With destruction-fuelled flicks including Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow on his cv, it’s fair to say that filmmaker Roland Emmerich knows a thing or two about disasters.
Does that inform his sense of interior design? Diary couldn’t possibly comment.
But his art-filled Knightsbridge home is now available for short-let (for a suitably big-budget £8,000 a week), and the photos distributed by agent Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward give you the chance to decide for yourselves.
We could attempt jokes about the waxwork of Pope John Paul II in the understairs cupboard, or the smiling Saddam Hussein portrait that keeps you company in the shower, but in this case the pictures paint a thousand words – or perhaps even a thousand movies.
Prize location
No need to be disheartened if you don’t have the eight grand handy to buy a week in Roland Emmerich’s Hollywood-style home – the Evening Standard has an equally enticing alternative that’s completely free. It has teamed with developer Anthology to offer readers the chance to win a weekend in… Deptford.
Diary hasn’t won anything since the inter-school high jump in 1989, so fingers crossed that this is the big one. For anyone else, the competition closes on 24 September – and you’ve got to be in it to… be in Deptford.
It’s a funny old game
Taking stock of early successes ahead of an appearance at EG’s Not Just Another Property Event, Adam Higgins, one of the duo behind regen specialist Capital & Centric, told Diary about the early trials of acquiring the derelict Bunker and Tempest buildings in Liverpool.
“We needed something to put us in the big league,” said Higgins, who, with partner Tim Heately, has since seen the award-winning buildings deliver 60,000 sq ft of spec office space to the market. After securing £4m of ERDF funding, and identifying a tax-efficient structure to bring the empty buildings back to life, the pair then solicited professional footballers to raise more funds.
Cue a media frenzy. “Premier League stars invest £50m to cash in on Britain’s property boom,” screamed one headline.
“Liverpool and Arsenal footballers set to become Manchester landlords,” read another. Higgins added: “We needed the funding, so approached five footballers who we assumed would have loads of cash to spare. Bizarrely, we ended up lending money to one of them – but they did help us raise the money.”
However, signing off the deal with the various funding streams and tax structures was then a “very, very, very, very” complicated process that had Higgins “bricking it”, as it completed only at 11.59pm on the last day of the tax year.
But, as anyone familiar with transfer deadline day will know, that’s the way it works in football.
Only 100 sleeps ’til Christmas
When does Christmas truly begin? Is it when the new John Lewis ad airs? Or the first time you hear Noddy Holder scream?
Or perhaps when you receive the planning notice from Westminster City Council for the proposed erection of the Connaught Christmas tree.
The ultimate symbol of festive splendour in the heart of Mayfair, it’s hard to imagine anyone’s enough of a Scrooge to object to its return for 2017 – but the planning process must be followed.
Indeed, if you search Westminster’s records for “Christmas”, a full 28 separate planning applications have been submitted so far this year – the first, for Christmas lights in Bruton Street, W1, was made as long ago as 20 March.
Now that is keen.
