PROPERTY NEWS November 18, 2010 RENTS ON THE RISE Rents rose for the ninth consecutive month in October to £691 while tenant arrears fell significantly for the second month in a row, according to the latest buy-to-let index from LSL Property Services. Unpaid rent totalled £221m, down from £229.3m in the previous month. This accounted for just 9.3 per cent [...]
Twenty per cent off property in paradise November 18, 2010 IT FEELS wrong to be delighted by the financial crisis, doesn’t it? But if you were reclining on a sun-lounger in 30°C heat with a sparkling ocean stretching out in front of you, it would be difficult not to. Especially if you had managed to buy a Caribbean dream home on the cheap. The numbers [...]
Investing your love in bricks and mortar November 18, 2010 1 BUDGET Before you start the fun stuff – househunting – make sure you have covered the boring stuff: finances. Work out how much you can afford to put towards mortgage repayments each month, based on your joint net income, and joint outgoings. If, like Kate and William, you are thoroughly modern and are already [...]
Watches ready for action November 18, 2010 BACK in the heady days of what we’re now calling “the bubble” (2006, basically) things in the world of watches had all got a little bit much, frankly. If the thing strapped to your wrist wasn’t big enough to eat your dinner off and full of enough moving parts to dazzle a rocket scientist, it [...]
THE APPS FOR WATCH GEEKS November 18, 2010 FOR an industry that prides itself on being at the cutting edge of technological endeavour, the watch business – or at least, the luxury end of it – can also be rather backward looking. Just take its attitude to online technology – the internet has mostly been treated with the same hostility as digital watches [...]
WATCH NEWS IN BRIEF November 18, 2010 GRAND SEIKO COMES TO THE UK Japan’s Seiko is well known as more than a creator of quartz watches, but its highest-end pieces, the Grand Seiko range, have only ever been sold in Japan. After 50 years, they’re finally hitting the international market, and Mayfair’s Jura watches is selling them in the UK. For collectors, [...]
The darkest Harry Potter film yet November 18, 2010 Film HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 Cert: 12A It’s never easy preceding the headline act, but part one of the Deathly Hallows – JK Rowling’s final fat tome in the wizardly series that has been split into two films – is pretty engaging, while saving the big dramatics for next year’s finale. [...]
OUT THIS WEEKEND November 18, 2010 FILM PEEPING TOM Re-release of the classic 1950s psycho thriller. FATHERS OF GIRLS One man’s daughter is another man’s lover. DREAM HOME Gory Hong Kong horror flick. MUSIC TAKE THAT Progress features all five boys in a first since 1995. RIHANNA Rejoice: Rihanna is back with Loud, her fifth album. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Two discs with 21 [...]
In praise of French spirit November 17, 2010 HERE’S a strange thing: the French don’t like cognac. In fact, according to Patrice Pinet, master blender for Courvoisier, France imports more Scottish whisky than it makes cognac. Young people in France in particular, he laments, have given up on the drink, associating it with a naff, fusty past instead of a cool, cocktail-centric present. [...]
TASTING NOTES November 17, 2010 APPLETON’S LUXURY RUM Jamaican brand Appleton Estate is known for some very fine rums, but its latest trumps the bunch. The notably-dark 30 Year Old is about as expensive a rum as you will find, and as rare – only a few bottles exist. After three decades in tropical barrels, it’s been hand-blended for something [...]