This month’s construction industry gossip: One in the AI

AI is both exciting and terrifying too with its ability to produce faked videos where people appear to say something they don’t. Yorkshire Housing boss Nick Atkin found this out to his cost recently. A video circulated of the Doncaster Rovers fan and proud Yorkshireman expressing his love for bitter county rivals Lancashire. He assures us that this was all AI trickery created as a joke by colleagues. But, then again, who are we to believe?

High regard

It was national skyscraper day earlier this month; 3 September, to be precise. Who knew? I know what my least favourite in London is – it’s on Bishopsgate – but, as for the one I most admire, The Shard just about edges it over The Gherkin. Interesting that the most-loved have nicknames…

Abbey anniversary

Gleeds has been celebrating its 150th anniversary recently with a bash at Westminster Abbey. Not a bad venue, I suppose, and it beats the local boozer for a location.

Around 350 people made their way to the abbey to be greeted by song from the same choir who sang at Harry and Meghan’s wedding. Remember them?

Off the rails

Odd news this month from Reform UK, which has robustly committed to putting Northern Powerhouse Rail in the bin if it wins the next election, despite the scheme being widely accepted as transformative for the communities the party purports to represent. “Do not bother” to bid for the Liverpool-to-Manchester high-speed scheme, deputy leader Richard Tice told contractors in a paper published by think tank Policy Exchange, because nobody in the North actually wants it.

So, what do they want? Tice has the answer: “Fast, effective, comfortable” rail, he said at the Reform UK conference two days before the paper was published, “and it can be done, and that’s what we should do, and that’s where we should invest the money”. Isn’t there something like that in the works already?

Going for a song

Speaking of Reform UK’s conference, the two-day event in Birmingham was a launchpad for a future star of politics. No, not Tice, but Conservative defector Andrea Jenkyns, former skills minister and now Reform UK mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, who kept attendees entertained with a series of increasingly chaotic and often bizarre performances.

“Sorry, I’ve lost my train of thought!” was Jenkyns’ catchphrase during the many panel events she attended between her appearances on the main stage, where she more often than not broke into song – first with a tune called “I’m an Insomniac” which she wrote when she was in a band in her youth and, later, with a rapturous rendition of the national anthem to close the conference. She’ll be doing the FA Cup final next.

First to Finnish

Penny for the thoughts of the 623 other architects who entered an anonymous competition, launched last April, to design a new museum in Helsinki. Turns out the winner was Helsinki practice JKMM. The scheme has replaced scrapped plans for the Gugenheim Helsinki, which itself attracted 1,715 entries at its launch in 2014. And we thought the competition was stiff in this country.

Building Awards

Summer has come and gone, and September can only mean one thing: Building Awards judging. One of my colleagues tells me one of the panels had judges dialling in from India and Crete. Commitment to the cause, I say.

The event takes place on 4 November at the Grosvenor House Hotel. That’s in London, by the way.