Diary: party pooped

MIPIM partygoers despair! The long-lingering rumours have proved true. For those eagerly awaiting their invite to the blockbuster highlight of the Cannes week, Diary must press a dagger to your heart and deliver the sad news: there will be no Tristan party this year. The formerly annual themed extravaganza has been made a bi-annual event, so there will be no superheroes or cabaret dancers cavorting down La Croisette this time around. “As you can appreciate, it’s a very significant production and we want to make sure we continue to make it a premium ‘meeting place event’ for years to come,” a Tristan spokesman said. So that throws down the gauntlet. Who will rise to the challenge and throw the best party of MIPIM 2018? And, more importantly, who will be able to lure Tristan’s leader Ric Lewis to their bash on the Wednesday night? Not that Cambridge… It is imperative to make a good impression the first week on a new job. Diligence, efficiency, organisation and time management are key. One new starter put all of these to use while fresh into his new role. One Monday they got an e-mail from the chief executive with the subject header: “Mandatory compliance training in Cambridge tomorrow at 10am – all to attend please.” Eager to please, they dutifully hopped on an early train the next morning. They rang on arrival to find out where in the city the meeting was, only to be met by howls of laughter down the phone. Cambridge, it transpires, is the name of the office boardroom. Luckily, the expense department took pity on them. We’re on our way to where? Diary, like many others, we are sure, was thrilled by the chance to win a year rent-free in a “chic, modern” apartment, as advertised in Time Out, in a competition with Tipi. Should we win, however, we were – again, like many others – slightly confused as to where exactly we would be living. The article made no mention of where this rental development is located, save for the tantalising hint that it is just 12 minutes from central London. For those thinking this may be some kind of oversight, we would direct their attention to advertising for said development that has adorned London’s Tubes for the past six months, also extolling the benefits of Tipi, but neglecting to mention where it is. For those dying to know, Tipi is the rental arm of Quintain’s build-to-rent scheme in… Wembley. D-I-S-C-Oh! What’s not to love about a little bit of 90s club vibe when you pop to the loo? That’s what Friedrich Ludewig, director of architectural firm Acme, reckons anyway. He has transformed the toilet in his Old Street offices into what must be one of London’s smallest dance venues. “The staff aren’t sure,” he said with a bemused shrug as he gave EG the (very quick) tour. “They say they can’t see to wash their hands or do their make-up in here with all the flashing lights. I think I’ll keep it a while longer. I’m sure they’ll get used to it.” Not even the most vehement of staff complaints can come between a man and his loo. Loo-nacy Speaking of toilets, Diary is disturbed to hear “his and hers” loos are the latest trend to have made it to the UK from Hollywood. No, not unisex office facilities – actual, side-by-side toilets in home bathrooms. According to Direct Line Insurance, there has been a 12% increase in interest in “dual toilets” in the past year. Direct Line’s focus is on the additional flooding risks caused by having twice as many pipes, but that’s not the biggest worry. They can go dual in Tinseltown but on this side of the pond, it is an area in which one should definitely fly solo. Anything else just isn’t British. Putting the super in Super Bowl [caption id="attachment_905015" align="aligncenter" width="847"] US Bank Stadium[/caption] Diary can’t confess to being any kind of expert on American football – it all seems a little too stop-and-start compared to the real thing. But for those with a property interest, next weekend’s Super Bowl may be more appealing than most, as it is taking place in the HKS-designed US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, which claimed the prize for the best completed sport building at the World Architecture Festival last November. Notable for its transparent ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, but then you knew that) roof, the stadium has been described as a “conservatory on steroids”. Fingers crossed it’s the only one involved that is. To send feedback, e-mail jess.harrold@egi.co.uk or tweet @jessharrold or @estatesgazette