UFO Info Week-End

Teenagers accounted for just 16 per cent of sales – down

Teenagers accounted for just 16 per cent of sales – down from 18 per cent in 1999.A plethora of comeback tours might also be contributing to sales, say industry sources. Bob Dylan played the Brixton Academy in London last night, while David Bowie is at the Wembley Arena this week. Other old favourites returning to live shows include the Four Tops, Blondie and Fleetwood Mac.A spokeswoman for the BPI said: “There is so much more competition for teenagers’ money now, with computer games, DVDs and electronic equipment, and that has led to single sales declining. But there is what some retailers have called ‘the fifty quid bloke’ – the middle-aged man who has money, who maybe goes out for lunch, turns up in the music store with his tie slightly askew, browses around and before he knows it, has spent £50 on CDs. Forty-five per cent of all CD sales last year were to people aged over 40 – up from 35 per cent in 1999. Kylie and Britney may be battling it out for pop supremacy, but music fans of a much older vintage are riding to the rescue of the music industry.
While teenagers are increasingly using MP3 players to download music from the internet, their parents are buying CDs to replace their treasured vinyl collections.The fortysomething generation is propping up sales of CDs, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has found. The property is full of characterful details, including a vaulted entrance, and would make an ideal commercial venture or a wedding hall, as one of the rooms is around 50ft by 25ft leading onto the garden.A number of other agents currently have properties that are ideal for use as venues.

“Weddings in Malta are a very big deal,” says agent Grahame Salt: “People often invite four or five hundred guests and this is when a building like this truly comes into its own. People are always on the lookout for new venues on Malta.”Salt believes that owning a grand palazzo can be extremely profitable: “With these kinds of properties you can charge around 500 to 800 Maltese pounds per day and probably fit in three bookings per weekend, which is good money.” The ultimate buyer may wish to return the palazzo solely to residential use but the house is large enough to rent out for events and keep separate private quarters upstairs, too.Frank Salt are also selling a beautiful, unconverted Palazzo in Ghaxaq for £1,990,000 which has 13 large rooms, wide frontage and garden of around 3,500m2. A palazzo, standing on a sizeable tract of land with country views, has a large reception and dining room, living room, four bedrooms, private chapel, study three bathrooms, driveway for 20 cars along with pool, courtyard and terraces and is on offer for £3,555,000.So far, the property has not been used as a location but its owner has let it as a venue for many private parties – in particular, for weddings. “We often end up building the set in a studio, because if we want an old ordinary kitchen we still need lots of space to get distance between the actors and crew which these kitchens don’t often have. High-tech kitchens tend to be bigger.”Lewin is constantly looking for one thing: “We are always on the hunt for good-looking swimming pools and courtyards.” Lewin invites anyone who thinks they may possibly have an interesting location to e-mail Bees and advises that daily rates vary according to each project’s budget: “It would be a minimum of 1,500 euros per day for a smallish property.”Smallish certainly does not describe one property that Malta-based agents Frank Salt are currently selling, which would make a wonderful location. Every project is different, every advert is different, so we could be looking for anything from a 1960s flat to a huge villa.” The properties must have one common ingredient, however: space.

If he didn’t know it, he must now be aware that his sudden earning power – £5m, they say – will come at a price.Only at a later, solo press conference at the home ground of his club side, Newcastle Falcons, did he have a chance to catch his breath. Wilkinson, the taciturn 24-year-old whose boots speak rather louder than he does, needed by far the largest escort to see him safely through the Heathrow crowd, his head at times barely visible above his minders.At the subsequent press conference, the England fly-half tried vainly to deflect the media attention to his team-mates. Then – after a press conference which at times descended into something more akin to a riot – the 30 players who had brought the William Webb Ellis trophy to the northern hemisphere for the first time headed home.For some – one man in particular – the landscape will never be the same again. The change was completed when Jonny Wilkinson kicked the last-minute drop-goal to confirm an achievement by an England sporting team unrivalled since that Wembley afternoon 37 years ago.Through the disappearing cloud cover, it may have seemed to the England party that Heathrow was beset by one of its habitual strikes, such were the numbers of people and vehicles besieging the airport. Perhaps they had underestimated the reaction back home to their dramatic 20-17 victory.But Steve Brown from Scunthorpe knew better: he had arrived early with his wares and had sold 80 English flags by 5am.In fact, it took almost an hour from their landing at 4.35am for the England team to board its bus, such was the tumult.From there, the players were taken to their hotel in Bagshot, Surrey.