April 2013
Many a colourful character has graced the world of social housing, leaving a legacy far more powerful than simple bricks and mortar. Some giants still walk the halls of power today, living legends on a path towards greatness. But one of the six profiles on this page is entirely made up. Your mission, should you choose to accept of course, is to find out who isn’t real.
March 2013
This year will witness some key anniversaries. Entertainer Danny Kaye was born 100 years ago, while shorthand pioneer Sir Isaac Pitman would have been a very long 200 had his squiggly bits survived (he died in 1897 but sadly nobody could read his will). So what has the social housing sector to celebrate in the year 2013 ADO (Anno David Orr)? As per usual, one of the following six facts is far from true.
February 2013
HAWTTMFOF! We’re sure you worked it out, but that’s an acronym for ‘Hello and welcome to this month’s Fact or Fiction’. Like most of the busy modern world, the housing sector loves to shorten stuff (especially tenancies). However some of its time-saving phrases (TSPs) can be a little baffling. So will the experts out there be able to SOTBA (sniff out the bogus acronym) among the FTAR (five that are real)?
January 2013
If you want to know what ministers are planning, it might be best to consult the planning minister, who presently takes the form of Nick Boles. The 49-year-old made headlines late last year when he shared some ‘controversial’ thoughts on where Britain should be building its future homes. But what do we really know of the man? Here are ‘six’ facts but which one has been constructed without consent?
December 2012
Like many years before it, 2012 has been a 52-week affair. And for every single one, it seemed, the Government had a new housing announcement to make – no matter how inconsequential. To save your precious time, we have distilled the housing year into six pivotal moments. Your job is to work out which one is a complete fabrication.
November 2012
The world of housing might be populated by some strange characters, such as Nick Boles, but sometimes the houses themselves are the strangest things of all. But which of the following six preposterous properties are for real and which one is built on sand?
October 2012
Grant Shapps is no more. Well, he still exists but not as housing minister. He of a thousand internet aliases was shuffled out of the role last month and replaced by the rather less promotion hungry Mark Prisk. To mark Mark’s appointment, we profile six former housing ministers, but which one is less believable than a Shapps stat?
September 2012
Ripping off the taxpayer by fraudulently claiming money to help with housing costs is a popular career move in modern Britain and has been used by right-wing politicians to stigmatise benefit claimants. Here is a rundown of some of the worst culprits but which is the big swindle?
August 2012
Last month, the tenants of London’s Fred Wigg Tower failed in their legal bid to stop the MoD putting missiles on their roof to protect the Olympics from imagined aerial atrocities It’s not the only time that the Olympics and housing have crossed paths. But which of the following seven tales are fact, and which one is the false start?
July 2012
Grant Shapps recently delighted Beatles devotees by announcing – in a blizzard of punnery – the preservation of the council house that Ringo Starr grew up in. It’s not known if the housing minister has ever set foot inside a council house let alone lived in one, but here are six MPs who certainly have. As always it’s your job to guess the odd one out.
