A fog has descended over us this week, through which the eerie keening of civil servants can be heard, the moons rise and the shadows fall …
The shadowed ones
Mystery surrounds the six-strong shortlist for Jon Rouse's old job at CABE. We've established who is not running for the post, such as Chris Murray, the commission's head of education, and Peter Redman, former Notting Hill Housing Group chief – but who's actually on it? One rumour says Graham Watts, the boss of the Construction Industry Council, but a source at the CIC reckons not. "He feels the job at the CIC is just as big as the one at CABE," my spy tells me.

Bad moon rising
News of an opening with a difference reaches me via the pages of The Mail On Sunday. Buried at the bottom of a profile of Sir John Gains, who is to retire from his position as chief executive of Mowlem next May, is mention of the first train to run on the 900-mile Darwin to Alice Springs railway, which was built by Gains' firm. Apparently, dignitaries on the train were shocked to be greeted by a "mass mooning" when they reached their destination. Stranger yet, Gains appeared to "enjoy the moment immensely".

Uh-oh
It's not only construction projects that run a little behind schedule. I gather Gordon Brown's comprehensive spending review – in which he decides who gets to spend what – looks like being delayed past July. It's not, as you may think, a case of making the pounds stretch further. My pals in the Treasury reckon that Gordon has been disappointed by the submissions and wants to see more radical suggestions than a boring old land tax …

I'd like to thank my supporters
What some people will do for charity! I hear that Tim Stone, PFI guru and chairman of KPMG's financing group, is to walk a marathon through the night in aid of breast cancer research. Nothing startling about that, you might think. Oh, except that the "Moonwalk" is sponsored by Playtex, and all entrants must wear a visible bra …

How late it was
Thanks to eagle-eyed reader Roland Finch for spotting an interesting item on the RICS website. It's a diary note warning members of an event being run by the institution's M&E group entitled "Integrated teams in construction". The note promises to "bring clarity to current thinking on the integrated approach" before giving the date of the debate as 18 May 2994. Just before they hold that pesky EGM, no doubt.

Super, sensational Site

Is it me, or is The Site, Terminal 5’s project newspaper, becoming a dead ringer for The Sun? Witness this month’s edition, which leads with a story about raising the terminal’s roof, teasingly entitled “Getting It Up!” (see what they did there?). This is “the BIGGEST roof lift of its type ever attempted in the UK”, it boasts. To complete the tabloid style, the edition’s back page “names and shames” a worker booted off site for failing to wear safety glasses. Although, in fairness, the individual involved was T5’s managing director Tony Douglas …

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