Numbers game

Eyes down for the latest game to sweep the web - Grant Shapps bingo.

Members of social networking site Twitter have developed the new version of the popular game, replacing numbers with the housing minister’s most over-used phrases.

Favourites so far include ‘the TSA is toast’, ‘self-build for all’, ‘nation of home builders’ and Closed Circuit’s personal favourite, ‘I will be speaking on Radio Somewhere-in-the-Sticks in five minutes’.

As one tweet pointed out, if a landlord wins, they are guaranteed a full house.

A furniture recycling team in Swindon received an unexpected endorsement from Sir Cliff Richard last week after they tried to auction some fan memorabilia which had been donated to their project.

The team - from housing association Home Group - contacted a local radio station seeking help promoting the sale.

Just hours later the ageing crooner himself was on air to praise the project after the enterprising broadcasters called him up.

Crying, talking, sleeping, walking living doll anyone?

News that David Cameron’s back garden was to host a makeshift campsite last weekend had Closed Circuit all excited.

Could this be UK housing campaigners copying the thousands of young people sleeping in tents across Israel’s streets in protest at the lack of affordable homes?

The Financial Times, no less, reckons their efforts have prompted premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘biggest domestic crisis since taking office’. And here was Britain’s very own housing protest, bringing their demands for cheaper housing straight to the prime minister’s backyard.

Alas, ‘twas not so. Unless, of course, Closed Circuit has missed something and 10 Downing Street’s fearless housing campaigners are masquerading as 15 small boys and girls from the Broomwood Beaver Colony in south London.

Send your juicy housing gossip to closedcircuit@insidehousing.co.uk