I’m sometimes seduced by the idea of downsizing and living on the road, but I find modern mobile living solutions are inherently fugly (admittedly with some exceptions; design classic the Airstream caravan for one, and the Comfort Caravan below ain’t bad neither).

Now I think I’ve found the answer. Teeny, tiny houses made of wood! And I’m not talking about Munchkin housing developments, nor some weird doll’s house fetish group. Instead it’s the wonderfully compact world of the Small House Society and more specifically those houses made by the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.

Yes, they’re really on wheels – so you can tow ‘em. What a solution to the housing crisis! Mobile communities, moving from place to place. Towns on the move!

Cut to a 70s flashback (wibbly, wobbly, wibbly, wobbly) I’m taken back to the Sunday afternoons of my childhood watching The Oregon Trail TV series (showing my age), as the pioneers crossed America in wagon trains, braving marauding Indians and avoiding stampeding buffalo.

(And before the pedants swarm: I know they’re not called Indians any more, and that the buffalo were technically bison, but to me, back then it was all about the Cowboys, Indians and Buffalo.)

Lurching back into the present and these Tiny Houses: I like the ethos, the concept and the design: downsize, declutter and live the simple life on the road.

OK, so I’m not sure that Britain’s highways would present the same thrills and dangers as the Wild West. After all, Caravan Club members have been happily touring for years with nary a scalp lost, nor an awning trampled.

But in these futuristic-design-led days of sleek carbon fibre and aluminium pods, these little prairie houses on wheels bring a nostalgic tear to my eye for the good old days of a nice dovetail joint.

Ooops – sorry, I just had a Prince Charles retro moment. Right, where was I? Out with the old in with the new! Onwards! Give me Glass! Steel! Concrete! Carbon Fibre! Polystyrene!

Sacre bleu! There’s about to be another revolution in Paris, and what’s more, it’s taking place very close to the site of the original.

But the reason for the gathering unrest this time around has nothing to do with political or social inequality. 

Rather, in a lamentable sign of our times, it’s all about Reality TV. 

Residents of the elegant Marais district in Paris, mere streets away from Place de la Bastille, are aghast at plans to move filming of French TV series, Star Academy, to one of the historic townhouses that are a hallmark of the area.

The programme, which follows the same format as the UK’s short-lived Fame Academy, sees singing hopefuls undergo classes and rehearsals before performing to a live audience and then facing a public vote.

And, just like in our version, it’s previously been filmed in grand mansions on the outskirts of the city – presumably for very good reason. Potential soundproofing failures, for example.

So you have to feel sorry for the Marais Mob, who are concerned that their daily lives will be disrupted by the onslaught of TV crews and the cluster of caterwauling wannabees.

Still, there’s one group that are sure to be delighted by all this entente dis-cordiale: those long-standing critics of the reality genre who have been claiming for years that it’d all end in blood and tears. 

The new series of Star Academy is due to start on September 19: watch this space.

The cats I can live with. They sit on my windowsill, lick their chops, and give me the evil eye. When I’m not looking they slink across the living room, slide through the bedroom, and pour out the window into the back garden.

No problem.

But the slugs I can definitely do without.  And it looks like a biblical plague of the slithery blighters has descended on my flat.

They leave slimy sluggy tracks across the floor; they try (unsuccessfully, the fools!) to eat my shoes; they pop up in the most unexpected places and make me retch.

It’s a full-on X-rated slug fest round my gaff with delinquent gastropods waving their mocking antennae at me like football hooligans flicking the V.

I’ve had various suggestions. Put on a big pair of boots and play God. But that sounds messy. Scatter slug pellets and/or salt in all directions and watch ‘em writhe. But that’s a bit grim.

More humane folks have suggested saucers of beer.

Now I quite like the idea of pissed slugs breathing their last in a pool of Best Bitter (“yer ma bes mate, you are!”) but what if word gets round?  Free beer!

Cue mega bouts of binge drinking, slug lock-ins, very slow slimy fights over that cutie with the translucent skin …

What eats slugs, asks a friend? I check Wikipedia. Snakes, apparently. And toads. Hmmm. Big, ugly, hissy, and hoppy ain’t no solution to small, slow, slimy and harmless.

I’m at a loss, dear readers, so if any of you out there have the answer let me know.

