What with emails and the world-wide Google-web, one doesn't get much proper post these days. So anything that does make it through the letterbox stands out.

A story that one might have expected to hit the headlines as a result of 'silly season' - when newspapers (by which I mean all kinds of news media, printed and online) resort to writing any old rubbish, just to get the pages filled - was doing the rounds this week.

So, the CPA tells us that private house building starts are now growing at a faster rate than predicted even three months ago.

So another Ecobuild exhibition has been and gone. The amount of planning, preparation and money that goes into exhibiting and it's over before you even know it. Like the proverbial curate's supper egg, Ecobuild had its good bits. It had its interesting bits and it had its 'what on earth are they doing here?' bits.

So the question about what happens when we get to the end of HelpToBuy has been answered - the Government is going to continue with it.

So the dust has settled on George Osborne's penultimate pre-election Budget. How do you feel now then chaps? Richer? More secure? Happier?

Well woo. And indeed, hoo.

I'm going slightly off tangent today, for which I make no apology, as it's a day to celebrate one of the things that makes us as a nation who we are.

Regular readers of this blog will know that my criteria for rating conference and after dinner speakers usually depends on their sporting prowess - particularly if they won a bit of bling for it - and, occasionally, their aesthetic qualities.

According to the latest issue of the Markit/CIPS UK Construction Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) report, the pace of the industry's growth spurt has lessened slightly.