Thursday 24 May 2012

London buildings: the new cows?

Yesterday: Writer Will Self is lucky to be alive after the roof of his £1 million house collapsed* while he was inside with his children.

The journalist and author led his two sons to safety after the roof came down on his and four of his neighbours' homes in Stockwell, south London, last night. The freak incident is being blamed on yesterday's sudden heatwave, when temperatures leaped almost 10 degrees in less than 24 hours.


* The roof did no such thing, it was the fancy stonework along the front of the rood which fell down, but I can imagine it would be pretty frightening.

Also yesterday: A woman suffered serious burns and two others were injured when a pavement exploded under their feet in a freak accident in a London street.

One of the women, aged 55, suffered 20 per cent burns in the blast in Edgware Road and was said to have suffered “life-changing” injuries. The two other women were also burned in the blast. All three were taken to hospital.


Today: A glass roof panel has cracked in the atrium at Portcullis House - a £235m annexe to the House of Commons in Westminster.

Therese Coffee, Conservative MP for Suffolk Coastal, tweeted: "Great deal of excitement in Portcullis Atrium as a roof panel shatters." Security guards have cleared the area beneath the panel in case it comes down.

5 comments:

James Higham said...

You could become the London Building blog of choice.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, the cow attacks are getting a little bit repetitive, but I'm not sure if we are going to see a steady stream of attacks by buildings and pavements in London in future to keep me going with raw material.

Lola said...

I am so pleased that his house fell on Will SElf. Clearly it felt it had an opportunity to silence the smug git. In any event it's not a "£1m pound house" at all. It's a fairly crappily built at most £200,000 house on a £1.8M plot. So what does he expect if he buys a crappy house?

Bayard said...

It's all caused by Global Warming, I tell you!

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, he's annoying, but not to the extent that I want him dead. But spot on about the value of his £0.8m plot.

B, well obviously, stands to reason.