Diary: Hold the celebrations

This week’s planning application meeting at City of Westminster Council was a tough one for British Land, with criticisms coming thick and fast over the company’s proposed 21-storey tower at 5 Kingdom Street in Paddington. But Little Venice ward councillor Matthew Green lightened the mood somewhat when he listed his objections to the project’s impact on the skyline. “In terms of the shape, my geometry lets me down,” he confessed, “I don’t know whether it’s a frustum or a trapezoid. But over Christmas I realised… what the proposed building reminded me of. It’s a box of Celebrations. And this is not a building to celebrate.” Green even had a box of the chocolates to illustrate his point, although planning committee chairman Robert Rigby was quick to chastise him: “You’re not actually allowed to bring any support props.” Despite that transgression, Green will have been happy to see the scheme rejected. He no doubt sees the decision-makers as Heroes, and perhaps should send them Roses. Ultimately, they reasoned the building wouldn’t help to make a Quality Street. Slack Mirror, episode one As many of us returned to our hot desks, agile workplaces and serviced offices this week, the Financial Times offered a bleak take on modern employment in an article headlined “The dark side of hip office design”. It quoted Christopher Walsh, senior researcher at the New Zealand personal finance start-up MoneyHub, on his experiences at a London WeWork office last summer: “There were so many distractions dangled in front of you. The barista was in the middle of all the hot desks and the lines were just constant. On Fridays people would bring in their kids, so you would be sitting at a hot desk and beside you would be a toddler with a video game.” It may have been the last knockings of festive spirit in his system, but it inspired one of our colleagues to gaze a little further down the road to see where it’s all heading – and we saw the opportunity for this page’s first ever serialised fiction (or is it?). After all, you can’t spell “dystopian” without (most of the letters of) Diary. We present the start of Slack Mirror, a tale in three parts: “The year is 2040. I walk into work. Someone throws a can of beer at my head and I fall clumsily into an adjacent ballpond. I scramble to escape only to have coffee jet-hosed into my gasping mouth. My desk is a beanbag shared with a six-year-old. Ed Sheeran plays…” Suckers for a cute animal photo Diary has featured the rise of dogs and cats (and more) in flats before – we’re a sucker for a cute animal photo, after all. So we were glad to receive news of a “new wave of pet-friendly rentals coming onto the market” in the wake of housing secretary Robert Jenrick unveiling plans to overhaul the tenancy agreement to allow renters to keep well-behaved pets in their homes. However, we were somewhat perplexed that the press release trumpeting a “new breed of professional, institutionally backed landlords like Grainger, LaSalle and Moda Living building pet-friendly rentals” was accompanied by access to 10 photos – only one of which featured a furry friend! Still, that’s all we need. But what does this pooch think of its new home at Grainger’s Clippers Quay in Salford, Greater Manchester? Tweet us your captions @estatesgazette #Diary. Best one will win… the admiration of your peers. The chicken-eating bishops Spare a thought for the chicken-eating bishops of Bath and Wells. We live in an age of unparalleled access to property data. As regular users of Radius Data Exchange will know, this puts a wealth of information at your fingertips, on which no shortage of important decisions can be based. Or you could just use it all to work out how long it would take all of the diocesan bishops of the Church of England to walk from their cathedrals to the nearest Nando’s. That’s what clergyman Fergus Butler-Gallie did, and it got him thousands of likes and retweets on Twitter. Spare a thought for the bishops of Bath and Wells and Truro, who each face a five-hour-plus walk for a cheeky Nando’s. And worse still, they can only move diagonally. Have you, like me, ever wondered how long it would take the Diocesan Bishops of the Church of England to walk from their cathedrals to a Nando’s if they were peckish? Wonder no more. pic.twitter.com/Wtb6MIXaku — Fergus Butler-Gallie (@_F_B_G_) January 6, 2020 Happy birthday to SEGRO SEGRO, which began life as the Slough Trading Company back in 1920, has reached its centenary – and sure knows how to celebrate. It has compiled its very own listicle: “Things you only know if you’re from Slough.” Thunderbirds was, apparently, created by puppeteer Gerry Anderson on the Slough Trading Estate, which is also the home of the Mars bar and where the iconic Ford DT40 was designed. Slough is the birthplace of snooker, the zebra crossing and wheelie bins. Jimmy Carr and Ulrika Jonsson both grew up there and, not only did Ricky Gervais set The Office there, his character David Brent also recorded a “great song” about Slough (SEGRO’s words). Diary is here both to educate and (chilled out) entertain.