New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is as gruesome a fellow as they come. Mind you, he’s not as bad as Governor Eliot Spitzer, but then not every public official is a habitual body-waxer the way Spitzer is. The trouble with both men is that at various times one or the other appears not to have
The only light came from a reading lamp pointing at the centre of the room. The background music was whale song and randomly plucked harp strings. The room was the top floor of an 18th-century house. The only other floor I’ve seen that sloped as much as this one is in the Crooked House at
Your ordeal starts innocuously enough. ‘Welcome aboard the south east trains service to London Waterloo. This train will be calling at…’ You settle back in your seat and for a few moments wallow in blissful ignorance of the ruthless campaign of mental torture that is about to be unleashed on you as part of a
‘You’re joking, right?’ The person on the other end of the phone was Grub Smith, a sports-loving friend of mine who I was hoping might get me out of a spot of bother. The problem was, I’d arranged to watch this Saturday’s rugby World Cup final with some neighbours and I thought my knowledge of
I need help. I’ve got an addiction. It’s reading property magazines and newspaper supplements and watching property programmes on television. I’m not looking for a new flat or house to buy so there’s really no excuse for this time-consuming passion. The compulsion started some two years ago when I was looking for a flat to
Here is the scientific formula for calculating London’s top property prices: think of a figure, double it, add a few noughts, and voila! — or should I say nazdarovie, of whatever it is that oligarchs say when toasting a deal. Ordinary mortals nowadays are worried sick about their mortgage repayments, set to rocket when their
‘London House Prices Set to Crash! The Capital’s Property Boom Finally Ends! London Housing Bubble Pops!’ As the reality of the US sub-prime property story leaks across the Atlantic, headline writers are gearing themselves to tell the end of the ten-year fairy tale of almost uninterrupted growth in property values in the UK, and specifically
On a crisp, clear autumn day in Budapest the sun streamed in through tall windows on to the splendid parquet floor of an elegant flat on the east bank of Budapest. The flat was late 19th-century but spacious and in good condition — three large bedrooms, high ceilings, original features, hand-painted floor tiles. I looked
Surely, I said, the RAF cannot have bombed them all. No, she said: it was the ‘economic miracle’ which had done for them. Wealthy West Germans had spent the 1960s bulldozing fuddy-duddy old houses and building nice modern chalet bungalows in their place. Soon we will be able to give the same answer in response
When you tell people, they recoil as though jabbed with a lavatory brush. ‘You mean you still actually pay rent?’ is, in middle-class terms, a question akin to: ‘You mean you still actually listen to Boney M?’ But with this impending property collapse that we keep on scaring each other with — just the other
This is our last mini-bar before we start to get ready for Christmas. I have chosen four medium-priced but excellent wines to see you through to the serious festive season. They come from another of our favourite merchants, Tanners of Shrewsbury. One of the attractive features of the wine trade is the way that people
By nice fluke, there has been a heady clash of cultures over the past few days, with comparisons anything but invidious. The intriguing bundle of important international football matches has converged precisely with both rugby league’s grand final and the closing stages of rugby union’s World Cup in France. The ubiquitous radio phone-ins and the
Q. I recently prayed to St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, in the cause of a friend who was desperately ill. My prayers were answered. I have been told that it is protocol to acknowledge in writing favours received by St Jude. To where should I post the letter, Mary? I am confused.
When the postal strike was in full spate we heard quite a bit about ‘Spanish practices’, or at least we did sometimes. On one morning the BBC referred to ‘Spanish practices’ in the nine o’clock news and merely to ‘practices’ in its later bulletins, presumably for fear of offending any Spaniards who were listening in.
