GOING UP
Pink
Bold, garish, saccharine — this Barbietastic interiors trend was the sugar that helped us swallow the pill of a year of doom and gloom. There were plump sofas, plush armchairs and pompous walls, and we loved every second of it.
Property underdogs
The populist movement that stormed the world of politics did the same with the housing market. Unlikely locations such as Croydon and Margate have topped the lists of property price hikes (thanks in no small part to gamely bearded hipsters priced out of Shoreditch). Prices in the south London borough have risen by 16% in a year. Britain’s next “creative hotspot”? Liverpool’s Docklands, apparently.
Mallorca
The BBC spy series The Night Manager sizzled on the small screen at the start of the
Southern Rail capped off a miserable year with more strikes in the run up to Christmas
HANNAH MCKAY
GOING DOWN
Southern Fail
Just when we thought Southern couldn’t get any worse, it ended the year with a truly spectacular swan song of… absolutely no trains whatsoever. Now homeowners in the troubled areas have to contend not only with queues and delays, but with the prospect of falling house prices.
Just when we thought Southern couldn’t get any worse, it ended the year with a truly spectacular swan song of… absolutely no trains whatsoever. Now homeowners in the troubled areas have to contend not only with queues and delays, but with the prospect of falling house prices.
Hygge
At least seven books with the word in the title were published this autumn, and that’s before you count faux-Scandi coffee-table tomes with bearded lumberjacks on the front. Worse still, as we were getting the hang of this “hibernation under chunky knits” idea, a professor of hygge went on Radio 4 and told us all we had to go hiking to make it truly Nordic. The final nail in the coffin? The National Trust is offering days out at Waddesdon Manor, in Buckinghamshire, to “embrace the Danish way of life”.
At least seven books with the word in the title were published this autumn, and that’s before you count faux-Scandi coffee-table tomes with bearded lumberjacks on the front. Worse still, as we were getting the hang of this “hibernation under chunky knits” idea, a professor of hygge went on Radio 4 and told us all we had to go hiking to make it truly Nordic. The final nail in the coffin? The National Trust is offering days out at Waddesdon Manor, in Buckinghamshire, to “embrace the Danish way of life”.
Grey
Forget 50 shades, this year we cracked the whip at one. When the outdoors is so grey, who wants an inside to match?
Forget 50 shades, this year we cracked the whip at one. When the outdoors is so grey, who wants an inside to match?
Avocado toast and the millennial housing crisis
The people most sick of hearing about millennials and the housing crisis are millennials trapped in the housing crisis. They’ll never own a property, as they’ll be 67 and a half when they get their first mortgage. In order to drown their sorrows, they spent all their mortgage savings on avocado toast, and got told off for being irresponsible with money. Then Nigella filmed a recipe for it and they were banned from eating it ever again anyway. Oh, to be young!
The people most sick of hearing about millennials and the housing crisis are millennials trapped in the housing crisis. They’ll never own a property, as they’ll be 67 and a half when they get their first mortgage. In order to drown their sorrows, they spent all their mortgage savings on avocado toast, and got told off for being irresponsible with money. Then Nigella filmed a recipe for it and they were banned from eating it ever again anyway. Oh, to be young!