leftfield as Zaha Hadid鈥檚 foray into shoe design is, it does rather suit her flamboyant reputation. Julian Hakes runs a relatively lower profile practice, yet he too has succumbed to the pull of the platform sole and is challenging La Hadid to a shoe-off. He鈥檚 made an impressive start, cattily deriding Hadid鈥檚 stilettos as 鈥渏ust so normal鈥�. Hakes reassured me his creation is 鈥渁 design solution as well as a fully operational shoe鈥�. I鈥檒l stick to brogues of course, but when the shoes hit the high street next year, it remains to be seen whether Hadid will be seen strutting in Hakes鈥� high heels.

House rules

The Haymills staff have been acquainting themselves with Vinci, the French company that bought them in August. I gather the workforce has been issued a colossal handbook on the ins and outs of life at the world鈥檚 biggest construction firm. One section, according to my source, stipulates how big the Vinci logo should appear compared with the Haymills brand 鈥� a thorny subject, I鈥檇 imagine. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 tell you any more,鈥� said the source, 鈥淚鈥檝e only got to page four.鈥� How many pages are there? 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 want to know,鈥� he sighed.

A brief bout

If ever you wondered how Graham Watts, chief executive of the Construction Industry Council, manages to find the time to be a dance critic and train the UK Olympic fencing team, his recent posting on Twitter suggests the answer may lie in shorter meetings. 鈥淏ritish Fencing annual meeting lasted 23 minutes which is six more than last year!鈥� he tweeted from his PD4BF account on 12 September. Perhaps there鈥檚 a lesson here for all of us 鈥�

In the alphabet soup

Atkins chief executive Keith Clarke raised a bizarre spectre while pondering the recession in a recent discussion with my colleague. There鈥檚 the 鈥渧鈥� shape, where we bounce back quickly from the slump. Or the 鈥渨鈥� (a double dip which plunges us back into recession after a short recovery before leading to a stronger recovery). There鈥檚 also the 鈥淟鈥� (crash followed by no recovery), the 鈥渦鈥� (sharp fall, slow recovery), and even the italic 鈥渋鈥� shaped recession (sharp fall followed by a slight upturn). But for the internet age there is now the 鈥渨ww鈥� recession, where we fall, rise a little and fall again, rise, fall 鈥� you get the picture. They tell me the internet is infinite, which doesn鈥檛 sound encouraging 鈥�

Bottoming out

Stephen Bayley is the Observer鈥檚 architecture critic and self-styled 鈥渟econd most intelligent man in the country鈥�, but his latest book may cause you to question both descriptions. In Woman as Design he takes the female body as an object and decides he is just the man to give it a thorough critique. Strangely, the Observer hasn鈥檛 yet found space in its pages for him to puff his book as they did for his last, only marginally less ridiculous, effort: Life鈥檚 a Pitch.

My personal highlight in his latest, er, seminal text reads: 鈥淯nsurprisingly, we feel a deep ambiguity about the bottom.鈥� It would appear that Bayley鈥檚 editors at the Observer are inclined to think of him in a similar way.

Push in case of emergency

Those who sailed in this year鈥檚 Little Britain seem have enjoyed the event鈥檚 recession-induced depleted numbers so much that there is talk of scaling it down the permanently from 250 to 150 boats, thereby making it an altogether more exclusive affair. Architect Lee Penson appears to be gearing up for it already, judging by the lavish dinner he threw for the reunion of the crew of his yacht Javelot 3 at the sumptuous Bob Bob Ricard restaurant in Soho. The ultimate touch, so I鈥檓 told, was a 鈥渃hampagne button鈥�, that brings a waiter scurrying over to top up glasses of bubbly.