U.K. Shedding Brokers

Across the pond, as many as 15,000 real estate brokers could be out of work by the end of 2008, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning. That’s roughly 5 percent of the United Kingdom’s 300,000 brokers.

The cause? High seller expectations and buyer skittishness. Things aren’t as bad in the U.K. as Read More

Brace Yourselves–Trouble Across the Pond

The once-mighty British economy is buckling, and the effects could be felt in New York City. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning:

The investment-banking business is already stalling, potentially eliminating thousands of high-paid jobs and demand for everything from tailored suits to high-end hunting trips.

Could it also affect New York Read More

T.G.I.M., Really!

The Monday Room is no ordinary restaurant. In fact, it doesn’t feel like a restaurant at all.

The room is an annex hidden behind the hostess desk at Public Restaurant in Nolita. Stepping through its door—which is unmarked—you feel as though you’ve entered a gentlemen’s club in the 19th century. There’s a faded Oriental carpet Read More

International Popularity: North Korea Up, Iran Down

A nationwide Quinnipiac poll gauged the popularity of various countries with American voters and found that North Korea became slightly more popular, Iran became less popular and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela stayed the same.

Here are the current approval ratings of the most popular and least popular countries, along with their scores from a Read More

Mad About Madras; Durang, They Sang

All of Harley Granville-Barker’s great Edwardian plays are about moral corruption, which accounts for the run of timely revivals. In 1999, the excellent Mint Theater Company staged Barker’s drama about financial greed and hypocrisy, The Voysey Inheritance—the same play that David Mamet recently adapted. Now, in the first New York revival since 1921, the Mint Read More

Apted’s Ledger of Life Is Labor of Love

Michael Apted’s 49 Up continues and possibly concludes the most remarkable chronicle of a slice of humanity in the history of cinema. This is to say that I cannot possibly imagine what more Mr. Apted can glean from people he has known since their childhoods without venturing too deeply into the morbid realms of intimations Read More

Apted's Ledger of Life Is Labor of Love

Michael Apted’s 49 Up continues and possibly concludes the most remarkable chronicle of a slice of humanity in the history of cinema. This is to say that I cannot possibly imagine what more Mr. Apted can glean from people he has known since their childhoods without venturing too deeply into the morbid realms of intimations Read More

Daniel Pipes Raises the Issue of Dual Loyalty

In a recent column, neocon Daniel Pipes openly questions the loyalties of British Muslims.

Polling indicates that a majority of Muslims perceive a conflict between their British and Muslim identities. Two polls show that only a small proportion identifies itself first as a British (7% and 12%), but they differ widely on the Read More

Bye-Bye to Brick Lane- Monica Ali Changes Tack

Monica Ali is not a subscriber to the guest-worker school of fiction, the vaguely held assumption that what was born abroad should stick with and to its own kind. Like the rest of Europe, the pale Britannia Ms. Ali moved to as a child from Bangladesh has come relatively late to the need to even Read More