By nightfall a second Murray-English cat nine-month-old Bluebell had vanished from the cul-de-sac and

By nightfall, a second Murray-English cat, nine-month-old Bluebell, had vanished from the cul-de-sac and the police were called in.Coxhoe’s amateur sleuths have discovered a number of coincidences. Returning later in the day from a weekend break in the Lake District, they were told by a neighbour that Sacha, their four-year-old cat, had also been found dead. The guitarist Andy Gill, now a producer, and singer Jon King, an internet geek, had collaborated off and on during the Nineties, but now they could work with one of the most effective rhythm sections of its time: bassist Dave Allen, again fresh from the online coalface, and Hugh Burnham, a teacher.On stage, civilian careers were soon forgotten as the three members of the band’s frontline became a constant whirl of motion. “It was pretty natural,” he says, “that one day I should pick up an instrument and start fooling around with it too. They are the most likely to have an unconventional attitude to their roles (she is quite liable to stay in bed on a Saturday with a filthy hangover while he looks after the children) and, though obviously devoted to each other, their relationship involves lots of jokes at each other’s expense, quite a bit of independent partying, and plenty of risk-taking.Tomboy couples are the most likely to sell up and go and live in Africa for a year while she is pregnant with twins.

Tony and Cherie Blair paid pounds 3.6m for a house in London’s Connaught Square last autumn but would they have done so if they had known a similar property nearby fetched pounds 1.39m in May 2003? I found out within a few seconds online, thanks to websites that now give exact sale prices of homes across England, Scotland and Wales. This is good news for those who like a gossip about neighbours’ house prices over a cuppa. Until now, speculation has been based on hearsay, with evidence gleaned from surreptitious calls to estate agents. But now you can be a busybody with complete authority, thanks to , , and the more boringly titled landreg.gov.uk.
They work like this. The government has data on every sale held in departments called the Land Registry and, north of the border, the Registers of Scotland. The price information was available before January but only by writing to the Land Registry, specifying an exact address and paying a pounds 2 fee.

The difference now is that you can find out the information within seconds online and request prices of homes in a postcode area or an entire street, instead of just a single address.Quick-witted entrepreneurs have bought the information and are selling it to two groups of customers. The first is the property industry – surveyors and agents who have always relied on previous sales information to help them value a home. The second group consists of you and me – the nosy neighbours. While writing this article, I have discovered the price paid by almost every friend I know who has bought in the past five years – and don’t tell me you got a bargain when you bought that Chelsea flat, Nigel: you were robbed.”About 50 per cent of the hits we get each day come from ordinary people,” claims Selwyn Lim of Mouseprice. Like most of these sites, Mouseprice charges people pounds 2 for two house prices, but offers bulk discounts for multiple uses Nethouseprices has a special offer until March. The public can use it free but only when it is operating – demand led it to crash within hours of the offer beginning in the New Year.Under normal circumstances, each site operates in a similar way. You feed in a postcode or street name, with your credit card details, and the prices of homes sold since 2000 in that location appear on screen within seconds.