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That success leaves Metronet, the consortium taking over the other two-thirds, with some catching up to do. The latest guess by Tube insiders is that the group, which includes Atkins and Balfour Beatty, is trying to close the deal on 1 April. This, of course, sets the scene for the funniest, or at least the cruelest, April's Fool joke in history. So, a bottle of champagne for the best suggestion. (Email me at hansom@buildergroup.co.uk).

Some readers …
It would appear that ºÚ¶´ÉçÇø's spoof glimpse into the future in last week's issue has caused more than a little consternation at the Greater London Authority. I gather the switchboard had to field several calls from people concerned that the capital's £2bn CrossRail project was to be scrapped in favour of a state-of–the-art cycle lane utilising transport corridors such as canal towpaths, back alleys and the hard shoulder of the M4 – at a total cost of £185. Even persons with serious credulity problems must have wondered about that hard shoulder bit …

Any millennium now
And talking about £2bn rail schemes being scrapped, it is looking odds-on that Network Rail will call a halt to work on the Thameslink 2000 project – consultants were beginning to be laid off last week. Network Rail, however, says the project is merely being put on the back burner.

Transport professionals frustrated by one delay after another had already given the scheme the sarcastic nickname of Thameslink 2005. Now they're calling it Thameslink 3000.

Whiskas with aspirin
Two weeks into his new role as general secretary of M&E union Amicus, Derek Simpson has had to face a roasting from the tabloid press. A Sunday newspaper attached the label "fat cat" to him on the grounds that he had had a £3000 plasma television installed at his Covent Garden offices, and had made some expensive stays at central London hotels.

It seems that Simpson, who after his election last year famously vowed to give Tony Blair a "migraine", may well be reaching for the aspirins himself this week.

The BNP press awards I hear that ºÚ¶´ÉçÇø is not a popular read with the British National Party. I am informed that the far-right group recently held a gathering at which slides of the most reprehensible pieces of reporting of 2002 were shown.

High on the list was our May 2002 article on the BNP's influence in Burnley. The problem centred on the following comment made by our journalist about the BNP organiser he had just interviewed: "For a gruff Burnley FC supporter, Simon Bennett has a surprisingly limp handshake." Apparently, that makes us guilty of "devious" reporting.

Infamy! DH has it in for me
Just as Paul Morrell hands over the reins as senior partner at Davis Langdon & Everest, his literary namesake is appearing in a television series. Paul Morel is the hero of Sons and Lovers, the DH Lawrence novel set in a bleak Midlands mining town. In the novel, he has a string of failed love affairs in the shadow of his overbearing mother and takes a savage beating from one partner's estranged husband. Let me remind readers that the other Paul's adventures in the pages of ºÚ¶´ÉçÇø have been much happier.

The only way to start the day
News reaches me that the council team running the £1.5bn Elephant & Castle project in south London is to be avoided first thing in the morning. I'm told that six of Southwark council's 10-strong Elephant Links team cycle into work. However, with only one shower, the boys have to queue outside the gents' toilets each morning. A source informs me that development project director Chris Horn rarely pedals fast enough to beat the queue, and can be found each morning sitting at his desk, asplatter from his cycle ride, waiting for his colleagues to finish sprucing themselves up.

Unholy abuse
A salutary lesson on watching who you email comes from QS Cyril Sweett. A partner at one of the firm's offices (whom I shall not name) was working on a church refurbishment. He emailed the chaplain to keep him up to speed, then was shocked to receive in reply a torrent of sarcastic abuse. Only when he checked the address did he realise it was not, in fact, said chaplain he had reached, but someone with a similar name who thought this might be an amusing prank. Lord save us from such wit.