First unveiled in Tokyo during a fashion show in June 2007, the diamond-encrusted platinum handbag will go on display at jewellery shops around London to mark the inaugural London Jewellery Week which runs from 11-15 June, celebrating the work of established designers as well as new talent.

Valued at £1m ($2 million dollar) and created by Japanese designer Ginza Tanaka, the bag has been set with more than 2,182 diamonds totaling 208 carats.

The organisers of the event say the handbag will be available for sale.

The desk where Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations and his final correspondence hours before his death fetched £433,250 ($850,000) at auction on Wednesday, around seven times its pre-sale estimate.

“It’s a part of Charles Dickens, so I’m delighted to be its owner,” Tom Higgins told Reuters by telephone after the sale. “I’ve been a huge Dickens fan for a long time. I actually think it’s worth a lot more than what I paid for it and expected it could have gone for as much as five million (pounds).
“I think it’s a bargain, really,” added Higgins, 49, who plans to be Ireland’s first space tourist.

He added that the fact that proceeds from the sale were going to Great Ormond Street children’s hospital in London made it easier to part with the cash.

Christie’s sold the furniture as part of its valuable books and manuscripts sale in London, and the price includes the buyer’s premium.
The writing desk and chair from the study of Dickens’ Gad’s Hill residence near Rochester, Kent, was passed on by descent to Christopher Charles Dickens and his wife Jeanne-Marie Dickens. She then donated them to Great Ormond Street, with which Dickens had a close association.

Louis Vuitton collaborated with Richard Prince for a spring line of handbags and they are now offering a limited-edition style to celebrate the artist’s first major UK solo exhibition from June 26 to September 7, entitled “Continuation,” at the Serpentine Gallery.

Only 50 of the ostrich and canvas Jamais bags are available, each numbered and signed by the artist. They will be sold exclusively at Vuitton’s Sloane Street store in London during Prince’s solo show and will be priced at about $17,800.

A mansion in London is set to sell for £117million ($230 mn) – making it the world’s costliest home. The palatial residence, on a street dubbed Billionaires’ Row, is believed to have been bought by Britain’s richest man, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal.

He is believed to be close to exchanging contracts with owner Noam Gottesman, 47, a US-born financier.
The home in Kensington Palace Gardens, West London, Princess Diana’s former street, is being sold furnished and with an art collection. It works out at an astonishing £8,000 per square foot.

His new pad pips the £115million previous record – paid in March for a flat being built in nearby St James’s Square.

In late March 2007 Luvaglio of London released, by appointment only, the world’s most expensive laptop.

The laptop comes in a self opening case and features a 17-inch wide-screen LED display with an anti-glare coating, 128GB hard drive and Blu-Ray player.

There is screen is state of the art, it features a self cleaning system so you can keep your grubby little hands off of it.

If this project gets the green light, London’s skyline would have a new addition in the form of the mile-high ‘eco-friendly’ tower, to be located in East London. Towering 500 stories high, it is expected to house 100,000 people, in addition to having space for schools, hospitals and stores.

This proposed giant skyscraper by British firm Popular Architecture will create 12 new ‘villages’ in the sky and is three times larger than anything built in the capital. And for every 20 stories, there will be ‘holes’ that serve as public spaces containing botanic gardens, ice-skating rinks and swimming pools.

The whole idea of using minimal land to house a large number of people adds an ecological advantage to this project. For now though, this skyscraper remains a pipedream till an interested developer turns it into reality.