黑洞社区

Disunity at communities

If any further proof were needed of just how seriously the Brown government takes the issue of housing, I can reveal the latest rumblings from the corridors of power. Apparently, communities secretary Hazel Blears and housing minister Yvette Cooper fell out over last month鈥檚 housing green paper. The dispute apparently centred around who was responsible for penning this centrepiece of Brown鈥檚 renewed New Labour. As Cooper鈥檚 boss, Blears thought it should be her. Cooper, however, pre-empted the flame-haired Salford MP by reading out her version of the green paper at Cabinet. It鈥檚 probably fair to say that Blears won鈥檛 be spending the summer break with her deputy.

Frying pans, fires and the O2

Whisper it softly, but things are looking distinctly rosy at the venue formerly known as the Millennium Dome. The artist currently known as Prince is enjoying a string of sold-out dates, and the venue, now known as the O2 seems to be shaking off the white elephant tag. And now it seems the people behind this remarkable transformation want to share their good fortune. The firm that undertook the redevelopment has hired Weber Shandwick, a PR firm whose former clients include, er, Wembley contractor Multiplex. Let鈥檚 hope it鈥檚 a slightly quieter gig for the Weber folk and 鈥淧R鈥� continues to stand solely for Purple Rain in the Greenwich area.

How about Derr?

Naturally, I immediately took on last week鈥檚 ministerial advice and began referring to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform by its new acronym, Berr. Besides being infinitely snappier than DBERR, it also makes for much more entertaining searching on Google. Last Friday, typing in 鈥淏err鈥� brought up a pet store in California. Sadly, those fun-spoiling berrsterds at the ministry have cottoned on and made sure that the competing Berrs now appear in 鈥渢he correct order of importance鈥�.

But I was looking for a civil 鈥�

On a similar theme, surfers looking for the Civil Engineering Contractors鈥� Association will be delighted to find that 鈥淐eca鈥� leads somewhere slightly more exotic than the august body鈥檚 website. According to Wikipedia, the buxom Svetlana 鈥淐eca鈥� Ra啪natovic is in the vanguard of the Serbian 鈥渕odern folk-pop-dance music鈥� scene. Any other surfing distractions to the usual address please.

Confused of Tunbridge Wells

The government will be pleased to learn that all is not lost on the home information pack front. While taking the waters on my annual summer retreat at Tunbridge Wells, I had a heartening conversation with my cab driver. 鈥淚鈥檓 glad you're here mate,鈥� he enthused on hearing of my day job. 鈥淚鈥檓 really keen on getting myself trained up as one of these energy performance inspectors 鈥� what do you reckon?鈥� I wished him luck.