Judi Bevan meets a top estate agent who thinks only a terrorist bomb can stop the capital’s house prices soaring Peter Rollings is one of those glowingly fit and forceful people who emit an unrelenting positive energy into the air around them. ‘Yes, energy is my big thing,’ he says, enthusiastically. ‘I don’t see the
The Dow Jones Industrial Average of leading US stocks passed 13200 for the first time last week, after its strongest run (23 rises in 26 sessions) since 1955. The S&P 500, a broader indicator, stood at just over 1500, a fraction below the record high set in the final spurt of the dotcom boom. London’s
In his measured, softly spoken way, Sir Michael Bishop is furious with the Conservative party for its plans to ration air travel. ‘There are few things less edifying than watching politicians jumping on a passing bandwagon,’ says the proprietor chairman of BMI British Midland, which holds the second largest number of take-off and landing slots
If you have a long-lost Continental lover, you have a little under six months to arrange the perfect reunion under the clock at St Pancras on 14 November. That is the date when Eurostar will commence its new service along the full length of what is now called High Speed 1, the much-troubled fast link
The heady days of 1999 are back. Once again it’s fashionable to work for an internet start-up, even more so if you’re a part of the so-called ‘Web 2.0’ bonanza. (For those who may worry that they’ve missed some kind of software update, Web 2.0 refers to second-generation internet developments based around user-generated content and
Jonathan Davis says that if Britain’s ancient universities want to remain world-class, they should take tutorials from Harvard and Yale in how to invest their endowments Devotees of the diaries of Harold Nicolson and Alan Clark will feel that they know the cramped apartments at the Albany in Piccadilly as a vicarious second home. It
French democracy is in full swing, but the spirit of Revolution is alive and well sous la Manche. Eurotunnel’s small shareholders, having seized control of the company, are prepared to go down — and determined to go down fighting. Their weapon is the private investors’ right to be irrational, voting on prejudice and putting the
Russia may have set the bar pretty high, but Kazakhstan still has to be one of the most extraordinarily business-unfriendly places on the planet. A visit to this vast Central Asian state is like a modern reworking of Malcolm Bradbury’s satire Why Come to Slaka?, which catalogued the dubious attractions of a fictional East European
Middle-class Delhi-ites have fallen in love — with supermarkets. The ‘Organised Retail’ concept has exploded here, as mini-chains such as Big Apple, Food Bazaar and Reliance Fresh seek to get a head-start over the likes of global brands such as Wal-Mart and Tesco — both rumoured to be looking for sites in the capital. Big
We are imprisoned in space and time and there appears to be no obvious way of escaping from them. Indeed if, like Richard Dawkins and other neanderthals, you do not believe in a non-material world, there is no escape at all. You, as an individual, have no more significance, no more meaningful past, present or
This week Theodore Dalrymple begins a new column — on globalisation, moronic technology and modernity in general.Whenever I read the French newspapers I come to a strange conclusion: that I hate anti-globalisation as much as I hate globalisation. What, then, do I stand for? I don’t know, really. But it seems to me clear that,
Even allowing for retro-chic, there were some things from the 1970s that most of us assumed were never coming back: cheese-and-wine parties, lime-green bathroom suites, and trade unions setting industrial policy. The little cubes of cheese and the green baths look safely forgotten. But the brothers? They’re back. In the past few months, trade unions
The great China investment boom has many facets. A fortnight ago at a Sotheby’s sale in Hong Kong of Chinese works of art, wealthy mainland collectors and their representatives became so excitable during the bidding that along with the rest of the audience they ended up splurging almost £30 million. Historical works of art from
Stephen Jennings is very tall — about six feet seven. He wraps his body into contortions to fit his limbs into his chair in his central Moscow office. He would certainly suffer in Aeroflot’s economy class — but luckily he has his own jet. He’s also a towering figure in Russian business. His investment bank,
Spring sunshine encourages us all to browse estate agents’ windows. This week’s featured property, Dumfries House, looks at first glance like a rare example of value for money in an overheated market. This exquisite mid-18th-century mansion designed by Robert and John Adam comes with 1,940 acres — yet for the same price, £6.75 million, from
These days the Scots feel as proud of their banks as they once did of the Clyde shipyards — a macho symbol of economic prowess. This explains why the future of Scotland’s financial sector under a possible SNP government has become a hot issue in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament elections on 3 May. The Scottish
When I first moved to Britain in 1995, after a misspent youth in France, there were few Gallic accents to be heard outside the tourist hotspots. The long-established community in South Kensington had been joined by a growing number of French students at institutions such as the London School of Economics, but that was about
How disappointing it is that our legislators spend so much of their time arguing about reform of the House of Lords when the whole of Parliament is crying out for reform. The House of Commons just carries on as though nothing has happened in the way of a European Parliament with 78 MEPs, or a
I suspect gluttony, the excessive consumption of food and drink, was the first of the deadly sins to be committed. The least glamorous of them too. It is universal today, to judge by the number of fatties and the stomach-heaving coverage of food, restaurants, chefs and booze in the media. Ugh! It was always thus.
Guillaume Pepy doesn’t look like a man in a hurry. An elegant 47-year-old Frenchman with impeccable manners, he doesn’t look like an archetypal railwayman either, which may be because he isn’t. It’s true that he’s an énarque, a graduate of France’s elite Ecole Nationale d’Administration, but he’s also been both a judge and a market-research