Focus On Hackney: How the London Overground caused a price surge in E8 March 23, 2018 Though the area around Hackney Central is better known as hipster central, the property prices certainly don’t reflect the salaries of young, freelance creatives. The E8 postcode has seen some of the most dramatic house price rises in the whole of London, a trend that has survived the plateau-ing – and declines – of recent [...]
Can Eco-Tourism Help Cape Town During Its Worst Ever Drought? March 19, 2018 You wouldn’t suspect there was anything odd about the bathrooms at the Cape Grace hotel. Until, that is, you looked inside the tub. There, dangling uselessly from the porcelain, you’ll see a neatly snipped-off inch of chain that once held a bath plug. This plug, along with every other in the hotel, has vanished. Clues [...]
Interiors: Boudoir, millennial or Scandi pink – it doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s the hot colour trend of 2018 March 16, 2018 Despite February’s snowdrops and a smattering of spring bulbs, winter wasn’t done with us this week. So let’s look on the bright side with the hot trend for 2018 – luscious, glamorous pink. We saw it emerge a couple of years ago with blush home accessories, but now interior designers have gone to town to [...]
Peter Rabbit review: Highly irritating bunnies ruin a charming rom-com loosely based on Beatrix Potter’s book March 16, 2018 From Paddington to the Big Friendly Giant, British children’s literature is killing it at the box office. It was only a matter of time, then, before someone snapped up the film rights to Beatrix Potter and her merry band of trouserless critters. It’s attracted some big stars, too; Sam Neill as the ultimate nimby Farmer [...]
Cliveden House review: Celebrate your last moments of childlessness with a luxury babymoon to this stately home March 9, 2018 A babymoon may sound like a wheeze designed to milk that most susceptible of consumers, the prospective parent, but dismiss it at your peril: it’s a last chance to indulge your egocentric childless selves, so grab it with both hands. With that in mind, I whisked my better half to Cliveden House and Spa. Where: [...]
The region around Vietnam’s UNESCO heritage city of Hoi An is home to tourist sites worthy of Lara Croft herself March 9, 2018 The narrow stone passageway opened into a small stone altar featuring the carved statue of a goddess. Was this a place of worship, I wondered, or sacrifice? At this stage it was hard to tell, but I was enjoying scaring myself. The shadowy passageway curved around again, this time leading to a set of steps [...]
Macbeth at the National Theatre: Rufus Norris’ stars fail to shine in this cautious production March 9, 2018 Rufus Norris, the artistic director at the National Theatre, isn’t having a great time right now. While his predecessor Nicholas Hytner is having a ball at the helm of the new Bridge Theatre down the riverbank, Norris has suffered a string of flops in the Olivier, from a sand-blasted Salome to the bafflingly coarse Common. [...]
Property of the Week: This converted water tower in Kennington is now worth £3.6m March 9, 2018 There are plenty of industrial landmarks in London that have been given a new lease of life, from Battersea Power Station to the Tate Modern. But rarely is there the opportunity to live in one. The Water Tower, Kennington, £3.6m This former water tower that’s moments away from Kennington underground station is the ideal mix [...]
Summer and Smoke at the Almeida: Tennessee Williams’ complex play is brought to heart-rending life in this fantastic production March 9, 2018 Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke is about opposing forces: the microscopic and the infinite, the physical and the spiritual, anarchy and order, sanity and madness, and the thankless task we humans have trying to work out where exactly we fit into all this. It tackles these swooping metaphysical questions through the prism of unrequited [...]
Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy at the Tate Modern: Exhibition focusing on a single year in the life of the great artist shows the sheer audacity of genius March 9, 2018 By the age of 50, Picasso’s days as a starving artist were long behind him. His paintings sold for fortunes despite the gathering economic gloom; he and his former-ballerina wife were courted by politicians and socialites; he was preparing to be celebrated by a major Paris retrospective, a rarity then for a living artist. [...]