Diary: Guess who’s back, back again…

Diary’s back, tell a friend! Yes, after a couple of years missing in (in)action, Diary was happily found during the recent move, gathering cobwebs in a forgotten cupboard alongside the long lost letters of Estates Gazette. Now, just like the name on the front cover, we’ve been dusted off and, as part of our bigger, new-look magazine, we have reclaimed our rightful place as your favourite final page. Once again, we’ll be here each week to offer a quirky take on the merry world of real estate, and take a much-needed walk on the lighter side of a gloomy world. Not that wry sideways glances are quite as easy as they used to be while our neck is still so stiff… All hands on decks Ever-introverted Diary is bracing itself to make our UKREiiF debut this year, with our dance card quickly filling up already. We’re not sure we’ll have the staying power for an after-party, but for those attendees with more energy, the Regeneration Brainery DJ Battle 2025 is likely to be the highlight of their few days in Leeds. The event on 21 May will see the UK’s metro mayors, including Andy Burnham and other special guests, press play on the decks at no less a venue than the O2 Academy Leeds. Every £20 ticket purchased will go towards Regeneration Brainery’s work helping their young “Brainees” from under-represented backgrounds to gain hands-on experience in the property industry. But will Estates Gazette editor Tim Burke rise to the challenge of taking part? Let him know on LinkedIn if you want to see him strut his stuff – and Diary might just have to go along if he does… Purchase your ticket here>> https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/event/3E00626DC34920CF Meet the team: Tim Burke, editor How do you describe your job to people you meet? If it’s someone who doesn’t know much about real estate, I tell them I’m a property journalist. Then I spend the next five minutes explaining that this doesn’t mean I can advise them on what’s going to happen to house prices or whether they should be thinking about remortgaging. If it’s someone more familiar with Estates Gazette, it’s easier – I tell them I lead the best team in the business and help them tell the best stories. What did you want to be when you were 15? I always wanted to be a journalist. When I was a kid I would make little newspapers about stuff happening at school, pretend magazines about me and my pals. I always wanted to take what I saw around me and turn it into a story. I’m not saying business and finance would have been my preferred topics back then, but the basic goal was there… People who know you on social media will be aware of your interest in hip-hop – if you could only listen to five CDs for the rest of your life, what would you pick? This is the kind of question I’ll obsess over, so let’s just go with gut feeling and not overthink it. Rhythm-al-Ism by DJ Quik; Midnight Marauders by A Tribe Called Quest; ATLiens by OutKast; Uncle Sam’s Curse by Above The Law; and, because we should have something non-hip-hop here, Hourglass by James Taylor. You like your trainers too: show us your favourite kicks. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ones are too obvious a pick. At the moment I’m obsessed with these, a so-called “hyperlocal” design by Nike marked with the Greenwich meridian line. I’m in south London, a stone’s throw from Greenwich, and had a pair of these on my eBay hit list for ages. What is something the world doesn’t know about Tim Burke? As someone who was recently told “You’ve somehow got even more exhausting on LinkedIn”, I’m not sure there’s anything about me, my hopes, fears, loves or hates that I haven’t already told the world (or my little corner of it) about ad nauseum. But as soon as I think of something, I’ll tag you in a post. Main image © Adobe StockTim Burke image © Colin Miller