And nice to see our own Jason Flemyng (above) firing automatic weapons at toothy sea serpents. Not the sort of thing a British actor gets to do every day of the week.On release. Last month, Hambro Countrywide, one of Britain's largest estate agencies, showed that it had lost pounds 880,000 between January and June 1998, which was in stark contrast with its pounds 3.5m profit in the second half of 1997.Even so, Paul Taylor, also a solicitor at Berrymans, points out that if predictions are correct, the situation should be better this time round."The 1980s was the time of great greed. But prices are still 9.2 per cent higher than they were a year ago."However, indications are rife that the market is - at the very least - entering a stagnant period. The house was repossessed, and resold in 1992 for pounds 145,000, and the building society sued the surveyors for the difference.One of the reasons that the building society won the case was because the valuer was considered negligent for not taking into consideration the fact that market conditions were going into decline.David Hartfield, a solicitor at the London firm Hartfields, asserts that this was a common phenomenon However, he said: "I don't think this will happen again. As a result, Coventry Building Society had lent pounds 243,750 to the purchasers, who had granted a mortgage of the property as security.The loan was made on the purchasers' own certification of income - but subsequently, they fell into arrears.

The valuers have learned a very expensive lesson, and they are now making much more conservative estimates."Although the situation may seem bleak, the jury is still out on whether the market is heading for freefall.Charlotte Capstick, a leading professional negligence lawyer at Berrymans Lace Mawer, says: "It is too soon to say that we are entering a property recession."We are merely entering a more stable period which contrasts with the over-heated rise in house prices that has been experienced recently."A spokesman for the Nationwide Building Society agrees: "We recorded a fall in prices in August of 0.5 per cent - the first fall in 20 months. "They love Brits over there, and they can sell their stuff at a premium," said someone involved with the project. "On the East Coast it's seen as exclusive, even though the American market is quite conservative." Mr Wilson says that, as with the best investors, design houses are hedging, with an increased interest in the British market and diversifying activities here.Some design houses are making diffusion (secondary) brand clothes for High Street retailers; others are starting businesses consulting the likes of Marks & Spencer about their new ranges.Inside: 64-pagefashion magazine. "The wider clothing industry has been hit by the high value of the pound and the economic problems occurring in the Far East."But within the designer sector, the problems are much less severe. We're talking about brands, and the brand images are so strong that they are less price-sensitive," Mr Wilson said.Despite the global economic downturn, a record number of overseas buyers has registered for this Fashion Week.Although that doesn't necessarily mean there will be a record amount of sales, it bodes well for the 210 houses in the design sector, which rely on the export market for 70 per cent of their production.The importers of our fashions are Japan, the United States, Germany and, in the ultimate compliment to Paul Smith, Katharine Hamnett, Margaret Howell and their peers, Italy, the land of Gucci, Prada, Armani.Japan's crash may have claimed the business of Mr Boateng, one of Savile Row's most original tailors, but Smith, Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen are all thriving in Tokyo."They are cult brands and people will continue to buy them, there isn't really any competition," said one person close to one of the designers.Showing a flair for international economics is almost as important as a flair for hemlines and colours; the latest target of the export drive is America, seen as a relatively unexploited market.Saks Fifth Avenue, the New York equivalent of Harvey Nichols, held a British Designers' Week earlier this month.

Obviously, he said, the long term reform of the Lords is closely linked to reform of the Commons, because it is about the Houses of Parliament and the system of government.Thisdoesn't seem like a Prime Minister on the point of ditching Paddy Ashdown "I like Paddy Ashdown and I admire him. He is a good guy with good instincts for the country."I believe it is sensible for people who basically agree with each other to co-operate with each other. Instead the game is waiting for Lord Jenkins' report.But he gives a strong hint that the Commons PR could be tied together with second stage Lords reform in the same referendum. The dapper Mr Mandelson did a reasonable job of blending with the perfectly coiffed hordes in the Natural History Museum, but his presence was also an indication of the growing importance of Britain's all-conquering designers to the British economy. The clothing industry employs 213,000 people, and produces goods worth pounds 7.9bn a year according to the latest figures, making it the country's sixth biggest manufacturer.Though there have been some recent, well-publicised failures - such as Oswald Boateng's closure after the cancellation of pounds 1.5m in orders from recession-struck Japan - clever marketing and branding by more exclusive labels has seen designer exports grow to 70 per cent of the market."It's very much an export-led business," said John Wilson, director of the British Fashion Council. WEARING A dark grey Richard James suit and a pale blue Hilditch and Key shirt, the clean-cut, square-jawed Peter Mandelson, the Trade and Industry Secretary, stepped forward at London Fashion Week yesterday and congratulated Britain's designers. As for change to the electoral system, that has to be done only on the basis of the interests of the country.".

It had not set out its policies and had barely mentioned the one which truly defined it. Independence "would be a disaster for jobs, business, industry and trade." The defining moment for the nationalists had been when it had "wiped all its policies off the Internet." The other criticism is that he has "fiddled with the constitution when we should be doing other things." Not at all, he says; they all have to do with modernising and strengthening the UK.So where does that leave us on Commons electoral reform? Here Mr Blair is notably cautious, though it is striking that he does not, this time, use the repeated mantra that he is "not persuaded" of the case for change. If you offer a modern forward-looking and sensible alternative in which Scotland and England grow stronger together in a stronger UK, in my view in the end people will go for it."The Scottish National Party, he noted, had had a bad conference. He will not say that the PR referendum will, or will not be in this Parliament, which will not delight those Liberal Democrats who fear it won't be. As in the very different circumstances of Northern Ireland - where to have disappointed the pent-up pre-election expectations of what a Labour government would mean might have unleashed catastrophe - so Scotland needed a way forward."If you offer people a choice between the status quo and separatism, there is a risk real they would choose separatism. But they are not the bedrock of the Labour Party - that is a lot of ordinary folk who are not part of the chattering classes, who pocket everything that they do ike and then moan about the 10 things they don't like."What then of constitutional reform? Here, Mr Blair rebuts firmly one criticism - that he stumbled into Scottish Home Rule, and in doing so has now unleashed the genie of separatism Quite the opposite says the Prime Minister. He treats Mr Murdoch no differently to any other media proprietor.