Just off target
CBRE residential chairman Mark Collins must have thought he was on to a sure thing when he beamed a scene from iconic ’80s film Top Gun to a gathering of young professionals at the Apprentice Network’s annual #Themeetup at Battersea Power Station last week. He certainly had Diary’s attention. We’ve been feeling the need for speed, to borrow one of the movie’s famous lines, for more than two decades. But judging from the blank faces, Collins’ cultural reference was lost on the gathering of Generation Z-ers. Though he did salvage his presentation with an otherwise engaging and inspired performance. Collins can be our wingman any day.
Nama drama
It is being presented like a page-turner with lurid allegations of high-profile corruption and back-handers in brown paper bags. So is it any surprise that even the participants in the Irish Public Accounts Committee hearing on Nama’s £4.4bn Project Eagle sale this week are thinking of the fictional potential? In between a grilling over non-disclosure agreements and alleged conflicts of interest, Nama chairman Frank Daly declared he will write the Project Eagle novel when he retires. Considering the hearing last week, when Cerberus’s intentions were thrown into question because of its association with a mythical three-headed dog, Daly will have his work cut out for him.
Lost in cyberspace
Visiting U+I’s offices near Victoria? Don’t rely on the wonders of tech and journey there with your nose in an online route mapper on your gadget phone. Because if you do punch in its postcode, SW1P 1DZ, into Citymapper, you get dropped off a mile and a half away, across the Thames, amid a sea of cranes in Vauxhall. Google Maps gets you a little closer: the White Horse and Bower pub in Westminster, only a 10-minute walk away, or 45 if you factor in a swift pint. Next time you get lost on your way to meeting a developer, forget your apps and look at a map. You’ll get there quicker.
Housing out of the shadows
Labour shadow minister for housing and MP for Wentworth and Dearne, John Healey, seems to have had an accidental promotion in October, upping himself to shadow secretary of state. While Diary is all for housing being on the government’s agenda, we were still impressed that it has been moved to a cabinet position. A sign of intent, or more laurels for Caesar? Judging by the current state of the Labour Party, time probably won’t tell.
Two pence worth
Nothing inflames passions more than the presidential election results, right? But comedian Ed Byrne suggests that vice-president-elect Mike Pence’s recent run-in with a theatre audience was nothing. “Hey Mike Pence! You call that being booed? Try doing a gig for chartered surveyors and accidentally calling them quantity surveyors,” he tweeted.
Baring their community chest
Dismayed wannabe house-buyers have taken to displaying a grim sense of humour about unaffordable prices on online chatroom Reddit. A post, which has gone viral, says: “There should be a millennial edition of Monopoly where you just walk around the board, paying rent, never able to buy anything”. Another user says: “Every time you pass go, you collect 3% more, but rent goes up 5%.” It was known as the Landlord’s Game when it was launched. What would the PRS version look like?
Talking out of both ends?
Wisecracking Philip Hammond surprised everybody when he squeezed several reasonably funny jokes into his Autumn Statement. MPs on both sides howled with laughter at his Boris Johnson jibe. But was he really the first to use the phrase “fiscal incontinence” as some have credited him with? Diary can reveal the phrase was being used in 2012 in the Commons, by Nick Hurd MP. But Hammond can claim to be the first to imply he would address that financial struggle “from both ends”. Another missed joke or just an involuntary parliamentary motion?
