By Render Positive London was never a particularly cheap place to live – in fact, Rightmove’s figures suggest that the average asking price of a property in London has risen by £80,000 since the start of 2014. As a result, prices are now at an all-time high, and only look set to rise in future. However, as is to be expected, some boroughs are significantly more expensive than others, with some enjoying a meteoric rise in prices following different developments,...

By Lisa Milella After I was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease six months ago I decided to spend the time I had left helping the world's most endangered species around the globe, from India to the rainforests of Borneo. My bucket list also included sledging with huskies under the Northern Lights in Norway, canoeing up the Amazon and helping rescued dancing bears, a leopard cub and a tiger with toothache in India. When I was told I had a terminal...

By Marcus Hunt Peer-to-peer lending is a highly innovative means of businesses acquiring capital; crowdsourcing loans from dozens of small investors is a way for both parties to secure better interest rates by cutting out the cumbersome middle-men at the banks. From humble beginnings, sites like Zopa, Ratesetter and Funding Circle have now facilitated loans of over £1 billion to small and medium-sized British businesses. However, I think that there is good reason to believe that over the medium-term the...

By Pieter Cranenbroek Watching David Cameron in Europe is a bit like watching a kid make a stain on his shirt and rub it, making it bigger and bigger. The British prime minister has been rubbing his European leaders up the wrong way for a while, but his diplomacy has gone from bad to worse in recent weeks. His disillusioned performance in the Juncker episode means that Cameron has struck out in Europe. Less than a month ago, Cameron was...

By Indy Hack @IndyHack July 6th will mark the 79th birthday of the most iconic religious figure in current popular culture, a figure most often associated with peace, tolerance, non-violence and religious harmony, none other than Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. Behind the carefully crafted and stage managed image of the world's most popular Buddhist monk lies a story of religious persecution and political oppression inflicted on the Tibetan people, not by the Chinese, but by the Dalai Lama...

By Joe Mellor Deputy Editor Last week a group of MPs and peers have called for an overhaul of the way the rental industry is run to provide better protection for families who do not own their own home. Well until that is sorted out (don’t hold your breath) www.rentalraters.com are the TripAdvisor of the rental market, to alert you to dodgy landlords. It is an on-line community that praises the best and (literally) rubbishes the worst. We have compiled...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor  “Everything you can imagine is real” said Pablo Picasso, a concept which contemporary auteur Danny Passarella has embraced. He has just unveiled his first ever art exhibition, Fantasy Scenes, in The Gallery at Forge & Co this summer. While Danny is noted for his Passarella Death Squad project spanning fashion and music, his Fantasy Scenes show consists of science fiction-esque images that evoke the wonder of adolescence. These ‘Fantasy Scenes’ themselves are ten hyper-real coastal...

By Jack Peat  In an information economy where our personal data is wilfully publicised, recorded and used for political and corporate gain, the question of whether we are living the prophesied dystopian theories of Nineteen Eighty-Four is more poignant than ever. George Orwell’s timeless work paints a frightening picture of official deception, secret surveillance and manipulation of history by a totalitarian, authoritarian state. A world where language is a heretic tool that be controlled and used. Words with negative meanings...

  By Jo Walker, Senior Press Officer, Beating Bowel Cancer We all spend a fair bit of time on the loo over our lifetimes but tend to avoid talking about any problems we might have there, which can lead to life- threatening illnesses going unchecked. Londoner, Stephen Browne, was a healthy 45-year-old when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2012. Each year 41,600 people in the UK get diagnosed with bowel cancer – that’s someone every 15 minutes. Early...