In the meantime, I take comfort in the knowledge that I’m not alone … The Times reports today that the miserable swamp of a summer has been a bit of a paradise for Limax maximus and his cousins.

Wonder what the collective noun is for slugs?

The French – not usually a people who drop the ball when it comes to style – have not only recently dropped it but have also hoofed it out of the Stade de France

Specifically it’s their President’s fault. For Monsieur Sarkozy has expressed a desire to remodel Parisian suburbs after that apogee of English suburban design … Can you guess where?

Did the efficient grid systems of Milton Keynes pique his curiosity?

Nope.

Did the charming avenues of Welwyn Garden City tickle his French fancy?

Mais non!

No, it seems that Croydon has that certain je ne sais quoi that appeals to Le Pres. “Croydon, c’est incroyable!” he (probably never) exclaimed.

And so the Richard Rogers Partnership has been duly commissioned to create a suburban “hub”, with a modern, car-less (quel horreur!) transport system and so persuade swathes of inner-city Parisians to migrate outwards, away from their bohemian haunts and Baron Haussmann boulevards.

Yeah, right. And my grandma will win the Tour De France. Mind you, I do like the Pompidou, so maybe a bit of English will go down well in Paris.

It’s caravanning, Jim, but not as we know it.

Q: How do you turn the old-fashioned caravan into a trendy affair?

A: It’s easy! Simply:

1. Include the word Pod in the blurb
2. Manufacture it in a lurid funky colour
3. Give it a catchy name
4. Market it to ‘urbanites’

And, hey presto, welcome to the brand new world of the ‘Capsule Caravan’:

Okay, that’s not doing justice to this rather clever design from David Tonkinson, who decided it was time that the humble mobile home was towed into the 21 st Century.

And it certainly is well thought out, despite its uncanny resemblance to a giant Tic Tac.  Lightweight and small enough to be parked in a normal sized space, once it’s stationary, the Capsule Caravan expands into two Pods (yay!)

Comfort Pod is your chill-out and sleeping zone, and Service Pod contains all the functional stuff like cleaning gear, storage space and a gazillion power points.

Tonkinson, who came up with the concept of the contemporary caravan for his Final Year Project, claims that the popularity of festivals in recent years has reinforced the appeal of caravans to a younger generation.  A fair point.

But c’mon! I’m a festival fan myself but there’s no way I’d want to turn up at Glasto with what looks like an enormous Jelly Bean trailing behind me – but maybe I’m just not edgy or young enough.

Yesterday The Negotiator (a trade mag for estate agents) inadvertently put the wind up everyone with a report headlined: “House sales plummet 80 per cent, Land Registry data reveals.”

Crikey!

It continued: “So far, only 21,749 sales have been recorded for this July in England and Wales – a fall of 79 per cent compared with July 2007.”

That sounds like a calamitous meltdown. But, just to set the record straight, the numbers are not quite right.

There’s a significant time lag in Land Registry data (chart above). Their report for July, published last week, states: “Because sales volume figures for the two most recent months are not yet complete, they are not included in the report.”

Calnea Analytics, the chaps who crunch the Land Reg numbers, say: “The figures quoted by The Negotiator are interim statistics. We would expect July transaction volumes to be around 60-70,000.”

There were 116,700 sales in July 2007 so the year-on-year fall is more likely to be around 48.5 per cent.

It’s also worth noting that the rate of decline hasn’t changed much since the start of the year – transaction volumes have averaged 59,622 per month since February 08, down from 99,024 last year (-40 per cent)

It’s by no means a rosy picture, but – deep breaths! – not nearly as bad as an 80 per cent plummet.

Here’s a great way to get yourself a free house. Pose as an artist, say you want to create a gallery/meeting space that’s environmentally sound and get your local community to donate all their scrap wood and raw materials that would otherwise end up lying in a skip somewhere.

Now that’s not entirely what German designers Folke Koebberling and Martin Kaltwasser did – their intentions were indeed honest and honourable – but the end result is pretty much the same.

After six weeks of toiling in the Cambridgeshire countryside with a team of volunteers, the intrepid twosome have successfully created a two-storey building from bits and pieces donated by the locals that has cost them next to nothing.

source: wysingartscentre.org

The structure, which lies in the grounds of the Wysing Art Centre in Bourn, might have a bit of a patchwork aesthetic going on, but that’s all part of the appeal apparently.

