Opinion: Law firm TLT outlines the challenges facing Sadiq Khan if he wants to keep his housing promises August 11, 2016 Targets have a way of tripping politicians up and Sadiq Khan may regret some of the ones he proposed in the run up to the election to help ease the housing problem in London. His campaign pledge to set a goal of 50 per cent affordable homes in any new development now seems better politics [...]
Property Entrepreneurs: Meet the engineer behind Basestone whose innovative software idea is saving the construction industry time August 11, 2016 No one likes having their time wasted. And it was precisely that issue that led Alex Siljanovski to come up with the idea of Basestone, a collaborative tablet and web-based tool that is making building sites across the capital more efficient, from a single home extension to the new Crossrail stations. Basestone puts all the [...]
Holiday Homes: Austria is on the up as Brits look to buy second homes that will maintain yields all year round August 11, 2016 If you need to get away from all the Brexit chatter, I know the perfect place to get some much-needed perspective. Over in the Austrian Alps, those dark clouds that dog us in the UK are lined with silver. Figures released from the Austrian National Tourist Office (ANTO) this year have shown that the country’s [...]
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour play review: a rowdy, sweary look at adolescents escaping to the big city August 11, 2016 National Theatre of Scotland’s breathtakingly rude adaptation of Alan Warner's novel The Sopranos is all about finding the sacred in the every day, even if that consists of getting off your face on magic mushroom lager. Written by Billy Elliot playwright Lee Hall, it follows six Catholic schoolgirls from the rougher parts of Oban who're [...]
The Shallows film review: Blake Lively stars in the spiritual successor to Jaws August 11, 2016 For decades – as anyone who sat through Sharknado will tell you – the open ocean has been where horror goes to die. Jaws’ phenomenal success in 1975 sired a thousand bastard offspring consisting of countless malformed sharks, some endowed with absurd and embarrassing dimensions (Shark Attack), others with weird animatronic bodies (Deep Blue Sea), [...]
Pete’s Dragon film review: a sweet-hearted Disney film that trades on nostalgia for the films of your childhood August 11, 2016 After the wildly successful Jungle Book remake comes Pete’s Dragon, itself a reboot of a little known Disney film from 1977, a strange, dated musical featuring a dragon who was half live-action and half animation, but mostly invisible. It wasn’t well reviewed, but a reheated Turkey is often easier to stomach than a remade classic. [...]
Nerve film review: Emma Roberts and Dave Franco star in YA thriller about what happens when Pokemon Go turns evil August 9, 2016 Nerve is a savvy internet morality tale tacked on to a giddy teen blockbuster, a parable about the corrosive power of online anonymity and the dangerous side-effects of a generation addicted to the dopamine rush of “likes”. It’s the first original feature from Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman since 2010’s massaged-reality documentary Catfish (they also [...]
Our resident chef Mark Hix on how the Glorious Twelfth heralds a hunting season full of delicious grouse August 9, 2016 This Friday marks the Glorious Twelfth, the day on which the grouse-hunting season officially begins. I’m hoping to squeeze in a little shoot in Dumfriesshire, and perhaps do some salmon fishing on the River Nith while I’m at it. The game season is one of the most important events in the British culinary calendar – [...]
Scarfe’s Bar review: A sophisticated and upmarket social bar matching political doodles with a sharp Indian menu August 9, 2016 A classy social bar festooned with the political artwork of feted doodling satirist Gerald Scarfe, this stately lunchtime boozer offers an Indian menu as tantalising as it is incongruous. Signature cocktails are rarely seen in such close proximity to curries and naan, but with careful drinks pairings they make deliciously spicy bedmates. WHERE? 252 High [...]
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates review: a backwards buddy movie that wastes Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick August 9, 2016 Mike and Dave are brothers, but more than that, they’re lads. When these liquor salesmen aren’t drowning in their own supply, they’re driving a banterbus made of LOLZ. Understandably, younger sister Jeanie hates them, but she’s getting married and feels some familial urge to invite them, despite them being total dicks. Mike and Dave have [...]