Light at the end of the tunnel, but buyers should stay cautious March 25, 2010 IT’S the perennial dinner party question: what will happen to house prices in the coming year? With a hung parliament on the cards come May and economists divided over when the Bank of England will decide to raise interest rates, those who are looking to move property remain understandably nervous. Mortgages are still hard to [...]
BUYING March 25, 2010 Camilla Dell MANAGING PARTNER AT BLACK BRICK Q.Dear Camilla, I am looking to sell my house in the near future and I was wondering how the property will be valued. A.The process of valuation in the current property market has become a very tricky business. Traditionally, valuers have depended, at least partially, on sale prices [...]
Add some verve and value to your home March 25, 2010 WE all know that moving house at the moment is tricky, but for those who are bored of their home, there is another option apart from upping sticks. Instead of moving, many people are opting to improve their homes this year to add a bit of pizazz. However, that is easier said than done in [...]
The brainiest Brit in Hollywood March 24, 2010 JASON Isaacs likes to say that he travels by Tube to film premieres, where he goes undetected until he arrives. That’s when the fans – many of them female – explode in excited frenzy. For Isaacs treads that odd line between A-list celebrity, a face that a critical mass knows and cares about viscerally, and, [...]
The bankers who saw the crash coming, and bet on it March 24, 2010 THE BIG SHORT BY MICHAEL LEWIS Allen Lane, £25 by Zoe Strimpel THE Big Short comes late in the day, at least in terms of the publishing frenzy that (inevitably) followed the financial crisis. Indeed you might have an impulse to roll your eyes and say: “not again” – not another book whose theme is [...]
Comfort & Class March 23, 2010 SOMEHOW the Passat CC had passed me by, until I overtook one on the motorway recently and found myself doing a double take on what must surely be one of the most surprisingly stylish cars for sale in the UK. Fast forward to this test drive. Firstly, despite its CC name, a Coupé Convertible it [...]
I can see clearly now – thanks to ten minutes with a laser surgeon March 22, 2010 ASK around, and you’ll suddenly find that everyone you know either knows someone who has just had laser eye surgery, or they’re about to have it done themselves. It’s like with pop star Lily Allen – she had a big online presence for ages, but nobody one knew had ever actually heard of her. Until [...]
The stunning spectacles of 2010 March 22, 2010 AFTER what seems like the most drawn-out and oppressive winter in living memory, even the briefest chink of Spring sunlight can be enough to have one blinking as though into a bright new dawn. Well, good – all the more excuse to indulge in those most seasonal of fashion accessories, smart sunnies. Whether you’re whisking [...]
OUT OF OFFICE March 22, 2010 THE WHITE GUARD Following the success at the National Theatre of last year’s tales of communist Russia, Burnt by the Sun and Tom Stoppard’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, comes Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard. A lesser-known work by the Master and Marguerita author, adapted by Andrew Upton, it’s a story of the madness of [...]
City favourite banking on a revamp March 22, 2010 IT’S hardly as if the City’s been short of “sign of the times” changes, but another came late last year when Prism, the Harvey Nichols outpost that was one of the Square Mile’s grandest and most lauded fine-dining restaurants, was reborn as a brasserie and bar. That meant a back-to-basics menu emphasising cosy ingredients including [...]