Eight of the best cheese boards in London: Post-Brexit, are you wondering where your next brie is coming from? July 5, 2016 1. Fenchurch at Sky Garden, 20 Fenchurch Street, EC3M If you like to scoff cheese and wine while looking down at the great thronging crowds of London town, then there are few places that can compete with the glass magnificence of the Walkie Talkie. Its cheese platter comes from Covent Garden-based Neal’s Yard Dairy and it’s accompanied [...]
Audi S5 Quattro review: Efforts to improve on this masterpiece deserve our respect but not our necessarily our love July 4, 2016 How do you improve upon a masterpiece? Would Van Gogh’s sunflowers look better if they were brightened up in Photoshop? Perhaps Exile on Main Street needs some AutoTune tweakery to smooth out Mick Jagger’s trademark drawl? Such was the task facing Audi in replacing the A5, the car that designer Walter de Silva called his [...]
Macbeth at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre review: An unsettling production with some top notch witches July 1, 2016 If you’re uncertain about whether a production of Macbeth is any good, just ask yourself – are the weird sisters sufficiently weird? While magical realism is present in lots of Shakepeare’s plays, it’s intrinsic to Macbeth, driving much of the action. If it’s poorly executed, tragedy quickly slides into farce. In the Globe’s production, the [...]
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie review: A party of pissed up PRs and celebrity cameos June 30, 2016 Given the media obsessed culture we live in, it’s remarkable that cinema audiences haven’t already been introduced to Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone. The drunken duo (played by Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley) amassed a cult following during their 90s small screen run, which has seen several one-off returns over the years. Following the critical [...]
David Hockney: 82 Portraits and 1 Still Life review – The Royal Academy hosts the artist’s first exhibition since returning to Los Angeles June 30, 2016 David Hockney believes there are just three genres of painting: landscapes, portraits and still life. Having successfully packed a wing of the Royal Academy in 2012 with varied (sometimes iPad created) drawings of hawthorn-pocked East Yorkshire hills, he returns now to tick the art world’s two remaining boxes. The Royal Academy’s 82 Portraits and 1 [...]
Opinion: A real estate legal specialist explains why using Brexit to get out of a property deal is a very bad idea June 30, 2016 Several days on from the result of the EU Referendum and, inevitably, many are wondering how leaving the EU will affect the London residential property market. First, it’s important to take a step back and look at what was happening before the referendum. The 15 per cent stamp duty and annual taxes for properties worth [...]
Interiors: How to tastefully use the floral trend in your home by creating a botanical wall June 30, 2016 Who remembers when House of Hackney arrived on Shoreditch High Street three years ago? The first standalone shop for the brand, it’s been a huge hit, bursting with imaginative prints. At the time its signature design was Palmeral (“an explosion of palm leaves reminiscent of 1930s Palm Springs”) a print covering everything from lampshades on [...]
Property of the Week: Morpeth Terrace, the historic antiques-stuffed home of a Sotheby’s auction house boss in Victoria June 30, 2016 Price: £1.495m When Heinrich von Spreti, executive board member at Sotheby’s auction house, was looking for somewhere to live in London, he stuck to the old adage “location, location, location.” And, boy, did he find one. His Grade II listed apartment on Morpeth Terrace, a sought-after mansion block, afforded von Spreti an extraordinary morning commute. [...]
New homes on sale in London this weekend: from South Bank Tower to eco “Urban Houses” in Blackheath June 30, 2016 South Bank Tower From £1.8m The remaining 193 studio to four bedroom apartments and penthouses in the 41-storey South Bank Tower – formerly the IPC Media building – are now on sale. Four new show apartment by four interior designers – 1508 London, Goddard Littlefair, Studio Ashby and Rachel Winham – have been drafted in by [...]
The Colony film review: Emma Watson takes a starring role in this lacklustre true-story about a religious cult June 30, 2016 Emma Watson is a woman on a mission in her first proper lead role. She plays a flight attendant living in Chile whose boyfriend (Daniel Bruhl) is kidnapped by the oppressive new government and imprisoned in a religious cult, which she infiltrates in order to save him. Even though the colony itself is inspired by [...]