Interiors: Floral patterns, big blooming flowers, wicker chairs and the colour green are on trend for spring 2017 February 10, 2017 Sometimes in life things are simple. If you want an instant update for your home this spring, just gather together the biggest bunch of assorted big blooms you can find, cut them down to spill over a huge clear vase with a splash of water, and Bob’s your uncle: exuberant, casual, fresh and floral. When [...]
New Builds: New homes on sale this weekend in Barking, The City, Hampstead, Canning Town and Blackheath February 10, 2017 360 Barking, Barking From £295,000 This collection of one and two bedroom flats on Cambridge Road is in the heart of a soon-to-be “reinvigorated” town centre in east London. Plans are underfoot to turn its riverside into “Barcelona-on-Thames” and these new homes come with underfloor heating, in-built appliances and access to a garden roof terrace. [...]
The Lego Batman Movie review: This might be the best Batman film ever, watch your back Affleck February 9, 2017 Batfleck may have thus far been a mixed blessing for comic book fans, but there's no doubting the popularity of his smaller, Lego counterpart. Will Arnett's cocky Caped Crusader was the breakout star of The Lego Movie three years ago, earning his own solo adventure. Having saved Gotham again, Batman finds himself alone and without [...]
Revolution: Russian art 1917-1932 review: A dense and difficult exhibition that rewards those who look beyond the red flags February 9, 2017 Revolution: Russian Art marks the centenary of the momentous turning point in Russian history, the October Revolution of 1917, with a monumentally packed survey of the complicated, politically charged visual art up to the suppression of the Avante-Garde by Stalin in 1932. The bright red first room, filled with propaganda and state-sanctioned Social Realist painting, [...]
David Hockney at Tate Britain review: A Bigger Splash still makes a bigger splash than the artist’s weak newer works February 9, 2017 This major David Hockney retrospective, the first for 30 years, flits between brilliance and nonchalant mediocrity, with virtuoso paintings hanging metres away from self-cannibalising pastiches of the artist’s best work. Hockney is the nation’s favourite painter, a national treasure on a level with Alan Bennett, popular enough for The Sun to ask him to redesign [...]
The Robots exhibition at the Science Museum is a fascinating (and a little creepy) history of human-like automata February 9, 2017 Greeting you when you first enter the Robots exhibition at the Science Museum is an animatronic baby, pinned like some prized insect to a wall of pulsing lights. Commissioned especially for the exhibition and built by a special effects company, the mechanical baby repeats a series of pre-programmed animations, sneezing and wavings its arms and [...]
Huawei Mate 9 review: The latest Huawei flagship fills the phablet gap left behind by Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 February 8, 2017 Having had its reputation scuttled by the exploding Galaxy Note 7 – a phone that’s now as welcome on an aeroplane plane as a wet fart – Samsung has left a slightly singed gap in the phablet market. Men and women with very large hands who need giant telephones to make them feel momentarily normal [...]
Property of the Week: This former hosepipe factory in Peckham is made for people who love hidden bookcases February 8, 2017 The Hosepipe Factory, Peckham, £2.295m It’s surprisingly easy to walk past this enormous former hosepipe factory. I did, three times, to be exact, pacing between a timber merchants and a row of Victorian terraced houses. Eventually, I spot the estate agent from Urban Spaces and he ushers me past a slim electric gate, like he’s [...]
The bastard’s guide to business: How to grow a company the Ray Kroc way February 8, 2017 Ray Kroc may be the man who created arguably the western hemisphere's most recognisable symbol – but he wasn't always nice about it. In new movie The Founder, Michael Keaton stars as McDonald's founder Kroc, telling the story of his unlikely rise from small-time milkshake mixer salesman to big bucks entrepreneur after he was dazzled by Mac and Dick [...]
Our resident chef Mark Hix on how to celebrate the year of the rooster in style February 7, 2017 I hadn’t realised what a big deal Chinese New Year had become in England until I tried to get a table in the Mayflower in Cheltenham last weekend. It was packed out and I had to call in a favour to get in. The weird thing was, there wasn’t a chicken in sight! Maybe nobody [...]