Peter Rhodes on cousin marriage, a crackdown on shoplifters and cheaper houses Oop North
Are you “power-cut prepared?” asks an email from National Grid. The next day, the very same email arrived again, posing the very same warning.
Realistically, it hardly matters whether I am power-cut prepared. What really matters is whether National Grid is power-cut prepared.
After last week's item on house prices, north and south, a reader suggests the old line “ for the price of an ordinary house in London you could buy a mansion in Yorkshire” no longer applies. I bet it does. A quick search online reveals new terraced houses in London's chic Clerkenwell at an eye-watering £2.8 million . A bigger town house in equally chic Harrogate is £470,000.
This north-south property divide has been with us for ages. Years ago I met a couple from London who, when their company relocated to Yorkshire, sold their modest houses in the capital and bought an enormous stone-built mansion near Wetherby. From terrace-dwellers to lord and lady of the manor in one easy move.
