Building the future, part one
It seems like only yesterday our little niece was obsessed with Minecraft. She’s 18 now, and has long moved on to other interests, including tattoos.
But the video game construction phenomenon continues to exert a powerful grip over the nation’s youth, so small wonder that considerable excitement greeted London mayor Sadiq Khan’s announcement that he is working with entities including Minecraft Education on a design challenge aimed at inspiring “young Londoners to develop an interest in designing beautiful, affordable and sustainable places to live, work and visit”.
Primary school children will have the opportunity to explore a custom-built Minecraft world of Croydon town centre (cue “second prize being the opportunity to explore actual Croydon town centre” joke, but it doesn’t quite work) and build their solutions block-by-block in Minecraft. But older students (whether secondary, college or university) can grapple with a wider challenge to design “future London”. They aren’t limited to Minecraft – they can even build a physical model.
Find out more (from a pleasingly block-headed version of the mayor) here. Hopefully, the capital will be in safe hands.
Building the future, part two
Meanwhile, if (like Diary) your tastes run a little more traditional than Minecraft – and if your younglings maybe aren’t quite up to the challenge of reimagining Croydon – why not set them to work on a smaller scale in a more hands-on medium? To celebrate National Lego Day (28 January), the good folks at MyJobQuote are “calling out to all future builders, architects, engineers, and inventors” to take part in a national competition. According to the trader comparison site: “We want to see your best castle, landmark, tower or even new, fantastical construction – your imagination is the limit!” Though, by your, it means your kids. The competition is open to those aged 16 and under and, despite the inspiration for the competition, entrants aren’t limited to Lego – acceptable materials include “wooden blocks, K’Nex, foam blocks, magnetic tiles, or anything else that children can easily build with”. Though what they will win is £200 of actual Lego. And, while we know you’ll be champing at the bit to get creative along with them, we should warn you: “All submissions should be built solely by the child entering the competition, without any help from parents, guardians or other adults.” Nepo-babies not allowed. Find the details at myjobquote.co.uk, and the deadline is 13 February – so get your kids building.
Greetings, pop-planners
Kudos to planning barrister Jonathan Easton for providing exactly the social media content we like to see. He took to Twitter (@jonnye47) to count down songs that would need planning permission – and to ask his followers for their own suggestions. Here are Diary’s pick of the planning pops, with additional credit to other posters where it is due:
- The Stone Roses – Ten Storey Love Song
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Our House (“If a new-build or conversion outside the general permitted development order”)
- Vampire Weekend – Mansard Roof
- Starship – We Built This City (on Rock and Roll) (“Suspect groundworks” –
@Cockle43) - Blur – Country House (“Especially if it was a very big house in the country. They’d need to grapple with NPPF, para. 80. On the other hand, a Wonderwall might be PD (Schedule 2, Part 2, class A)”)
- The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations (“Not without an Environmental Impact Assessment” – @legallylondon)
- Anything by Shed Seven (@bestlaidplan)
Got your own? Be sure to let Diary know.
HeselTunes
Eager listeners to EG’s audio output will be in for a treat this week. We had a chance to chat to Lord Heseltine, so we’ve recorded it and slung it out as a podcast. His conversation is often punctuated by a warm bark of laughter, especially when asked if he is planning a comeback. “At 90 years of age?” he bellows, incredulously. Still, Diary can’t think of many in the industry who would be sorry to see Tarzan swinging back into action. Not that he was universally popular back in the day. While he talks warmly of his time regenerating Liverpool – and in the end the city welcomed him with open arms – Diary is pretty sure it remembers a certain incident with an egg…
The one with the dragged-out merger
“Surely they must have merged by now?!” was the cry from anyone seeing the trading updates from Capco and Shaftesbury this week. The news from the West End sweethearts was mixed – rents up, footfall up, confidence up, but valuations very down, including Capco’s stake in its betrothed, which has almost halved in value since they first announced their engagement last May. However, in spite of all this turbulence, we still have to wait until 22 February before the Competition and Markets Authority gives its blessing – and even that is just the deadline for the Phase 1 decision. Capco said the marriage – sorry, the merger – should still take place sometime in Q1. But at this rate the whole thing is becoming less of a whirlwind romance and more like Ross and Rachel in the later seasons of Friends – we know they are going to get together at the end, so can they please just be allowed to get on with it?
Share your tales from the quirky side of the property industry by e-mailing diary@eg.co.uk
