Meth lab not included
Agents in Albuquerque, New Mexico, have a bidding frenzy on their hands for one of the houses that famously appeared in US TV series Breaking Bad. Remember the drug dealer in the acid bath scene? That’s the one. Offers for meth dealer Jesse Pinkman’s house have reached $1.6m (£1m), with the advert stating: “Live like Jesse,” while also advising: “Meth lab not included.”
Bricks versus clicks
Amazon’s recent $240bn (£154bn) valuation, which topped that of US retail giant Walmart ($231bn), sparked quite a feud on Twitter this week. Shopping centre specialist Mark Robinson from Ellandi – fighting for the bricks and mortar – and tech expert Antony Slumbers – in the digital corner – pulled no punches. And JLL’s head of retail Tim Vallance couldn’t resist joining in either. Clearly a case of shopping bags (or delivery parcels, as the case may be) at dawn.
Almighty duck up
The annual Savills duck race day got off to a flying start last weekend. Well, almost. All was going swimmingly until the rubber ducks were formally banned from racing on the river (Diary still can’t work out why. Is there a law we don’t know about? Answers on a postcard…) The race was swiftly relocated to a rubber slide in Bishop’s Park, but without the current of the Thames under their wings the poor duckies were awkward and a bit on the slow side. Must have driven the spectators quackers.
Slade pays price for success
In case you have been living under a rock (or just on holiday) for the past month, you should know by now that Helical Bar chief executive Mike Slade broke yet another record on his trusty yacht Sea Leopard, completing the RORC Cowes to St Malo race on 10 July in just under 12 hours. But it cost him. When Diary joined Slade aboard the very same yacht for a considerably slower paced sail last week he admitted that arriving in France so early came at a price: “Usually we arrive at about 2am and head straight to bed,” he said. “This time we arrived at 10pm and so instead went to a bar to celebrate. The bar tab was huge. Absolutely huge. But we still made sure we went for a whacking old lunch the next day too, of course.” We wouldn’t expect anything less.
Pensioner coming through
Every major landowner will have had moments when they dearly wish those plucky residents associations would just put a sock in it. Diary found itself in just such a situation last week, on a tour of one of London’s most venerable great estates. As the respected company’s chief executive was delivering some carefully chosen lines about how much he valued the input and ideas of Westminster’s feisty residents associations, one such elderly neighbour, groceries in hand, sharply elbowed him aside and told off him sternly because “These streets are for pedestrians!” leaving the whole group of powerful men decidedly sheepish. Diary wonders whether we might start seeing a few rent hikes in the West End after that particular interjection.
Plop music promoter
A great salesman can sell anything. Which means so too can a great estate agent. Maybe that was the thinking behind Foxwood Maclean using its sales boards to advertise a unique music festival in the quiet Kent village of Pootings. Well, where there’s muck, there’s brass. Sorry, that’s crap. To find out more visit www.poofest.co.uk and click on poofacts. Juvenile? Yes. Do we care? No. #propertypoofest
