South London set to soar in 2012 April 29, 2010 WITH the opening of a segment of the East London Line extension this week, Hackney, Wapping and Shoreditch just became a lot more desirable. Yet the best property moves are made well in advance of such obvious bonuses, so if you’re looking to buy now, consider the areas of south-east and south-west London that will [...]
FOCUS ON: REIGATE, SURREY April 29, 2010 MANSEFIELD COTTAGE, CROYDON RD, RH2 0PG Price: £895,000 This former bakehouse has been refurbished and extended to create a family home with four double bedrooms. It has a separate dining room, sitting room and orangery overlooking the garden. The property is to the northeast of Reigate town centre and is close to local schools. Reigate [...]
BUYING April 29, 2010 Camilla Dell MANAGING PARTNER AT BLACK BRICK Q.Dear Camilla, what is the UK market likely to do after the election and what advice would you give to buyers? A.A hung parliament is bound to weaken sterling further, which could spell price rises for the London property market, where approximately 60 per cent of transactions over [...]
Iron-clad entertainment April 29, 2010 Film IRON MAN II Cert: 12A Compared to the brooding darkness of the Batman films or the commercial cynicism of the Transformers franchise, 2008’s Iron Man was a breezy joy of a blockbuster, and so is its sequel. It may lose the thread of its plot from time to time, and the final showdown is [...]
Preview: the City’s own music festival April 29, 2010 IAN RITCHIE FESTIVAL DIRECTOR Canada Festival sees the great and good of classical music join the avant-garde and the unusual each summer in the midst of the City. Concerts take place in all the Square Mile’s most beautiful – and often unknown or unused – historical buildings such as St Bartholemew the [...]
ON IN LONDON | SIX OF THE BEST April 29, 2010 ART: Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance drawings Another corker of an exhibition at the British Museum, with scores of works by the likes of Titian, Michelangelo and Botticelli showing the importance of draftsmanship in Italy’s golden age. THEATRE: Willy Russell season at the Menier Chocolate Factory The Southwark hit-factory is currently staging terrific versions [...]
Ladies’ watches go sporty for summer April 29, 2010 THE boom-time days of watches looking more like rainbow-jewelled bling machines than time-pieces are over. At Basel this year, ladies’ watches had more focus and discipline, and tended to be either smaller and more feminine or more sporty, nautical and professional-looking than their sparkling, big-statement predecessors. As one industry expert puts it: “Women’s luxury sports/nautical-inspired [...]
DANGERS OF CASUAL-WEAR WORKPLACE April 29, 2010 Sara Hollamby Style Counsel THE term “business casual” is adopted by many large corporations in the City as a description of their dress code. Yet the “business” bit of the term often gets forgotten. So how do we keep our professionalism but still feel casual and comfortable? For men, the golden rule is to always [...]
In such skilled hands, intrigue in Stalinist Russia cannot fail to grip April 28, 2010 THE BETRAYAL BY HELEN DUNMORE Fig Tree, £18.99 Dunmore is one of the literary establishment’s most respected practitioners: she’s a poet and an Orange Prize short-listed author. Her work isn’t light reading, but fans call it some of the most rewarding on the shelves today. Following on from The Siege (short-listed for the Orange Prize [...]