Just when you thought industrial prices were becoming astronomical, it seems that industrial is, indeed, going out of this world.
Varda Space Industries, a US-based start-up, founded by Will Bruey, Delian Asparouhov and Daniel Marshall, is preparing to build the world’s first space factories. That’s right – factories in space! Since being founded in November last year the firm has raised $53m (£39m) and earlier this month it signed a deal with Rocket Lab for its own interplanetary fleet, enabling it to manufacture goods in zero gravity and deliver them to Earth.
Move over Elon Musk, forget automated trucks to ferry our goods from factory to front door, Diary wants its online purchases delivered by a Photon spacecraft. Carbon footprint dependent, obvs.
A sticky start, but sofa so good
The pandemic has changed a lot in London’s Square Mile – including the bombardment of health and safety notices and “one way” stickers in its offices and shops. Chris Vydra, for one, is glad to see the back of them. CBRE’s head of City leasing has been tweeting pictures of “Covid stickers and other paraphernalia being removed from buildings”, cheering a move that he says should lead to workers being “treated like adults in office buildings” once more. Amid the images, one underlines a real casualty – the City’s seating. “Yet more Covid damage from the sticker zealots in City office buildings, this time on a brand new leather sofa,” Vydra said of the faded patch where a social distancing reminder was once placed. Won’t someone, anyone, think of the upholstering? Oh, the haberdashery!
Yet more Covid damage from the sticker zealots in City office buildings, this time on a brand new leather sofa… https://t.co/pttAUe9Xhv pic.twitter.com/FYiwO6VbIm
— Chris Vydra (@ChrisVydra) August 18, 2021
Blue Peter, green heart
The English Cities Fund is understandably proud of the green credentials of its 115,000 sq ft office in the heart of Salford, Greater Manchester. Not only is it made from partly recycled materials, the 11-storey, Make-designed building – opposite 2 New Bailey and enigmatically titled Plot A3 – will also be clad in a 43,000 sq ft “living wall”, the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world. But it seems even more proud of the fact that BBC children’s TV flagship, Blue Peter, has decided to film the construction. Presumably the building will be the only one in the country to have both a green rating and a blue badge.
The Bacon brings homes
And talking of Blue Peter, is Diary the only one disappointed to discover that the author of the government report into self-build homes is not the Richard Bacon (below left) who briefly presented the show in the late 1990s? No, apparently Boris decided to ask the MP for South Norfolk (below centre) instead. Clearly this is a missed opportunity, as anyone who remembers Bacon’s builds on the show knows he was a master of both modular methods of construction and off-site assembly. More to the point, he could have quickly solved the housing crisis by stopping just before the difficult bit and saying “here’s a few hundred thousand we prepared earlier”.
Home advantage
The first thing many a young footballer does upon making a fortune is buy a big house in the town where they grew up. And one for their mum. And maybe a villa somewhere nicer. But just how many homes could England’s top team buy in their hometowns using only their annual salary? According to numbers crunched by Keller Willliams, Manchester’s own Marcus Rashford could bag 53 homes with the £10.4m Man United pays him. Fellow Man U player Harry Maguire gets more bang for his buck, as lower house prices in his native Sheffield would allow him to snap up 46 hometown homes with his £8.5m. But Jadon Sancho, despite getting handed £18.2m by MUFC, could only buy 34 homes in his hometown of Southwark, where the average house costs £528,767. Liverpool’s no-nonsense captain Jordan Henderson could pick up 57 properties in Sunderland with his annual pay packet of £7.3m, while fellow Mackem Jordan Pickford could get 41 from the £5.2m Everton lobs him. And it comes as no surprise that the Jack Grealish and his hair come out on top. His £15.6m base salary could bag him 76 houses in his native Birmingham. But then again, he could buy 80 in Manchester. Maybe that’s why he moved? But you have to pity Harry Kane. Despite being the England and Tottenham Hotspur captain, his £10.4m a year would only build him a portfolio of 21 homes. Serves him right for being from London.
