In fact they are meticulously planning their escape from the city so, with luck, they will also be able to give up work as IT consultants and take to cider-making and growing raspberries.When the couple bought the plot – which had a run-down 160 year-old cottage and two barns – there was no planning consent. But they enlisted the help of a local planning consultant to help them with the three applications needed to demolish the cottage, replace it with a four-bedroom house and convert a barn into two offices. Mr Wadge, 40, says: “We’ve really taken our time because we are planning on living there for the rest of our lives. The planning applications had to be staggered because we knew it would be refused if we went all out at the start. We spent £6,000 on planning consultancy fees but the advice we’ve had has been invaluable.”The final stage of the Wadges’ planning application was passed at the end of last year and the family awaits a buyer for their £600,000 Seventies townhouse in Blackheath, London, before work on their new home can begin. “We’ve been lucky in that we were able to buy the land without a mortgage,” Mr Wadge says.

“Having to get a loan would have put a totally different light on the waiting involved.”We’re creating a house purely with our needs in mind. It will be energy-efficient and we’ve even planned ahead to when our children are teenagers by having the walls designed to minimise noise emissions. It was important to us to have control over every facet of our new life, and that’s what self-build gives you.”This weekend, the organisers of The National Homebuilding and Renovating Show at the NEC in Birmingham are expecting more than 40,000 visitors to what will be the UK’s biggest self-build and renovation exhibition.And for anybody wanting the opportunity of getting first-hand expert advice on everything from arranging a self-build mortgage to eco-friendly insulation techniques, and who is thinking of making the giant leap to self-build, it might be a good place to start.The National Homebuilding and Renovating Show is at the NEC, Birmingham today and tomorrow, tel 020-8710 2186. For details of this and other self-build events, visit the website . Michael Jackson faced more bad news yesterday after a Californian court ordered him to pay $5.3m (£3.35m) in damages to a German music promoter for failing to appear at two concerts planned for the eve of the new millennium. Much of the media coverage focused on his appearance – his alarmingly raw-looking nose, and his insistence on turning up for the hearing on crutches, even though he was seen walking perfectly normally when the television cameras were not trained on him.Skip Miller, Mr Avram’s lawyer, said: “The jury believed Avram They did not believe Michael Jackson. That’s what the whole thing comes down to.”Zia Modabber, Mr Jackson’s lawyer, said: “He’s fine with it.

He stood up for himself and went to trial and Mr Avram didn’t get nearly what he wanted.”Repeated media reports, including a profile in next month’s Vanity Fair, have suggested Mr Jackson is in deep financial trouble and has relied on multimillion-dollar loans to remain solvent. The Vanity Fair piece also alleges Mr Jackson paid witch doctors to perform voodoo rituals against his enemies in the entertainment industry and to create money out of thin air.. Marilyn Monroe’s iconoclastic status is to be celebrated in London next month with the world’s largest exhibition of her image. More than 250 works by 70 artists including Andy Warhol and Peter Blake and the photographers Richard Avedon and Henri Cartier-Bresson will go on display at the County Hall Gallery next to the London Eye.

Already, fan clubs are phoning for mass bookings.As well as many previously unseen images, on show will be memorabilia, including the bed she slept in, the dress and jewellery she wore on her first date with the baseball star Jo DiMaggio, whom she married, and a drawing she did when she was a model known by her real name of Norma Jean Baker. Other works are by contemporary artists such as Conny Holthusen and Ernesto Tatafiore.And there are plans for screenings of favourite films, including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Seven Year Itch, which featured the skirt-blowing incident. She died of a drug overdose in 1962, when she was 36.Thomas Levy, a Germany gallery owner who curated the exhibition, said: “Along with so many others, I have always had a passion for Marilyn. She has been such an inspiration to so many and I wanted to put together an exhibition that reflected her immense influence on the art and culture of today.”Tickets for Marilyn Monroe – Life of a Legend are £8.50 but concessions will be available. The show will tour Japan, Australia and the United States for two years after London.Or did her hands hold her secret?People on a first date who lack the ability to judge whether their partner is attractive can now tell from a simple observation: by checking the length of their fingers.Psychologists say when ring and index fingers are close to the same length, the people are more likely to have symmetrical faces, widely thought to be the most attractive.Men whose ring and index fingers differ substantially in length are more likely to have asymmetrical faces, seen to be less attractive.The report was presented to the British Psychological Society’s annual conference in Bournemouth yesterday by Nick Neave, of Northumbria University. He said differences in finger-length and facial shape were set by pre-natal testosterone levels.Jeremy Laurance.