• Last week's Mayday shenanigans were a threat not only to global capitalism but the bastions of quangocracy too, it seems.

    Corporation staff trudging to the Kremlin on Tottenham Court Road were given sound advice on how to avoid being mistaken for a fatcat and assaulted: "Dress down," an urgent message told them. Those who remember the incident when corpy staff on an evening out were mistaken for guests at a 70s night were unworried.

  • Hunting for information about housing brainiac Stephen Wilcox on the internet, Reality Check recently stumbled across a web page where the great man discusses his favourite art and music.

    One of his choices was Aaron Neville's hit Tell it like it is, which includes the refrain "Baby my time is too expensive and I'm not a little boy". When you consider that Steve is also an associate director with uber-consultant Hacas Chapman Hendy, it all begins to make sense.

  • Struggle! Reality Check was bemused to note Housing Today's telephone number on a recent press release from Haringey Defend Council Housing in the "for more information" section.

    This should convince those who struggle under the misapprehension that the housing press is the lackey of the pro-transfer lobby.

    If only they had asked us first.

  • Reality Check feels the need to ask, in best Daily Mail fashion, "has the world gone mad?" The tenants of a New York skyscraper have become the first in the US to be banned from smoking in their own homes.

    The block's controlling board believes smokers intrude on and pollute the airspace of other tenants. Whatever next? Reality Check believes the music of Will Young to be a pollution of its personal airspace but would never dream of banning people from buying his records. Now there's an idea…

  • Reality Check was shocked to learn last week that 'New' Labour has issued a press release crowing about some initiative or another once every four minutes since 1997.

    Housing teams struggling to administer the single pot, Best Value, Supporting People, the New Deal for Communities, PFI pathfinders, Community Chest, Starter Homes Initiative, or National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal may not be so surprised.