Mail on Sunday

I've Not Made a Penny From My Hit Single, but This Home Will Pay for My New Pop Career ; Singer Gina G Lost Out On Millions From Her No1 Hit, but She's Been Ooh, Ah, Just a Little Bit More Careful When It Comes to Managing Her Property Portfolio

The Landings, a complex of contemporary wooden kit houses shipped from America and erected around a string of manmade lakes in Gloucestershire, is a far cry from the traditional stone cottages you expect to find in the Cotswolds. The New England-style holiday homes you can occupy them for only 11 months a year were built two years ago and marketed to affluent Londoners in search of country weekends, selling equally well as a slice of country living on timeshare.

Hothouse ; Property Gossip

Some men will do anything to get out of moving home. You may remember the world's luckiest driver, Richard Hammond, put his 'scruffy' six-bedroom house in Gloucestershire on the market with Knight Frank in Hereford earlier in the summer for Pounds 695,000. Within weeks, it was under offer and, indeed, the Top Gear presenter and his wife Mindy had exchanged contracts just before his horrific car accident while filming the show.

This Life ; at Night We Counted Stars and in the Mornings Watched Coyote and Deer Picking Their Way Through Snowdrifts

Bella Pollen 'I am something of a hermit by nature and certainly inclined towards laziness, but these are hard characteristics to indulge with children, work and marriage to shuffle. I would gladly take a bullet for each and every one of my family but it's the surround-sound of family life the relentless, energy-grabbing machine that sometimes makes me feel as if every last bit of oxygen has been sucked out of my lungs.

Once It Was Home to the Kennedy Clan... Now We're Living Here Like the First Family ; Gothic Wall Hall has Echoed to the Footsteps of the Rich and Powerful... Now It Is to Become the Historic Setting for 115 Luxury Homes

If the former residents of Wall Hall the Gothic revival mansion at the heart of Octagon's latest luxury development in Hertfordshire were ever to return in spirit, they would include an eclectic mix of the rich and superrich. Built in the 19th Century for banker George Thelluson, who Dickens mentioned in A Tale Of Two Cities, the castellated property was bought in 1910 by American American industrialist John Pierpont Morgan Jnr, where he regularly entertained the Royal Family, including the ...

I Was Reduced to Tears by My Friendly Estate Agent ; Why the Fees for Selling My House Soared to Pounds 34,000 and Should Serve As a Warning to Other Vendors

A cautionary tale for anyone selling a house. Beware estate agents' small print and never assume they're on your side especially when it comes to their fee. Sarah Deeks was expecting a bill of Pounds 16,920 from estate agents Sullivan Thomas when it found a buyer for her Pounds 960,000 Victorian house in Balham, South-West London. She had agreed sole agency at 1.5 per cent plus VAT. But after exchanging contracts in June, she received a demand for Pounds 33,840, a rate of three per cent.

At the School Gates

Haberdashers' Aske's HATCHAM COLLEGE Every week in this column, schools expert LISA FREEDMAN finds out what's for sale in London's best school catchment areas

It's Time to Take Another Deco at These Treasures ; Once They Were Homes to Be Avoided but Tastes Have Changed and Today They Are Being Viewed As Vintage Pieces of Architecture

It's time to take another Deco at these treasures By Jane Hughes Art Deco architecture is back in fashion after years of being overlooked. The style, which combined the inter war desire for glamour with advances in technology and design, has seen a recent rise in popularity. With signature sweeping curves, clean lines, geometric shapes and the use of materials such as chrome and aluminium, not to mention generously proportioned rooms, many Art Deco buildings are now considered design classics...

Fashion for Life

The spirit of grunge lives on I was singing along to Radio 2 the other day, as you do when you reach a certain age and come to realise the value of reliable traffic news and tame humour. 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana was playing and, as I yelled 'Here we are now, entertain us!' out of the car window at a traffic warden, I got to thinking of dear old Kurt Cobain and suddenly I discovered that the song was released in 1991. 1991! How could it possibly be that long ago? No wonder I look a...

How to Survive the Auction Sharkpool ; It May Be a Great Way to Buy Property but Make Sure You Do Your Homework Market Watch

Anyone interested in property investment or anyone with a spare afternoon should go to a property auction in London at least once. All human life is there, usually packed in a large room of a dreary modern hotel close to a big railway station. Young Orthodox Jews in ringlets and black homburgs make tentative bids while on their mobile to dad; florid out-of-towners bear lists of bankrupt pubs; and nervous amateurs looking for a home or modest first investment, look wide-eyed and jumpy as tho...

