Recently in Fun Category

Gok-tastic theme to this year's BRENDA awards

By Lisa Pilkington on May 9, 2013 8:30 AM | No TrackBacks

Move over Gok Wan, the BRENDA awards are back and they're doing it in style! Yes, the fashion guru and TV presenter's How to Look Good Naked Channel 4 show has been the inspiration for this year's ever-popular BRENDA (Birmingham Real Estate Novel Development) Awards.

How to look good naked is arguably a tad too revealing a subject to cover in front of 500 property die-hards at the awards (held on 24th May), so for those attending, do please feel free to keep your clothes on. The tweaked theme is How to Look Good in Property (see what they did there?).

With a little bit of Gok-inspired magic, victims, er...I mean willing participants, will be transformed from outdated, frightful, frumps (bear with...) into perfect Prada princes and princesses. It's all about the confidence as the Gokmeister (pictured right as a coveted BRENDA gnome award) would say.

I'm reliably informed that filming has been going well in glamorous locations such as St Paul's Square in the historic Jewellery Quarter and the achingly fashionable fashion theatre within the Mailbox.

Participants have been filmed in uber fashionable outfits - kindly on loan by upmarket retailer Harvey Nichols - by designers including Christian Louboutin (how absolutely fabulous), Gucci and Alexander McQueen.

Chief judge and organiser of the event Jilly Cosgrove, says: "People of all shapes and sizes turned up to share how they would like to Look Good In Property and it wasn't all just about fashion!" Sounds interesting...

The annual tongue-in-cheek awards remain hugely popular with all tables sold out within 20 minutes of going on sale in March and last year's event raised over £25,000 for charity Property for Kids.

Estates Gazette is the media sponsor for the event so tune in on the day for live Tweets and even a picture or two from me. The EG will publish further pics and the winners details in a well-groomed forthcoming edition of the magazine.

Europe's largest living wall & 23 tonnes of rice - Hines & Ballymore launch Two Snowhill

By Lisa Pilkington on April 9, 2013 12:15 PM | No TrackBacks

Ever wondered what the largest 'living' wall in Europe looks like? Well, wonder no more...

Two days ahead of the official launch of the 303,000 sq ft Two Snowhill office block in Birmingham, Hines and Ballymore have unveiled the 220 metre long, seven metre high partition which includes 604 sq m of plants.

Work to create the giant wall started early last year with the construction of the huge steel frame alongside the Metro viaduct wall next to Snowhill Station. This was followed by the installation of the panels containing the thousands of plants which were pre-grown in purpose built panels in a nursery in Holland.

"Programmable uplighters bring the wall to life at night and create constantly changing patterns and the illusion of depth and movement," says Hines and Ballymore - should be interesting!

I look forward to seeing what patterns and movement are in the 'living' wall when I attend the launch on Thursday night. This should also prove a rather unique experience for another reason, the Brum-based theatre company Stan's Café will be presenting its Of All The People in All The World representation of the world's people, politics, history & current affairs via the medium of 23 tonnes of rice!

Well, if the canapés run out it's always good to have a contingency plan.

The building will be open to the public for ten days, from Friday 12th - Sunday 21st April, when it will host a special 10th anniversary version of Stan's Café's award-winning 'Of All The People In All The World' exhibition. The show is free to attend and will be held on the sixth floor of the building.

Brum's Alternative MIPIM is a hoot(er)

By Lisa Pilkington on March 15, 2013 4:32 PM | No TrackBacks

Birmingham's 'Alternative' MIPIM 'do' held on Wednesday this week managed to combine two timely high profile events - MIPIM, naturally, and tonight's charity gag-fest Comic Relief.

Tables in Andersons Bar & Grill in the city's Jewellery Quarter were adorned with red noses for all guests to wear and talk on the day centred around MIPIM and most importantly market sentiment.

Sentiment out in Cannes was a tad more optimistic this year and I have to say that this was also reflected by the 100 property folk that attended the French-themed lunch too.

