Realty

In Epsom one can pick up things like copies of the free Guardian, handy as the door to door delivery is sometimes a touch flaky. This week, for example, the front page news was all about how a previous tenant of TB went to court with the landlord, Greene King, about who was supposed to pay for repairs. All very unseemly - and a pity as I have a soft spot for Greene King IPA, a fine beer, even if it tastes a lot better nearer its home town, Bury St. Edmunds, than it does around here.

Contrariwise, in Henley we picked up an expensively produced 80 page brochure from Sotheby's International Realty. In seven sections, starting with Mayfair and working its way through some of our posher locations, including a place called Canford Cliffs - which seems to be a label for the fancy bits of Dorset - to end up with International. Which last consisted of fine tasters from around the world, but tasters which excluded the Gulf States. Perhaps they have a special brochure for them.

It was interesting that a lot of the property in this brochure was new and that a lot of that was dressed up to be old. From which we deduce that high net worthies do want heritage, just like the rest of us, but do not want all the fuss and bother which goes with it. All that arguing the toss with the bat people, with the old oak beam people and with uncle tom cobley and all. I can certainly see that if you are used to being the boss, if only because you are very rich, having to be nice to a quite probably rather peculiar bat person might seem a bit strong.

The illustration was chosen for its oddity. As regards the top property, I can't see me paying £2m for a slice of an old property, even for quite a big slice with use of the rather large communal gardens. And the bottom property seemed rather oddly poised between old and new; a new building, but one whose shape echoed that of one of those cottages faux knocked up in Surrey by Lutyens (Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA) and his like in the early decades of the last century. Can't see me paying £3m for that either, not even if I do get a secret garden. Was this last used as the set for those episodes of Mapp & Lucia which include such a thing? Perhaps I will go for a swanky triplex (a three floor chunk of a tower block?) in Hong Kong, going for HK$100,000,000, instead.

Read all about it at http://www.sothebysrealty.co.uk/.

PS: one HK$ is about 7.7 of our p.