I Want to Be a Player Again ( but This Time As an Estate Agent) ; After a Career As a Soccer Star and Manager, Carlton Palmer Strikes Out with a Fixed-Fee Property Service

There are three career choices expected from ex-Premiership footballers when they hang up their boots. They can become media pundits like Arsenal's Ian Wright, football club managers like Gareth Southgate at Middlesbrough, or disappear into the countryside to run a pub. Carlton Palmer, former Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds and England midfielder, is blazing a rather different trail. Fed up with criticism of his management skills at Stockport County and Mansfield Town, he has decided to try his ha...

I've Made a Small Fortune On My Penthouse . . . Even My Mate Jude Law Was Impressed ; Author Christopher Fowler Strikes Olympic Gold After Staking a Claim in King's Cross

When it comes to handing out medals at London's Olympics in 2012, 'most successful property punt' won't be an award category. If it were, author Christopher Fowler would definitely be on the podium. He took a gamble on the Games and has seen the value of his new home rocket as a result. Christopher, 53, first saw his three-bedroom penthouse flat in King's Cross for sale at Pounds 1.25million in June last year, before the result of London's bid to host the Olympics was known.

Home That Makes Me Want to Sing ; Why I Live Where I Live

Why I live where I live Katherine Jenkins, 26, is Britain's best selling classical artist of all time. Aged 23, she fulfilled her ambition to sign to the same label as opera greats Pavarotti, Domingo, Terfel and Bocelli. Born in Neath, near Swansea, she still lives there but also has a home in London.

Country House Comes Clapham ; It's Packed with Rural Style and Tradition but for Pounds 4.25m You Could Buy the Real Thing

Gosh. It's not often I see a house like this these days a large period home in South-West London, decorated in quintessentially English country-house style. There were tablecloths with bullion fringing, chintz curtains, needlepoint rugs and pictures hung on ribbons. It was rather refreshing to see something so traditional and comfortable and it came as no surprise to discover that the owner is American.

A Life of Luxury Behind Bars... ; with One Home in 30 Affected by Burglary, How One Manturned His Home Into a Fortress

It's not a subject many of us want to think about, but as the days get shorter, home owners ignore security at their peril. According to latest figures, one in 30 homes is affected by burglary each year. But there is a lot you can do to prevent break- ins.

A Life of Luxury Behind Bars... ; with One Home in 30 Affected by Burglary, How One Man Turned His Home Into a Fortress

It's not a subject many of us want to think about, but as the days get shorter, home owners ignore security at their peril. According to latest figures, one in 30 homes is affected by burglary each year. But there is a lot you can do to prevent break- ins.

Picture Your Perfect Plot ; in the Garden How Using a Digital Camera Can Help You Design a New Garden or Record How It Evolves

When I go to visit a client, there are four things that I always take with me Walter, my terrier, a surveyor's tape measure, a notepad and, most importantly, my digital camera. A camera is one of the most useful items of a designer's equipment I use it to record a garden on my first visit so that when I am back in the office I have a catalogue of images to pinpoint features already in the garden.

Clock Towers That Have Stood the Test of Time ; Guess How Much?

Putting back the clocks at the end of this month will be a tall order if you own one of these houses EVERTON, HAMPSHIRE Formerly home to the head gardeners of Newlands Manor,this three-bedroom house has four reception rooms,three bathrooms and a Grade II listed clock tower in its threeacre garden.Agent:Caldwells,01590 675875. WOKING, SURREY This two-bedroom cottage was part of a former Victorian coach house topped with a clock tower and set in seven acres of Gertrude Jekyll-designed gardens.

My Body I

Amanda Holden Actress, 35 WHAT MAKEUP WOULD YOU WEAR IF YOU HAD FIVE MINUTES TO PUT IT ON?

Do You Want to Be at the Front of the Coup? ; Tanks Have Been Rolling in Thethai Capital, but This May Be the Time to Buy in Plush Phuketbuying Abroad

As military coups go, the recent one in Thailand was oddly unobtrusive. In the capital Bangkok, residents shook hands with soldiers in tanks.

First-Timers Need a Guide for Survival ; Here Are Three Vitalways to Help You Get Your Finances in Shape to Meet the Home Ownership Challenge

These are tough times to be a first-time buyer. Prices are high, mortgage rates are rising and newspaper headlines are increasingly gloomy. But estate agents say buyers are holding their nerve.