Enquiries are up, and people are starting to seriously look to the regions again to take advantage of the price differential when striking deals. Yes, deals are of course still hard to pin down and money remains tight, but more occupiers are looking at their options now than have been in years and people feel a market recovery, however fragile at this stage, is not as distant a dream as it was this time last year.

One well known Brummie resi developer told me that he'd had the best January- March sales this year, than in the last five years. Generally, the mood does feel lighter but it is cautious optimism that is buoying people. Let's not get ahead of ourselves...

The Alternative MIPIM event is a great idea. This was its fourth year. Borne out the market downturn, those who had usually gone to MIPIM still wanted that valuable networking opportunity. And doing that over moules marinieres, bourgignon (a slightly odd twist on this latter dish this year using fish instead of beef) and classic French cheeses all washed down with a bottle or five of Sauvignon and/or Merlot makes it all the more pleasant.

A big thank you must go to Mike Hargreaves of Coltham Developments, Eddie Morse of EM Consultants and Jilly Cosgrove of Barques Design for setting up the event. The icing on the tarte tatin was the £758 raised for Comic Relief on the day.

No doubt, seeds of deals will have been sown here, as well as over in Cannes, which after all, is what it's all about...

(Picture caption: Adrian Willet, CBRE; Tim Andrews, Hollywood Monster; Martin Guest, CBRE; John Nolan, Nolan Associates; Scott Rutherford, Cushman & Wakefield; Ashley Hancox, CBRE)

The Stig, Formula 1 & fake breasts - just another Midlands Property Quiz...

By Lisa Pilkington on February 15, 2013 3:05 PM | No TrackBacks

Birmingham pulled out all the stops this year as it revved up for the annual Midlands Property Quiz held at Aston Villa FC last Thursday night.

With a Monte Carlo theme, the 500 guests were treated to two Williams Formula One racing cars welcoming them to the venue and even Top Gear's The Stig made an appearance on the night.

Host with the most GBR Phoenix Beard's John Griffiths was escorted on to the stage by The Stig and some lovely promo girls. Not used to being so closely watched whilst in action, Griffiths says "It was a bit off putting actually. The Stig took to standing there staring at me for the first half of the proceedings with his arms crossed."

It was thanks to the event's chair, well known property figure Neil Edginton, who lead from the front by getting his celeb mates on board - including The Stig, The F1 cars and Heart FM DJ Ed James who helped with the hosting duties.

One of the most popular rounds was the James Bond gadget game, where each of the 47 tables were given a bag of scraps including tin foil, plastic cups and all sorts of crafting paraphernalia. Each team had to create a gadget for James Bond. Needless, to say there was much hilarity when teams unveiled their gadgets which ranged from large robots to detachable fake breasts! Ahem.... However, the Estates Gazette's "super gun" won the day.

Ultimately it was Santander that pulled into first position to win the entire quiz with Emms Gilmore Libberson in the runners up position and previous winner Wragge &Co came in third. Joint wooden spoon winners were DTZ and Nikal. Apparently DTZ's David Tonks took advantage of a free lift and left the building before he could claim the prize!

A whopping 34,000 was raised on the night - double last year's total - for the Birmingham Children's Hospital and LionHeart. EG was media sponsor for the event and other main sponsors were Santander, Faithful & Gould and Ellis Clowes.

A palpable sense of dare I say, optimism (there I said it!) filled the air on the night, which was reflected in the final sing-a-long finale. Robbie Williams' Angels was elbowed to make way for The Killer's Mr Brightside. Surely, one of the best barometers for testing market sentiment in any year..?

To see more photo's from the night click on the link below:

Nottingham agents Xmas lunch is no turkey

By Lisa Pilkington on December 18, 2012 3:00 PM | No TrackBacks

Inflatable horse races a bucking Dolly the Sheep ride and a room full of property agents - yes, the annual Nottingham Surveyors Christmas Lunch was once again the highlight of the pre-Christmas festivities in the East Midlands' capital.

