Latest Homes Sussex magazine

Katie considers whether youthful excess may lead to middle-aged boredom

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always had a soft spot for rock stars who have mastered the fine art of growing old disgracefully.

Take Keith Richards for instance. He hasn’t had a coherent thought since 1974, has a habit of falling out of trees and probably believes he really is a pirate – but that doesn’t stop young pretenders like Russell Brand channelling Richards’ trademark style.

“Russell Brand – successfully channelling Keith Richards’ trademark style”

Keef’s old mucker Marianne Faithful also has this ageing thing sussed. Through sheer chutzpah she’s strung out a career as a celebrity smackhead well into her dotage. Now she’s shacked up with a lover half her age,shrugged off hepatitis C and plans to spend her final years playing court to various bright young things begging to follow in her footsteps.

In the light of these shining examples it’s nothing short of tragic that the Britpop stars of yesteryear are having such difficulty adjusting to the ageing process. Just witness the ongoing deterioration of Alex James from Blur. Once the coolest man on God’s earth and a self-styled prince of Soho sneeze ‘n’ squeeze – these days he languishes as a celebrity cheese manufacturer with three kids called (God help them) Geronimo, Artemis and Galileo.

Maybe it’s just me (or latent lactose intolerance) but his obsession with dairy products is starting to become unnerving. You can’t open a magazine or switch on the TV without finding Alex twittering on about how cheese festivals are the new Glastonbury and rural living is the new rock ‘n’ roll.

It’s all deathly boring and slightly smug. However ironically he embraces the ‘big house in the country’ lifestyle that his band used to satirise there’s a growing feeling that he’s starting to royally lose the plot.

What’s really disconcerting is that whatever satanic pact he made during the Britpop days has now obviously been left to lapse. While Alex may describe himself as ‘the second drunkest member of Blur’ he was always by far the best looking. When Blur were young, Alex had cheekbones that could lacerate girls’ hearts at a hundred paces and a floppy fringe that always seemed to point invitingly towards his crotch.

What I’m beginning to suspect is that during Blur’s heyday there was a portrait of Alex hanging in the attic, à la Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, that soaked up all the hard living while his body remained youthful. Unfortunately thanks to middle age and excessive cheese munching it’s the increasingly haggard picture that now stalks the country roads shooting pheasants and milking cows while his gorgeous alter ego is caught in that lonely loft, dreaming of nights at the Groucho and the possibility of a snog off Justine from Elastica.

Still, perhaps Alex’s fate should be a lesson to us all. To paraphrase William Blake, if the road of excess leads to a life of middle-aged cheese farming rather than the palace of wisdom, I might just choose to swap my triple vodkas for mineral water from here on out.

Casa are offering some wonderful properties in Bulgaria as part of a new development project

Bulgaria has one of the fastest growing tourism markets in Europe. Interest in its rich cultural heritage and spectacular natural landscapes escalated when Bulgaria joined the EU in January 2007 and there is further anticipation over its planned adoption of the euro in 2009. Easyjet recently commenced a daily service between London Gatwick and Sofia, showing the airline’s growing commitment to tourism in the country and the country’s increasing popularity with British tourists in particular.

Bulgaria is considered to be among the best emerging markets of Eastern Europe; with profits on off-plan purchases often exceeding purchasers’ expectations. It is easy to see why the country is fast becoming one of the most popular locations for British property buyers looking to invest overseas.

In both summer and winter, tourists enjoy the best that the country has to offer – historical cities and towns, sunny coastlines and thriving ski resorts. While the coastal towns continue to attract large numbers of holidaymakers, a rapidly growing infrastructure is attracting interest from skiers and snowboarders looking for a cheaper alternative to the French resorts.

Bulgaria is fast becoming the destination of choice for skiers in Europe, and skiing in Bulgaria doesn’t get better than Bansko. Just 160 km away from Sofia, it’s considered to be the best and most popular ski resort in Bulgaria; thanks to the excellent snow records and the longest ski season, 15 December to 15 May. The growing popularity of Bansko has resulted in significant investment in infrastructure within the region, ski runs and lifts, as well as luxury hotels and holiday apartments.

The region of Bansko and Razlog promises to be a year round tourist destination, and the region is set to attract a new wave of tourists – golfers. To date, there are seven golf projects planned for this particular mountain area – the largest number of golf projects in Bulgaria. Six of the golf courses will be constructed in Razlog and the seventh is in Bansko ski resort.


Casa Group plc is developing Razlog Golf & Ski resort – a €35 million (£25 million) project featuring 325 studio, one, two and three bed apartments with a wide range of facilities including an indoor swimming pool with outdoor lounge facilities, a children’s plunge pool and a spacentre that includes massage rooms, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room, as well as a gym. The resort also houses a gourmet restaurant, bar and shops. To ensure residents have easy access to the skiing and après ski in Bansko, there will be a complimentary shuttle service to the town centre and gondola station which will take the 1 km route along the new road which is currently being built between this area of Razlog and the town centre.

Razlog Golf & Ski was recently awarded a prestigious architecture award at the 2007 International Property Awards. The project achieved the maximum five stars from the awards jury, and won the prize for the Best Architecture (Multiple Units). The design of the resort is contemporary yet sympathetic, incorporating the best of traditional Bulgarian crafts with aspects of modern living. Utilising the existing palette of local materials, incorporating stone, wood and render, the scheme is strong in identity, original in its conception and one that is set apart with its dramatic split roof line following the contours of the site giving the development a unique character.

