BBC Three's housing crisis

Here is what happened, but didn’t actually happen, in the BBC Three offices last week.

“This housing stuff is really trending right now, Felix,” says content manager Jake, stroking his beard. “We need a hot take. Keep it light though yeah? And relevant. Plenty of jokes.”

Felix is 37. He had to pretend to be good at social media stuff to survive the last round of redundancies at the Beeb. He doesn’t really know what a hot take is.

 Thinking back to the training day on ‘listicles’, he writes “how to conquer the housing crisis” on his tax-payer funded Mac Book. He quickly Googles the Housing White Paper. God it’s long. And dense. But the press release says the government has “committed to affordable housing” so he puts that in. Affordable means cheap right? Dirt cheap. That’s what he calls it.

 In the article, he uses the word “crib” because they said that on that MTV thing he’s nephew watched six years ago. He suggests they could “Netflix and Chill” to save cash, because that just means relaxing by yourself with a box set. He’s still young, and he spends quite of a lot of money on single malt whiskey. Other young people could save money by cutting down on that. Didn’t his mate Dave sublet his couch to a student once? He remembers a reference in The Guardian to “flatpack homes”. Great idea he thinks, flatpacks are easy. And fun. He puts it all in.

 Of course, Felix doesn’t exist.

But unfortunately the article actually does.

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New Charter Group must have been happy when Jeremy Corbyn came to visit, probably because they mixed him up with neighbouring chief executive Matthew Harrison (see Closed Circuit passim). Anyway, after a day spent hearing the sector’s message, Mr Corbyn spoiled the party by confusing them with the local council.

“A Labour Council supporting housebuilding the community so desperately needs,” he said, adding that he “met with staff and spoke with them about importance of building council homes”.

“Of course we are a housing association,” New Charter politely responded. Great work, Jezza.

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And finally, thank you to consultant Gerry McNamee, who tweeted a picture of his terrier and a devoured copy of last week’s Inside Housing. We hope this week’s is equally tasty.