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But this does not mean she has done everything by the first time buyer's cautious book. She says: "We put an offer on this house before I'd even looked around, although my partner and his parents did go and have a look round before I'd seen it."Ms Duthie has no regrets over her speedy response. Her advice to any hopeful first time buyer is: "Go with your gut feeling. If you ponder about the decision you might just lose your first preference." As if to drive the point home even more in today's extremely competitive housing market she adds: "Ours was on the market for just five hours. It was difficult looking for a place as the market is so fast and furious Every time we looked at a house we liked it disappeared.".

Six hundred cinemagoers paying a paltry 20p each last night became the inaugural customers of easyCinema, a tangerine multiplex which is the start of entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou's latest mission to revolutionise what he claims is a self-serving service industry. To those familiar with the "no frills" philosophy of Mr Haji-Ioannou, easyCinema is a familiar cost-cutting assault on an established industry.Rather than a box office, tickets are bought on a website; instead of ushers there are turnstiles; and prices are supposed to be eye-catching rather than eye-watering; rather than overpriced popcorn, customers bring their own snacks.But anyone rolling up to central Milton Keynes yesterday expecting to be able to see Keanu Reeves doing balletic battle in Matrix Reloaded, or any other new film, would have been disappointed. The sell-out first night at easyCinema featured three films - Blue Crush, a romantic comedy about surfers; a horror flick called Darkness Falls; and the martial arts movie Bulletproof Monk.Quite apart from the fact that none had elicited rave reviews from the critics, the films were also a prime example of the key problem facing easyCinema - it is only showing titles that have already been released to the main cinemas.The absence of the latest releases from the easyCinema programme is the result of a bitter row between Stelios and six main distributors, who are refusing to supply their films. The flamboyant entrepreneur wants to challenge the dominance of the Hollywood studios by paying a set fee to show a film for a defined period. By doing this, his easyGroup wants to use the "yield management" techniques it has so far applied to the airlines, car hire and internet caf?With even the best cinemas filling only an average of 40 per cent of their seats and most averaging about 20 per cent, easyCinema wants instead to fill its screens at all times by selling 20p tickets and upwards on a sliding scale. The company claims it will sell 80 per cent of its tickets between 20p and £4. The maximum price will be £5.But this is a departure too far for the main distributors - 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Disney, Columbia, Universal and Entertainment - who operate by taking a percentage of the takings from the cinemas.

Industry sources said that in the cases of blockbusters the figure is about 60 per cent.. Even the buskers along the seafront are leaving Cannes: as the festival winds to a close this weekend, no one has seen for days the guy who dances with trained cats on his arms Even the buskers along the seafront are leaving Cannes. As the festival winds to a close this weekend, no one has seen for days the guy who dances with trained cats on his arms. People are starting to fly home before an anticipated air traffic controllers' strike tomorrow, the market stalls are being packed up and every conversation in late-night drinking spots such as the terrace at the Grand and the Petit Majestic comes back to one thing: was this the worst Cannes competition line-up on record?As with so many topics in Cannes, nobody can agree on the answer. "All of the critics are saying this competition has been the weakest in long time," says Steven Gaydos, Variety's executive editor.