PROPERTY NEWS February 9, 2012 REPOSSESSIONS TO RISE British mortgage repossessions hit their lowest since 2007 last year but are expected to rise in 2012 due to increasing unemployment, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said yesterday. The CML said the number of home repossessions came in at 8,500 between October and December, down from 9,300 in the previous three-month [...]
Win the city parking war February 9, 2012 Anyone living in the capital with a car knows central London is a parking nightmare. Resident parking hardly alleviates the problem because many boroughs, like Westminster, offer limited spacing. Of course, you can always drive around hoping a space will miraculously present itself, but otherwise there is the prospect of a long walk from your [...]
FOCUS ON: ST GEORGE’S HILL, WEYBRIDGE February 9, 2012 YAFFLE ROAD Price: £5m An eight bedroom property with an indoor swimming pool, landscaped gardens and a bespoke kitchen by Mark Wilkinson. Contact Knight Frank on 020 7629 8171 or knightfrank.co.uk CAVENDISH ROAD Price: £6m A large modern six bedroom family home within the private St George’s Hill Estate with vaulted ceilings, heated swimming pool [...]
Extraordinary work by a truly unique mind February 9, 2012 Art YAYOI KUSAMA Tate Modern ***** The Tate Modern’s new show, a retrospective of the work of Yayoi Kusama, Japan’s most famous living artist, is an engorgement of colour, size and intensity. Kusama’s work is a clear extension of her brilliantly volatile, unabashedly unusual mind. After a lengthy experimental period on the New York art [...]
GOING OUT February 9, 2012 EARLY 2012 openings are showing plenty of promise. Take Galante on South Ken’s Sloane Avenue. After a beefy expansion, Gaucho is opening its first cocktail bar. Inspired by Argentina’s gilded era, staff at the Art Deco-inspired Galante don traditional white jackets or chic lamé dresses to serve guests while the drinks are mostly classic South [...]
The Devil and Mister Punch is delightfully macabre and laugh out loud funny February 9, 2012 Theatre THE DEVIL AND MR PUNCH The Barbican **** The Devil and Mister Punch is the seaside theatre production from your nightmares, where human-sized puppets wielding baseball bats break loose from the stage and Mister Punch gets chased through hell by giant penises. The action takes place in a Punch and Judy tent that wouldn’t [...]
Dangerous Method but a sadly safe film February 9, 2012 Film THE WOMAN IN BLACK Cert: 12A **** by Stevie Martin Daniel Radcliffe returns post-Potter in this traditional ghostly yarn based on Susan Hill’s novel and the wildly popular West End show. Director James Watkins gives a masterclass in creaky gothic horror, complete with rolling mists, strange spectres with a penchant for black (and appearing [...]
The Muppets is a nostalgic treat February 9, 2012 Film THE MUPPETS Cert: U ***** Whether you loved it first time around, or never got the whole “fuzzy-animals-singing” thing, now’s your chance to catch up with the Muppets. When the young, Muppet-obsessed Walter (voiced by Peter Linz) visits Los Angeles, he not only finds the Muppet Studios in disrepair but overhears evil business tycoon [...]
Blow your mind with mega bass February 8, 2012 Headphones are about more than sound quality – make a statement with some of the most stylish musical headgear on the planet AKG REFERENCE HEADPHONES £499 akg.com If you want to stand out in a crowd, these mean, green sound machines are the headphones for you. SKULLCANDY HESH NBA THUNDER £55 uk.skullcandy.com Good sound quality [...]
Sending armed cops to arrest a hacker is like shooting gnats with a bazooka February 8, 2012 When police in New Zealand arrested suspected online pirate Kim Dotcom, they were accompanied by a dog unit and a SWAT team armed with automatic weapons. Could there be a better visual representation of the gulf between the people attempting to police the internet and those suspected of corrupting it? The man is even named [...]