ALEXANDRA SHULMAN’S NOTEBOOK: It appears my good style in decor is price… zero

Our local high street is stuffed with estate agents again, just like it was in the 1980s. Like so many, I often check the properties in their windows.

Prices have rocketed in the 30 years I’ve owned a home in the neighbourhood, so browsing the listings is more of a cheering pastime than anything transactional.

Can it be that a four-bedroom terraced house on a scuzzy piece of ground near the railway track now costs £2.5million? Or that a two-bedroom basement flat is close to £1million?

Wondering what my own home might now be worth, I invited an agent round. Not a good idea. Not good at all.

I pride myself on what a lovely house we are lucky to have – the unusual garden, the position near a park, the light-filled kitchen extension. Although, granted, the place has a bit of a boho feel – old floorboards, vintage furniture and books piled up everywhere – it’s done tastefully.

It’s what I’d describe as ‘grand cosy’. The sort of place I’d hope anyone looking for a family home with plentiful local amenities and excellent transport links (there I go sounding like an agent myself!) would be keen to snap up.

Within moments it was clear very little of what I thought made our home special was remotely relevant. The agent gave the rooms a cursory glance, paying no attention to pleasant decorative touches, and seemed interested only in whether it had underfloor heating and what time of day the sun reached the garden.

It wasn’t that he valued the house at an offensively low price, but that he didn’t consider anything I treasure of any value at all. The general feel of the rooms, which I smugly thought might be a selling feature, counted for nothing.

When I said I’d heard buyers were keen on places they could just move straight into, since building work is now so expensive, he answered that was indeed the case… just not the way ours had been done up nearly 20 years ago. No entertainment room, no sauna, no home gym, I suppose.

Sadly, the bottom line is that my taste was deemed without worth.

A golden time for the silver foxes

It’s been a good week for old men. Well, not exactly old, but dapper grey-haired chaps. Those silver foxes like Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister (60 today), and George Clooney (63), who with his hair unattractively tinted walnut for a play on Broadway, has demonstrated how much better guys look in their natural grey. Indeed, there might be a case for men to consider dying their hair grey to enhance their appeal.

Leading the silver pack when it comes to wealth is 76-year-old Bernard Arnault. One of the world’s richest men, he has just registered a proposal to raise the retirement age at LVMH to 85 for the roles of CEO and chairman.

He holds both positions at the luxury firm, and given that he is also controlling shareholder, is unlikely to face much pushback. It should silence the gossip about him being on the verge of retirement. On the way out is never a position any silver fox aspires to.

The White Lotus? It’s my idea of hell

The third series of The White Lotus, set in the Four Seasons in Thailand, has confirmed that I never want to stay in one of those luxurious tropical hotels.

Obviously, it doesn’t help that the show’s plot has a threatening vibe. But even so, the idea of being trapped between the ocean and a jungle, in a guarded compound full of snakes and monkeys, terrifies me. Add to that nightly performances by staff in traditional costume for the exclusively Western guests, while being stuck with the same faces seated at the same tables, and it’s my idea of hell. Not that many share this view – previous White Lotus destinations have seen a massive rise in bookings.

The winner of the charm stakes is…

At the impressive age of 92, my friend Lady Antonia Pinter is still showing form in the charm stakes.

Sitting at a neighbouring table in West London’s The Park restaurant, I noticed she was having difficulty negotiating the move from banquette to wheelchair. My male lunch companion and I jumped up to help. Once settled, she demonstrated there is no age limit on flirting, turning her limpid blue eyes to my friend and beaming at him with her famously beatific smile. ‘I don’t think we’ve yet met but I very much look forward to meeting you again,’ she schmoozed, leaving him, like so many men over the decades, bathed in the still magnificent glow of her admiration.

The humble sarnie needs a new name

You might have thought we hit peak sandwich-flation last year, when there was a fuss about M&S charging £6 for its ‘Posh Egg Mayo and Watercress’ variety. Not so. The other day my son brought home a gigantic sandwich costing over £11.

Sandwiches seem immune to cost-of-living concerns. All over London these huge constructions wrapped in waxed brown paper are flying out of trendy bakeries.

The price seems insane, but if you were to dismantle them and lay out the contents – in this case, prosciutto, mozzarella, rocket, pesto and other bits and pieces – with a side order of great chunks of freshly baked bread, it might not seem so daft.

Perhaps the word ‘sandwich’ is the problem. They are meant to be cheap and easy. Today’s massive sarnies should be given a new name worthy of the price.

A rare triumph for Khan the killjoy

Book-swap stands at some Tube stations have added a sweet, humanising element to the dreary commute. Despite being deemed a fire hazard, Sir Sadiq Khan stepped up to stop them being removed. It’s a rare but welcome initiative from a mayor more usually hell-bent on making life more difficult.

We run an occasional stand outside our house – many of the books are proof copies unsuitable for charity shop resale. Fortunately the fire service is unconcerned.