This year it was the turn of Savills (see team in mocked up pic above) to host the event, held at the famous Trent Bridge cricket ground. Savills decided to go back to basics with a 'landed gentry and country folk' theme this year.

Towards the end of the traditional turkey lunch, the tongue-in-cheek awards took place which saw DTZ's Gemma Eyre win the Jeremy Clarkson Award for failing spectacularly to turn up to a viewing, while Jess Hand of FHP won the 'Art of Communication' Award when she inadvertently finished a call with a prospective client by saying "bye, love you." The client obviously got a bit more than he bargained for there!

A 'morning after the night before' email sent by HEB's Jon Emmerson to a contact was read out which made him a hot contender for the 'Men behaving Badly Award.' I shall spare Jon's blushes but let's just say it involved alcohol, complete memory failure, tears and an abortive taxi journey. The award ended up going to Jones Lang LaSalle's Matt Robertson who accidentally got locked out of his room in a London hotel in just his underwear - ooh er!

As the sound of The Wurzell's hit I've got a Brand New Combine Harvester pervaded the room, it was time for me to depart. Leaving behind teams of agents battling it out on Dolly - the bucking sheep - and talk turning to chaps (you know who you are!) removing certain items of clothing to raise extra money for charity I think I left just at the right time.

The pressure is on for next year's host DTZ to raise the bar even further. Tally Ho!

Savills lacking in Christmas spirit?

By Lisa Pilkington on December 12, 2012 12:29 PM | No TrackBacks

Oh dear. It appears Savills has had a sense of humour failure today after demanding that a hilarious clip of its Birmingham team being filmed dressed up in turkey and Santa suits be pulled from YouTube.

Savills was filmed while attending Cube Real Estate's highly popular and innovative 3D Augmented Reality event at Cube RE's 22 Gas Street scheme in the city yesterday afternoon. I blogged about it [here] and just as it was about to go viral Savills pulled the plug.

As many of you haven't yet had the chance to savour this audio visual delight, I thought good old fashioned people power might get the 'bah humbugs' at Savills to change their minds?

Fill in this quick survey and be sure to pass it on to all your friends.

Photo courtesy of banjobelknap via Flickr.com

First Look: Savills' Go Gangnam style in Brum

By Lisa Pilkington on December 11, 2012 3:22 PM | No TrackBacks

While most of us are hard at work in the office this afternoon, it appears that they're having a jolly good old time at Cube Real Estate's 3D Augmented Reality 'do.'

Held at Cube RE's recently renovated 22 Gas Street office scheme in Birmingham, teams of up to four people are taking part (ideally wearing fancy dress) to create their own animated Christmas message using the latest in 3D Augmented Reality.

Co-organiser and joint letting agent (with Drivers Jonas Deloitte) John Griffiths of GBR Phoenix Beard sent over this hilarious clip of the Savills team looking right turkeys whilst being filmed doing a Christmas Gangnam Style dance in front of a green screen. A taste of things to come chaps..?

Now this is the first time I've heard of such an event and I think it's a great idea. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the end results of these Christmas cards too!

Best team 3D message wins a meal and drinks at the Pickled Piglet which opens at Cube RE's 35 Gas Street in early 2013. Oink Oink...

Richardson's knockout birthday bash

By Lisa Pilkington on November 30, 2012 7:30 AM | No TrackBacks

In these tough economic times even developers are cutting back. So when Lee Richardson (of the eponymous Midlands property group) and wife Neive held a joint fortieth birthday party last weekend they invited just a couple of hundred of their closest friends.

I was among this select group of young(ish) property turks (no other journos present, natch) who headed for the shabby chic location of, er, Mayfair. No glitzy hotel mind, simply One Mayfair, the uber-trendy Georgian church turned venue. No large security detail either, just boxing legend Frank Bruno to give each guest a firm handshake and admonitory eyeballing.

