Other than seeing irate posts on Facebook from parents of school-age children, World Book Day tends to pass Diary by. Not this year, though, as a missive in our inbox has found a (slightly spurious) real estate angle on the whole affair. Delivery app Foodhub has for some reason (quiet day for orders?) calculated “the most expensive fictional food of all time” and it is… drum roll, please… the witch’s gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel. Such is the state of the spiralling market that this confectionery construction, sure to have buyers salivating, would be worth a whopping £400,000. This puts it in a class of its own, far ahead of such literary treats as Butterbeer, Scooby Snacks, and Green Eggs and Ham. And, if you were to do a bit of redecorating once you’re in, you could deck out a feature wall in Lickable Wallpaper (second on the list, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) for £250.
Flat on a Pancake?
Diary loves a nice pancake (golden syrup, in case you wondered) and it’s one of the few things we can cook well. As you are all painfully aware by now, we also love a gratuitous holiday-themed press release based around street names. You can probably guess where we are going with this. Yes, it is the astonishing news that “pancake property prices” are 114% higher than the national average. According to research by GetAgent.co.uk, the nation’s homesellers could have been “left with a particularly sweet taste in their mouth this Shrove Tuesday” should they be looking to sell on one of the nation’s pancake-related road names. “Top of the stack” we are told, is Pancake itself, with prices on roads such as Pancake Lane in Hemel Hempstead hitting the “flipping huge” heights of £617,500 on average over the past year. Also performing well are Milk and Tuesday, while Sugar, Butter, Flour and Lemon also outperform the rest of the market. Sadly, no data available on Tossers.
Slow worm news day
We all need a bit of good cheer this week, so Diary is delighted to pass on word that the reptile population is flourishing in Hampshire following a successful translocation project at Otterbourne Hill. Apparently, the reptile mitigation strategy from ecological consultant EPR delivered a “threefold increase in enigmatic slow worms” (legless lizards, often mistaken for snakes, to save you Googling it) as well as colonisation by new wildlife. The project saw local reptiles moved to “bespoke new habitats” during development of a new care home, built by Stepnell Construction and operated by Brendoncare, and seems to have been a triumph. No word yet though on the population thriving so much that they’re renaming it Reptilebourne Hill.
A real growth experience
In recent years it’s felt far trendier to drop letters from a company name than add them. Just think of Aberdeen becoming vowel-less when it switched to Abrdn (actually, let’s not dwell on that). Even we looked to simplify things when we opted for just EG rather than Estates Gazette. But going against the grain is the team at upstart agency RX London, which according to documents filed with Companies House, has changed its name to Real Estate Experience. Longer, yes, slightly clunkier, sure. But it says exactly what it needs to say – and it has niftily recycled all the “e”s shed by us and Abrdn. We aren’t sure if a full rebrand is on the cards or if this is purely a change for the corporate entity. However, as a child of the 1990s, Diary can’t help but hope it presages a shift in focus towards edgy comedy, à la The Mary Whitehouse Experience.
Ronson’s what business?
Remember that Saturday job you had as a kid? Hours in your uncle’s shop for enough pennies to buy an iced bun and can of Tang. A satchel full of weekend newspapers that each weighed more than you did. Well, Gerald Ronson’s puts your paper round to shame. Having brought self-service petrol stations to the UK in the 1960s, the 82-year-old now owns 262 forecourts. But the developer still thinks of Rontec as his “Saturday job”. And he still drives hundreds of miles at the weekends to inspect them. Diary’s Saturday job paid for its weekly treat of Panini stickers and a Sherbert Dip-Dab. Ronson’s is now worth £908m, and its expenses include chartering a luxury yacht and a private jet for its boss. No wonder he calls it his “fuck you” business.
