See it before it sells out

Last week I took a good, long walk around some of London's design districts to check out what was going on, since I'm well aware that journalists often fester behind their desks when they should be out and about.

By far the most impressive store on my travels was The Conran Shop on the Fulham Road (which I've always preferred to its sister store in Marylebone), with its new in-store vintage exhibition called "Opposites".

I'm told Polly Dickens, the Conran Shop's hugely talented creative director, "went to Marseille with £60,000 in her purse".

The resulting display is spectacular - think original, industrial furniture dressed up with Conran's own signature pieces, and a brilliant crash course for how to get the look.

If you have ever wondered how to mix modern with retro, neutrals with colours, new with old, come see it before it sells out. Prices from £300-£3,000 at both stores. See www.conranshop.co.uk.

Boilers always break down at the most inconvenient time

I know I'm not the only person in the world whose boiler broke down on New Year's Day, but as I stood in the kitchen, kettle boiling and my breath condensing into white clouds, it sure felt like it.

The most pressing issues about getting it fixed were practical as well as financial. A random emergency repair man picked off the internet would cost a fortune, but more important he might well not fix it properly.

Surely I couldn't bother Bernard, the heating engineer I know and trust, on his Christmas holiday? Well yes, I decided I could and he came, albeit a couple of days later. The boiler took a couple of hours to fix, didn't cost a fortune , and once Bernard was in the house I was happy to leave him and go to work knowing I'd come home to a warm house, belongings intact.

My advice is never employ someone you haven't had a recommendation about and hold out for who you think is right for the job. By the way, Bernard can be a little elusive at times, but he always turns up in the end. In fact he's so good that my trusty builder Rob, now employs him too.

Bernard Salisbury: 020 8880 3686 / 07956 041148; bbsplumbing@hotmail.co.uk;  www.northlondonboilerinstallations.com.

Refreshing Butlers

I've just come back from a mini shopping spree at Butlers, the new German chainstore that's opened on Kensington High Street. I find its strident tackiness refreshing, especially after the clobbering good taste of places like Anthropologie and All Saints.

Colours are bright, there's lots of plastic and prices are low. Sure enough it sells bog standard and reasonable quality ceramic crockery, glassware, kitchen gadgetry, plain candles, table linen and more all at good prices. But the real point of Butlers is that it's filled with things you don't need, like felted wool bouquets of flowers, fake wooden trellis with clambering bindweed and curtain tiebacks made from sea shells and raffia.

As the website says, it's "Help for the hobby chefs." And for the Christmas shopper who's getting tired of all that washed out good taste.

Do this on a shoe string at home

I've just come back from the much-hyped Anthropologie store in what used to be the old Wedgwood premises in Regent Street. What a disappointment! I remember being thrilled with it five years ago, on a visit to New York. Its tatty charm chimed with the reasonable prices when the pound was worth rather more against the dollar than it is today.

But it isn't just the lunatic prices which depressed me. The whole place, with its painstakingly distressed floorboards and half-built walls of lathe and carefully applied plaster has a contrived vintage ambiance and seems to me to be peddling an entirely false frugality. By all means do this on a shoe string at home, but really, to charge around the £2,000 mark for chandeliers made from recycled bottle tops and odd bits of glass is not funny. 

For a moment I thought I'd found a bargain, when I saw a nursing chair upholstered in teastained floral linen priced £285. Until I noticed that it was the cushion, made from an old patch of kilim, sitting on the chair that cost £285. Somewhat to my embarassment, I ended up parting with £36 for two metal letters of the alphabet stamped Made in India on the back. Yes I'm a little ashamed.

Anthropologie, 158 Regent Street. W1. 

Wesley-Barrell's annual clearance sale

Starts on Thursday 8 October until 14 October at the company's Witney showroom.

Ex-display items are down by up to 60 per cent. The Campden three-steater sofa in "Marco check" is down from £4,305 to £2,365 and this Bladon wing chair in Arundel fabric is down from £2,520 to £1,510.

Wesley-Barrell is at 3 Bridge Street, Witney, Oxfordshire (01993 776682; www.wesley-barrell.co.uk)

Clearance sale: Linen press

Linen Press is offering its linen union square pillow cases for only £8 (down from £38) and £12.50 Egyptian cotton bathmats from only £5.

