First homes revealed at Quebec Quarter as part of 10-year revamp at Canada Water February 23, 2016 Champagne sits in a bucket, ready to be poured into designer flutes and raised to the unusually high ceiling in the show room of a two bedroom apartment. Earlier in the week, this very room had convinced a cash buyer from Paris to part ways with around £800,000 cash for a second home. These are [...]
Galvin Hop review: The Galvin brothers open their first gastropub in the City February 16, 2016 Galvin HOP, Spital Square, E1 What? A new gastropub – or “pub de luxe”, as the eponymous Galvin brothers prefer to call it – serving gourmet pub grub, snacks and pints. There’s also a takeaway bar so you can grab breakfast rolls, toasted muffins, Eccles cakes and “luxe dogs” to eat (ahem) on the hop. [...]
Zoolander 2 wrote its own eugoogly when it put cameos before comedy February 11, 2016 Dir. Ben Stiller | ★★★☆☆ Over the last 15 years, Zoolander has boiled down in the public consciousness to its very essence, becoming less a movie than a handful of fondly remembered quotations. Its pop-cultural caché is so high that it’s easy to overlook its simple premise: the endearing, Chaplin-esque stupidity of its narcissistic leads. This [...]
Kate Moss, Cara Delevigne and Lily Cole are in Vogue at the National Portrait Gallery February 11, 2016 The National Portrait Gallery | ★★★★☆ The National Portrait Gallery’s Vogue 100 exhibition is an epic stroll through a century of photography from fashion’s undisputed powerhouse. The trail leads backwards, opening with vast prints of the most recognisable faces from today’s magazines; Cara Delevingne gives way to Lily Cole, who gives way to Kate Moss. The [...]
Astonish your kids this half term with Da Vinci’s marvellous machines at the Science Museum February 11, 2016 The Science Museum | ★★★★☆ Leonardo da Vinci’s prodigious output has provided fertile ground for such blockbuster exhibitions as the National Gallery’s comprehensive 2012 survey, and the Queen and British Museum’s showcase of his drawings. The Science Museum’s new show focuses on da Vinci’s engineering, with physical incarnations of the various machines detailed in his many [...]
Battlefield at the Young Vic draws effective parallels between Syria and the Mahabharata February 11, 2016 Young Vic | ★★★☆☆ Can a 2,500-year old story tell us something new about the human condition? That was presumably one of the considerations of 90-year old playwright Peter Brook and his long time collaborator Marie-Helene Estienne when they returned to an Indian epic, the Mahabharata. Having already told the story through their nine-hour 1989 [...]
The Ford Focus RS is the perfect blend of practicality, performance and visceral thrills February 8, 2016 The verdict Design | ★★★★☆ Performance | ★★★★★ Practicality | ★★★★ Value | ★★★★☆ A working class hero is something to be,” declared John Lennon in 1971. Was it mere coincidence that Ford had just launched the Escort RS1600, a road-legal rally car that brought power-slides to the masses? OK, so, yes, it definitely was a coincidence, but I’m [...]
Focus On Camberwell: benefiting from its gentrified neighbours? February 5, 2016 With its artistic roots and good transport connections, Camberwell is seen as the good value neighbour of south London’s most gentrified neighbourhoods. “A lot of buyers often start their search with us in central Brixton, but soon find out they could get more moving slightly further out,” says Luke Tubb, sales manager at Foxtons Brixton. [...]
How Andorra attracted wealthy property investors by relaxing residency laws February 5, 2016 The tiny Pyrenean principality of Andorra only fully opened its doors to international investment in 2012, in order to diversify its economy. It has also now relaxed residency laws in a move towards attracting wealthier citizens. As a result, the property market, which until last year was stagnating, has begun to see a significant rise [...]
Dad’s Army review: The film version of the classic TV show is far from doomed February 4, 2016 If there’s a better film to watch with your father than Dad’s Army, I can’t think of it. “I was sceptical in ‘68, but it turned out to be my favourite programme,” noted mine. Certain quarters have given this film a hard time, decrying its feeble humour and comfortingly predictable plot – involving a German [...]
