Social animal

Asked why the government spent a cool half million refurbishing ex-Coal Board offices that, judging by the view from the road, now stand derelict, the quango offered this crushing riposte: “The offices are used. You just can’t see that part.”

Memory like a fish
History is, of course, what you make it. So when dear old Gordon Brown’s latest bit of tail-tweaking – announcing a single housing inspectorate without telling anybody beforehand – left some officials a bit flat-footed, they knew how to react.

Brown’s speech was a re-run of his announcement of the original housing inspectorate, when Audit Commission chiefs were reduced to phoning round saying: “Does he mean us?” But as the days passed, those in the thick of things began to say they got the tip-off the week before.

Now, it’s stretched to a couple of months of informal discussion. That would explain the goldfish expressions on the day, then.

Oooh, behave!
I was invited this week to discuss the merits of a rather carnal act by the regeneration maestro for Southwark council, Chris Horn. Sensing my obvious discomfort, Horn swiftly explained that the SHAG he was talking about was, in fact, the Southwark Housing Association Group.

Dirty mind? Moi? On the contrary, I had merely assumed this was a radical re-imagining of the Housing Corporation’s “partnering” proposals.

Sell, sell, sell
Council housing may be on its way out in Glasgow but that doesn’t mean the city is going all up-market. Four of six luxuriously refurbished city-centre flats – a snip at £500,000 each – remain empty after more than six months on the market.

Apparently the estate agents are exuding a little too much desperation – so much so that a second team of salespeople have been drafted in to help shift the flats. The sales patter has been toned down and 10% discounts are now on offer instead. “The project is ambitious, maybe too ambitious,” said one local academic – a verdict which may ring a bell with the Glasgow Housing Association.

Talk about a unique brand …
Word reaches me of an interesting advertising opportunity. Last week an anonymous man was offering, via an internet auction site, to tattoo the brand name of the highest bidder on his, er, wedding tackle.

Perhaps this would be a way to counter feelings of impotence at the Housing Corporation caused by consternation over the single inspector, thought I. But, on dashing to the site in question I found that, sadly, the auction in hand had been pulled.