And while Folke and Martin intend for their creation – christened Amphis – to be used as a gallery for local artists, a case of art imitating life has meant the exhibitor has now become the exhibited.

The whole project build has been captured on film to be displayed in the Wysing gallery.

Because who nowadays does anything if it can’t be accompanied by a Making Of… documentary?

A great big yawning gap is opening up between house price indices based on the Land Registry’s data and those based on lenders’ mortgage approvals.

Just last week Nationwide told us that house prices had tumbled into double-digit decline with a -10.5 per cent fall since August 2007.

The next day the Land Registry revealed that prices were down a mere -2 per cent year-on-year.

Then the FT’s index, based on Land Reg data, told us that “despite commentary to the contrary” prices in July actually rose year-on-year by 0.3 per cent.

So entrenched is our belief that the market is in freefall that people are inclined to get very tetchy indeed when the Land Reg stats are cited.

Back in June, when we reported a Land Reg rise in prices, some of our readers were practically frothing at the mouth! (I blogged about this here: Price Rise My Ar**! )

I’m not saying the Land Reg is necessarily the final word on prices (although their stats do cover all sold properties), but I do think it’s interesting that the media has very little to say about the obvious discrepancy.

But then, if you’re a sub-editor, putting the frighteners on Middle England with “House Prices Plummet By Ten Per Cent!”, is probably going to shift more copies than “House Prices Down … But Only A Bit”.

Stuart Law, over on Assetz’s blog, has some typically punchy views about the lenders’ indices … and he may well be right.

But I’m more interested in what you think. Based on observation of your own local market, who’s closer to the truth? The Land Reg or The Lenders?

You wouldn’t necessarily want to live next door to Dubai. Not if you were concerned about neighbourly one-upmanship.

Call that a garden shed? Look, my friend, our new garden shed is an 800 metre spinning tower built in the shape of a palm tree with an Alpine ski slope in the basement…

The latest in Dubai’s quest to be Bigger, Better, Faster … And Clearly Visible From the Moon! … is as staggeringly awesome and humongous as all the other staggeringly awesome and humongous stuff they’ve done (read all about it over on FindaProperty.com).

It’s a gigantic eco-friendly city in the form of a 2.3 sq km pyramid, and it’s designed to house a million people.  Yes, that’s right: a million people. Kinda puts our ten proposed eco towns in the shade.

Why, you might wonder, build in this pyramid shape? According to World Architecture News, it’s because cities like this “take up less than ten per cent of the original land surface,” so big eco kudos there. The Ziggurat will also be powered by steam, wind, and the sun, making it almost completely self-sufficient energy-wise.

All very impressive, but would you want to live in a vast futuristic megastructure like this? I mean, I don’t want to sound negative, but that’s an awful lot of neighbours… and what if the lift breaks down?

Okay, I absolutely promise that this is my last blog on Kevin McCloud for the rest of the year month week.

But as reported here, Kev’s company Hab (Happiness architecture beauty – and yes the lowercase acronym is intentional) got a bit of bad press over their decision to part ways with architects Wright and Wright.

In short, BD Online reported that there was a disagreement over fees and we reported that they reported it and, well, basically Kev wrote in (to them, not us unfortunately) and said it was all lies, damned lies!

Although, being Kevin McCloud, he put it far more eloquently than that: “We parted ways over one major issue: whether Wright & Wright was the appropriate practice to help us take the project forward.

“In 2008, Hab formed a partnership with Westlea Housing Association which is part of the housing group GreenSquare. Within the new partnership it became increasingly difficult to see a fit with Wright & Wright as project architect.”

The beleaguered property presenter turned developer also went on to comment, this time to Architects’ Journal, that he was a bit worried about presenting the Stirling Prize – an award for excellence in architecture – this October in light of the recent fuss.

“I’m only going to have to stand in front of 500 architects and say: ‘Hello I’m the guy who apparently doesn’t pay architects!’ ”

Still, he strongly rejected claims from Sandy Wright that he had been too idealistic in his vision without having the necessary funding to back it up:

“It implies a lack of business acumen. I’ve been in business for 15 years so I’m not unacquainted with employing and working with people. The important thing is collaboration.”

And good PR, apparently.