One restaurateur’s plea: How am I doing? How the f*** do you think I’m doing? January 20, 2021 How am I doing? How the f*** do you think I’m doing? At every turn I politely say “struggling on” or another platitude: “smiling on the outside, crying on the inside.” But let’s put this into perspective. Pied à Terre has been on Charlotte Street for almost 30 years, 28 of those with a Michelin star. Other [...]
British Airways owner IAG swings to €7bn loss as Covid-19 decimates travel industry February 26, 2021 British Airways owner IAG swings to €7bn loss as Covid-19 decimates travel industry
D-Day in Germany: End of the Merkel era as Germans go to the polls in three-way battle September 26, 2021 As polls have opened in Germany and election day has begun for just over 60m eligible voters, Europe’s largest economy is seeing its first three-way contest for the chancellery as the environmentalist Greens join the country’s two traditional big parties in fielding a candidate for the top job. The Social Democrats’ candidate, Olaf Scholz, is [...]
UK and US enter talks over mini-deal on tariffs December 17, 2020 The UK has entered talks with outgoing US President Donald Trump’s administration over a potential mini-deal to reduce trade tariffs. US trade chief Robert Lighthizer said he was hopeful for a deal that could see punitive tariffs on Scottish whisky lowered, according to the BBC. He also suggested the UK would need to go further [...]
Why transparency is key to see through the greenwash March 22, 2021 Adam Robbins, senior investment relationship manager at Triodos Investment Management, offers his view as to why transparency is so important when you’re exploring the many shades of ‘green’ impact investments. Globally, there are undeniable changes shaping our future, such as climate change, ecosystem collapse, population growth, and scarcity of natural resources. Add to those the [...]
Loki Episode 5 review: staring into The Void July 7, 2021 *** WARNING: this review contains spoilers for all current episodes of Loki on Disney+ *** Last week, everything changed in the TVA. The Time Keepers were fake, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) were pruned, while Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) had Judge Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) at knifepoint. In an extra scene, Loki wakes in [...]
Best of travel: Where to go and what to do in Bermuda March 16, 2021 To tide us over until we’re able to travel again, we’re republishing classic travel stories from our archives. Today we revisit Siobhan Grogan’s trip to the sun, sea and sand of Bermuda. ••• There are few things more intimidating on the water than suddenly finding yourself in the middle of a practice race for the [...]
Finance need an overhaul to price in climate change risk and push green agenda forward March 6, 2021 Why did the credit and wider financial system only take off in the last 400 years? Despite money and lending being around for millennia, financial services only truly got going alongside the Enlightenment. According to the writer Yuval Noah Harari, the fundamental shift was to be found in humanity’s belief about the future. In previous [...]
Is bling out? What Chinese “common prosperity” means for luxury goods October 8, 2021 Evergrande Group will not have helped to calm the nerves of investors in European luxury goods companies. They’ve viewed recent developments in China with some trepidation. The difficulties facing the country’s second largest property developer (by sales) add to a checklist of concerns. These concerns include a slowdown in economic activity (for background, see: China: what [...]
Storm Dennis and Storm Ciara could cost insurance industry £425m February 20, 2020 The cost to the insurance industry of Storm Dennis and Storm Ciara which battered the UK in recent weeks could hit £425m. Storm Ciara swept across the UK on 9 February bringing heavy rain and gusts of wind of up to 97 mph. It was followed by Storm Dennis on the weekend of 15 February [...]