PROPERTY: BUY March 1, 2012 DIRECTOR DOUGLAS & GORDON Q. I have been offered a parking space that’s close to my flat. Parking is a nightmare around my flat in Tooting but I don’t have a car. Should I consider buying it? A. Depending on where you live, a parking space can be a very good investment. Closer to the [...]
Return of the Mayfair home March 1, 2012 It would be disingenuous to call Mayfair “up and coming” – after all, its prestige and attractions have drawn the world’s elite for centuries. But change is afoot: no longer just a haven for hedge funds, designer shops and the odd rich Russian resident, Mayfair’s stock of residential property is rocketing as offices are converted [...]
Rising stock: residential options in W1K March 1, 2012 PARK STREET Price: £14,950,000 An impressive Mayfair town house with generous accommodation and entertaining space with direct access onto the secret Green Street gardens. Planning permission is in place to extend the house from 7,345 sq ft to 9,304 sq ft. Call Wetherell on 020 7493 6935. WALPOLE MAYFAIR Price: TBD A conversion of former [...]
Wetherspoon and co make for easy laughs March 1, 2012 Film THIS MEANS WAR Cert: 12A *** WHEN Charlie’s Angels director McG meets Simon Kinberg, writer of the original Mr and Mrs Smith script, the result is big, brainless fun. Throw a great cast into the mix, ensuring they can deal with some incredibly cringeworthy clichés, and you’re onto a dumb-but-enjoyable winner. When CIA agents [...]
Canary Wharf station gets an arty screen March 1, 2012 CANARY Wharf station just got a whole lot more interesting. No longer just a place for commuters to rush through en route to work, it is – for the next year at least – home to a series of video art installations commissioned by Art on the Underground. The opening series of Canary Wharf Screen [...]
House prices rise more than expected March 1, 2012 House prices rose more than expected in February, data from mortgage lender Nationwide showed. Nationwide said that house prices ticked up by a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent on the month – the biggest rise since April 2010 – and were 0.9 percent higher than a year earlier. That is follows a surprise monthly fall in [...]
Speed rules new generation of phones February 29, 2012 Mobile World Congress saw dozens of new handset releases, as the industry’s big players laid out their stall for the rest of the year. The overriding theme was power, with a new generation of quad-core processors imbuing mobile devices with speeds that were unimaginable even on desktop PCs only a few years ago. The new [...]
Persimmon to return £1.9bn to investors February 29, 2012 SHARES IN PERSIMMON soared to their highest in almost four years yesterday after the UK housebuilder unveiled plans to return £1.9bn in surplus cash to shareholders. Persimmon said it will pay investors a total of 620p per share through dividends over nine-and-a-half years starting in 2013, and will remain largely debt-free throughout the period. The [...]
Rev it up baby: Bentley’s super-hot V8 February 28, 2012 THE engine sound reminds me of a church organ,” I say as I press and lift my right foot on the accelerator in Bentley’s latest Continental GT V8. What an intensely lovely and rich sound it is too. The engine serves up sonorous notes rising from the deepest rumble at low speeds, before swelling upwards [...]
CAR TALK February 28, 2012 RANGE ROVER GOES TOPLESS A Range Rover convertible. Well, why not? Here’s the forthcoming Evoque Convertible concept that will be unveiled at the Geneva motor show. Officially Land Rover is just exploring whether such a car would prove popular amongst car buyers, but I’d be astonished if it doesn’t build what would be the world’s [...]