The entertainment was similarly low-key. There was no question of flying over Bryan Adams and his 10-piece band from Canada a la the last Richardson event. Oh no, this time the private live gig was in the hands of R&B marvel Cee Lo Green, who, together with a five-piece band, had been ferried in from downtown. Downtown LA that is. Still, the epic dance music that followed was mixed by a local - celebrity DJ Seb Fontaine.

Yes, times are indeed tough. Know what I mean, 'Arry?

Click below to see pictures from the party...

Photos copyright of Kenneth James Photography

Brum Science Park birthday bash: Bouncing bright Brummies

By Lisa Pilkington on November 22, 2012 4:40 PM | No TrackBacks

Office agent about town GBR Phoenix Beard's John Griffiths got into the party spirit for last night's birthday bash at Birmingham Science Park.

Always one to look dapper, Griffiths went the extra fashion mile and really embraced the 'neon' theme of the development's 30th party birthday. Donning a sedate grey suit and pastel pink shirt, Griffiths teamed the sophisticated ensemble with an eye-wateringly bright lemon scarf and shocking (in more ways than one) long pink socks with love hearts over all over them. Taking me aside, he whispered while rolling up a trouser leg: "I've been wearing these socks in meetings all day you know." Well, I suppose it could catch on...?

The 250 guests enjoyed the delicious Indian snacks served up by tenant East End Foods and the myriad of coloured cocktails. Council leader Sir Albert Bore was on hand to deliver a rousing speech as was chief executive officer Dr David Hardman.

Griffiths not only led the way in the fashion stakes, later that evening he was seen bouncing down the main corridor aboard a giant space hopper shouting "who wants to race me?" Former Core Marketing PR darling Richard Peachey tried to keep up, but alas was no match for the bouncing Brummie.

Diary: Prezza Hits the Boos in Brum

By Lisa Pilkington on October 26, 2012 7:00 AM | No TrackBacks

Fist fighting, straight-talking former deputy prime minister John Prescott MP certainly made an impression as the guest speaker at the annual IPF Midlands' dinner in Birmingham last week.

Yes, old 'two Jags' himself must have wondered if "Things Can Only Get Better," after a disastrous 30 minute speech in front of the 600 assembled guests at the ICC.

The room was astounded as Prezza not only insulted fellow Labour (Brummie) MP Clare Short by calling her "a moving mountain of flesh and hair," he then went on to call former prime minister and fellow colleague Gordon Brown a "miserable bugger."

Not content with slating his former colleagues, Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull then decided to have a pop at the host city saying that Birmingham was a "terrible motorway city," and that it was "all about the cars." After receiving long and loud boos from the audience Prescott quickly backtracked saying the city had since seen major regeneration which gave it a heart.

Talking endlessly about his personal and Labour's perceived achievements while in government earned him a slow hand clap.

Prescott then desperately tried to turn the frosty atmosphere around by saying that "property could make a difference if bankers got off their backsides and lent some money." Oh dear, seeing as the room was full of bankers and Lloyds Bank was one of the sponsors - which had paid for his attendance - that comment didn't go down well either.

GBR Phoenix Beard director and outgoing IPF chairman Simon Robinson, who booked Prescott for the evening, was last seen looking rather sheepish in the ICC bar...

Image courtesy of The Lakelander via Fickr.com

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Recently in Fun Category

Gok-tastic theme to this year's BRENDA awards

Europe's largest living wall & 23 tonnes of rice - Hines & Ballymore launch Two Snowhill

Brum's Alternative MIPIM is a hoot(er)

The Stig, Formula 1 & fake breasts - just another Midlands Property Quiz...

Nottingham agents Xmas lunch is no turkey

Savills lacking in Christmas spirit?

First Look: Savills' Go Gangnam style in Brum

Richardson's knockout birthday bash

Brum Science Park birthday bash: Bouncing bright Brummies

Diary: Prezza Hits the Boos in Brum

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