King-size linen duvet covers are down from £298 to £155 (ex-display); pyjamas are reduced from £76 to £15; towelling robes cut from £45 to £15; plus reduced linen fabric remnants.

The sale is on 3 October, 10am to 3pm at St Michael & All Angels Community Centre, Elm Bank Gardens. SW13 (017683 72777).

London design-fest

I can hardly see my desk for the invitations. I like to think this is because I'm popular, although I realise that it simply heralds the beginning of the great London design-fest which, with recession-defying cheek, seems to be even bigger this year than last. The pressing question is which, of the literally hundreds of events and parties during the third week in September should I attend?

Could I manage, in a single evening, to get to the opening of Molteni's new flagship store in Shaftesbury Avenue, the presentation of the 2009 London Design Medal at Phillips de Pury, a celebration of British Design and Manufacture at Liberty's, the opening of the new Poltrona Frau Group showroom in Clerkenwell, the Boffi Rainforest event in Chelsea, a party for the 100% Norway exhibition in Marylebone and the private view party for the Lapada Art and Antiques Fair?  

And would I then have the strength to get, the following evening, to Sir Terence Conran's launch of a Starck-designed stereo speaker system, an autumn party at his sister Priscilla Carluccio's Few and Far, a celebration at the V&A in aid of the London Design Festival and a chance to meet the divine John Pawson at 100% Design?

There's a smart red guidebook which lists all the events - the 163 exhibitions and installations as well as the 42 one-day events. Leafing through it and seeing how much else there is going on, I begin to realise that actually I'm not popular at all.

All the latest information can be found at www.londondesignfestival.com.

Lunch with Jamie Oliver

I had lunch with Jamie Oliver recently, intrigued to meet him and quite prepared to be cynical about his cheery-chappy persona. It was a press event organised at his East London HQ to launch his Jme range of cookware and tableware, to which a favoured few hacks had been invited. The designers behind the products were also there and a charming bunch they were too, just thrilled to be part of Jamie's world, quite apart from having their napkins, salt grinders, bottle openers and so on, out on display.

Jamie himself was all hugs and big love and comes over just as he does on the television. There's no side to him at all; it's sincere. Throughout the lunch, which was the best I've ever eaten at a press launch, (fresh pumpkin ravioli, flaked salmon with salsa verde and roasted vegetables, unctuous chocolate mousse tart) he kept a close eye on everything, from the waiting staff to the water bottles. I've come away converted.

Homeware bargains in south-west France

I've just returned from three weeks' holiday in the Dordogne, in the south-west of France, where I spent many happy hours searching out local brocante fairs and vide-greniers (the latter meaning literally empty-attic).

The good news is that although the horrific conversion rate of the pound to the euro means a cup of coffee in a cafe is well beyond my means, I was still able to pick up plenty of lovely old enamel, glass and the odd linen for a euro or two. Even if I did have to drive for half an hour to get there.

At a modest fair in Ste Mondaine, situated in a carpark on a road leading up to the beautiful Chateau de Fenelon, I picked up some glazed ceramic inkwells for a euro each and a pretty raffia lampshade for just 50 cents.

A few days later, I visited Domme, a picturesque bastide town that overlooks the river Dordogne which is normally stuffed with English tourists, so I was amazed to find 19th-century wine glasses, enamel jugs and oddities of 'kitchenalia' for next to nothing.

The traders were shaking their heads in despair.  It was one of the hottest days in the year and most of the tourists hadn't come to buy bric-a-brac, but rather to photograph each other in front of the spectacular scenery and buy overpriced goose products!

Cookshop online special offer - order before Wednesday

Marilyn Parker Roberts has relaunched her online cookshop, which sells clever kitchen gadgets. The latest addition is this Rapid Cooling Carafe (£19.99, plus p&p £2.50) which will keep your wine at the right temperature without having to put it back in the fridge between glasses.

Order it before 2 September 2009 and you will receive a free garlic peeler worth £3.99. To claim this offer, visit Cookshop Online and select ‘Evening Standard’ during the registration process when asked how you heard about the Cookshop Online.