“Throughout the design and build process we have been determined to create a development that is architecturally interesting and fits in with the surrounding environment, as well as being a top class holiday and second home destination.” (Ferenc Ebozue, Chief Executive Officer of Casa Group plc)

Razlog Golf & Ski is due for completion in 2009. The second phase of units went on sale in July 2007, with prices starting at €45,000 for a studio apartment.

For more information please visit:
www.razlog-golfandski.com,
email razlog-sales@casaplc.com
or phone 0207 518 1866.

Robin Cousins Olympic Gold medallist and world free skating champion talks to Andrew Kay about a career that combines creativity and athleticism

What was your introduction to ice skating?
I was five and we were on holiday in Bournemouth. It was a hot summer. My dad was playing golf with my brothers and my mother and I were wandering around the shops and there was a very cold breeze coming from this doorway so we stood there to cool off and it was the entrance to the ice rink. In the entrance was the poster for the Bournemouth Ice Follies of 1964-65 and the pictures got my attention. There was public skating happening I asked to go in and look. The next thing my mother remembered was paying one and sixpence for me to be on the ice and I remember whizzing around.

Could you do it straight away?
I don’t remember, my mother’s recollection was that a man came up and said: “Oh, your son’s very good, where does he skate?” and she said: “No, it’s his first time, he’s never been on the ice before”. She told him that we were from Bristol, and he said that he knew there was no ice rink, only then could he believe that I had never actually been on the ice before. But he made the mistake of telling me that there was going to be an ice rink built in Bristol.

On Saturdays, we would all go and get hair cuts and the only way I would go is if we drove past where they were building the ice rink. Something about it that had obviously captured my imagination. I asked for skating lessons for Christmas, there was a board with all the professionals names and my mother said you can have so many lessons with this one or two lessons with that one and I said that I wanted lessons with that lady because she just smiled at me. It was Pamela Davis who had skated alongside John Curry in Birmingham. She took me from my ‘learn to skate’ class through to my first World Championship.

“I tell kids when they get nervous, just look at the panel of mean, nasty old judges and imagine them naked, it will make you smile and you won’t be able to think about them”

Where did you come?
Fifteenth. Not a bad start, 15th out of 29 and I was the youngest by a year. I had three major coaches in my life and the other two both said that the reason I was winning was because of the way Pam had taught me at the beginning. She was only 19, Bristol was her first teaching job and she was passionate. There were probably 8 or 9 of us competing regionally and locally at club levels. We were all at her house picking our music. She was taking us out to look at fabrics for our outfits and we were very involved in the whole process. She did not say, “This is what you are going to skate to and how you are going to do it”, it was “What do you want to do? How would you like to skate? What do you want to feel like? What music do you like?”.

Did that give you your ability to choreograph?
Absolutely, there is no question that what Pam instilled in us as pre-teenagers was the magic of show business even though we were on the ice. It was always about how we looked, and how we did it not what we did. There were people that were trying complex jumps when we were only allowed to do singles but we did the most beautiful perfect singles. I did not win the Olympics because of what I did, I won it because of how I did it.The technique is wonderful but it is that extra, the ‘IT’ factor and she had it and passed on what she could to her students. I was the one who made it the furthest but there were four or five of us that were great performers and I credit everything to that ‘Learn to Skate’ class.

You were part of a wave that was a change in the way ice dance and free skating looked, very much a British thing.
There was no ‘this is how it has to be done’, until I had to move to London and started to work with the great Gladys Hogg, a world champion in her own right, and had taught five or six world champions. She was old school, this is how it is done and this is how it is.

How old were you then?
13 or 14, I was Junior National Number one and I was doing a cross over between junior and senior, and, I have to be honest, it was not that I was that good, it was just that there were not that many boys competing so I did jump through the ranks quite quickly, although, you have to reach a standard to be able to move on. We would go up once a week to do a day of training in London with Gladys. I was learning from one of the greats and of course training in London alongside our national rank team. It was interesting but Gladys and I clashed a lot over my ideas, how I wanted to look and the type of music. A woman who befriended a few of us at the rink took what I had learned from Pam a step further and introduced me to some obscure American music, folk singers, rock or a bit of this and that – the diversity of what I was exposed to was going to make me who I was to become.

(more…)

West Sussex-based teenager, Nick Haynes, a pupil at Windlesham House School in Washington, has been selected by the Royal Yachting Association to join the Optimist National Junior Sailing Squad.

The Optimist dinghy is the official junior class adopted by the RYA for training talented sailors up to 16 years of age to compete for the UK at international sailing events. At 13 years old, Nick is one of the youngest competitors and has shown tremendous determination and strength to make his mark in the sport.

“At the moment I am ranked 20th in the UK out of 287 other competing British sailors,” explained Nick. “But with two more years left to compete in this age class, my ambition is to reach the number one spot!”

Nick earned his selection to the National Squad as a result of his consistent performance over the 2007 season. He achieved two outright race wins at the National Championships held at the Weymouth National Sailing Centre in August, which sealed his inclusion for National honours.