Pastaio Westfield London, W12 Rating: There is, apparently, much to loathe about Westfield, west London’s gleaming monolithic temple to Mammon. The dead-eyed, zombie-like consumption, the rapt and rabid consumerism, the dentist-bright lighting and the profusion of bland international chains. ‘The destroyer of high streets,’ they say, ‘where good taste comes to die.’ But I love … Read more
Pet Shop Boys Hotspot Out Friday Rating: If anyone ever tells you that modern music is dumb, … Read more
As thousands of country pubs, shops and post offices have shut down over the past few decades, loneliness has become an increasingly serious problem for village folk with nowhere left to meet and socialise. Now, however, those rural communities are finding a new vitality from an unlikely source – their village halls. Throughout the country, … Read more
First-time buyers have seen the cost of stepping onto the property ladder rise sharply in the past year, according to new research. The average price paid by a first-time buyer in Britain last year was £231,455, up 9 per cent – or £18,252 – on a year earlier, according to Halifax. One expert says that … Read more
RETRO READS By Val Hennessy for the Daily Mail Published: 22:11 GMT, 23 January 2020 | Updated: 23:43 GMT, 23 January 2020 NOT AT HOME by Doris Langley Moore (Dean Street Press £10.99, 298 pp) NOT AT HOME by Doris Langley Moore (Dean Street Press £10.99, 298 pp) It’s 1945, London, and beguiling Tonia, whose … Read more
In the titular tale, retired serial killer Kim Byeongsu is forgetting everything – words, days, events, the last person he murdered.
A second sweeping and ambitious novel from the talented Australian Hammer, whose debut, Scrublands, last year won a string of literary prize nominations.
HISTORY NUKING THE MOON by Vince Houghton (Profile £9.99, 304 pp) Conspiracy or cock-up? I have long subscribed to the cock-up theory of human disaster myself, because I believe more in things going wrong than going very, very right. Vince Houghton, though, believes in both. He’s very interested in conspiracies, but only in the ones … Read more
WHAT BOOK would Wilbur Smith take to a desert island? Wilbur Smith revealed that he’s currently reading The Egyptian by Mika Waltari He would take My African Journey by Winston Churchill to a desert island He said King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard gave him the reading bug By Daily Mail Reporter Published: 22:09 … Read more
Fed up with your freeholder? Tired of paying ground rent and maintenance charges, and forking out for work that isn’t up to scratch or costs way more than reasonably expected? If you’re a leaseholder who finds yourself in this position, you may want to consider buying your freehold. There are pros and cons of doing … Read more
Rents are rising at the fastest pace for three years, with Bristol, Nottingham and York all seeing rises of 5 per cent, data shows. The average cost of a letting in Britain rose by an inflation-busting annual rate of 2.6 per cent during the last three months of 2019, property website Zoopla says. It is … Read more
Susannah Cahalan’s The Great Pretender is a gripping work of detection into the 1973 experiment that changed the course of psychiatry By Sarah Ditum Published: 22:01 GMT, 18 January 2020 | Updated: 15:33 GMT, 21 January 2020 The Great Pretender Susannah Cahalan … Read more
The night terrors came often but Harry Olmer remembers only one of his dreams. ‘I was standing facing my mother. We did not talk to each other, we just looked. There was a brick wall being built between us and it got higher and higher until… until I could no longer see her.’ The image … Read more