It has been a whole five years since Kim Kardashian’s champagne-soaked rear broke the internet in 2014. Since then, the Twittersphere has been eagerly waiting for another iconic image to attain the same viral status… until now.
EG found itself in the middle of an online storm after photoshopping an alligator into a CGI for the gasholder site on Old Kent Road, when luxury developer Avanton spilled it was exploring plans for London’s first alligator park and farm. Cue a slew of snappy puns. Diaries favourites included “What the croc?” and comments that the flats would “cost an arm and a leg”. Arf! Though many were outraged at the out-of-scale gator-saurus we depicted roaming wild in the landscaped park, like something from Jurassic Park.
Sorry – we were so preoccupied with whether or not we could that we didn’t stop to think if we should…
How much?!
Almost as pervasive as Japanese knotweed are press releases in our inbox offering stories about the problems of Japanese knotweed. Now, it seems, PR folks are upping their game in a bid to inject fresh excitement into the topic, judging by the latest missive sent on behalf of tradesperson comparison site, HaMuch.com (Diary neither).
In a release embargoed until 23 January (so we know it’s important), it has calculated that knotweed is wiping a staggering £34.12bn off the value of UK property value. “HaMuch” indeed. If you want to check the maths, it says at least five percent of homes across the UK are affected by knotweed, knocking 10% off values. With 29m homes across the nation, that’s 1,450,000 properties impacted and an average depreciation of £23,530.
But, of course, much more can be lost in London and other expensive areas. Everyone wants to live in the leafy suburbs – just make sure what leaves you’re dealing with.
A tale of two c…entres
The bitter rivalry between Britain’s towns and cities was stirred up earlier this month, when the government launched its “countrywide town tour” in Wolverhampton – a city. And the tensions are still simmering. A BBC economics journalist took to Scunthorpe to discuss plans to “level up” left behind towns, and recruited a talking head from… the Centre For Cities.
Cue a passive aggressive, meme-savvy reaction on Twitter from the Centre For Towns: “BBC: Who should we speak to about towns? Nobody: Centre For Cities.”
The North West-based research body went on to role play how the editorial meeting at the Beeb perhaps went: “Are there any, like, think tanks that do things with, like, towns?” “You mean like the Centre For Cities but for towns?” “Yeah. God, this is hard. There’s this thing called the Centre For Towns but THEY’RE NOT IN LONDON.” “F*** it, go with Centre For Cities, they’re mates.”
Meanwhile, Diary is left here thinking, will nobody think of the villages?
Can you spell that for us?
JLL has snapped up a German digital media guru to run its Central Europe branch. Diary was puzzled to hear about the move, given sales and marketing types don’t typically run property agency bureaus or end up on their EMEA strategy boards.
We were even more flummoxed by Sabine Eckhardt’s former place of work. Described as a “major European media company”, the firm’s name could instead be the password for an MI5 email account: ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE does not easily roll off the tongue.
Its supposedly snappier abbreviation, P7S1, doesn’t conjure up scenes of a glamorous advertising exec lifestyle either – more a form to pick up at the post office. Maybe branding works differently in Germany?
Sutherland solves HS2
Rory Sutherland, vice chairman at advertising agency Ogilvy UK, offered the audience at the British Council for Offices dinner plenty of sage advice this week. One nugget of wisdom stood out as the pros and cons of the HS2 trainline continue to be bounced back and forth.
Sutherland reminded the crowd of a suggestion he once made on how to improve a trip on the Eurostar in a more efficient way than spending £6bn to shave 50 minutes off the journey length. “I said you could take about 0.1% of that budget and put Wi-Fi on the trains,” he recounted.
“Then people wouldn’t notice how long the journey was. Or better still, you could take just £1bn out of your budget, hire all the world’s top male and female supermodels, get them to walk up and down the train, handing out free Château Pétrus to all the passengers, and people would ask for the train to be slowed down.”
Someone get Oakervee on the phone; we have some new suggestions for his HS2 report.
Tanks for the warning
Meanwhile, at Knight Frank, minds are on septic tanks. Tom Barrow, partner in rural valuation and advisory, notes the passing of an important 1 January 2020 deadline for compliance with rules introduced in 2015 – and warns that “homeowners are facing legal action by the Environment Agency if their property has a septic tank which drains to a watercourse”.
Apparently, anyone in that unfortunate position has three options: 1. Install a drainage field (also known as an infiltration system). 2. Replace the septic tank with a small sewage treatment plant. 3. Connect to a mains sewer, if feasible.
Nigel Mitchell, regional partner, adds that this “poses potentially significant repercussions for the property market”, adding that “now is the time to do something” because having improper systems in place could cause sales to fall through.
If you’re waiting for Diary to sully this important public service announcement with talk of conveyancing blockages or other toilet humour, you must be potty.
Slack Mirror, episode three
The story concludes:
“It is six months later. Beer is injected hourly into all employees on a mandatory basis. Several workers have quit or been fired but cannot find their way out of the #office. Sophie from accounts has brought in an owl. The owl has stolen my phone and my shoes. The owl is made head of engagement. Weeks go by. I am tied to a chair. A barista appears. Another barista appears. A third barista appears. Ed Sheeran plays. Where am I? What’s my password? Where are my shoes? Who are these people? My teeth hurt. Was that an owl?”
