Sport Comment: Mike Ashley taking the biscuit in rations row December 18, 2014 MIKE Ashley may not – on the face of it – have much in common with Marie Antoinette, but he is similarly distanced from the reality of the eating habits of the common people. The Newcastle United owner and vastly wealthy Sports Direct founder has allowed his spiky relationship with the media at St James’ [...]
A weekend of gourmet indulgence with Heston Blumenthal on the Mont Blanc slopes February 5, 2015 You know a Heston Blumenthal meal is going to be something special. The same, it turns out, goes for a Heston Blumenthal holiday. The concept is a foodie’s wet dream: four days of crisp slopes, fine Italian wine and haute cuisine cooked by some of the world’s top chefs. Here’s how it came about: “Heston [...]
Inside Track: Just-eat.com just might serve up a London flotation July 25, 2013 LONDON’S reputation as a host city for start-up technology groups would be enhanced if some of the larger businesses would only decide to list here. While there’s no doubt the plan to set up a hub for tech companies around Old Street roundabout is making strong progress, there are still concerns that some of the [...]
The free trade deals that could turbo-charge the UK economy by £10bn February 11, 2015 Few know it, but you are all paying a secret tax. Trade tariffs and other protectionist barriers are a hidden part of the price you pay for almost everything you buy. Consider this: if we could do a trade deal between America and the EU, at one stroke we could create up to 2m jobs, [...]
Tesco is winning at Valentine’s Day. Here’s why February 11, 2015 Valentine's Day is just around the corner and what says love more than multinational retailers pushing their pink heart-shaped products you neither want nor need? Absolutely nothing. That's why between now and Saturday we will all be bombarded with adverts for all the chocolates you can eat (before the cocoa runs out) recipes for two, [...]
Bupa: Workers who skip lunch risk harming their productivity January 6, 2015 While Britain's workers feel they're too busy to take proper breaks, opting for paperwork over lunches can actually reduce overall work performance, according to new research by Bupa. The research, which looked at 2000 full-time workers, found less than a third of employees took the full lunch hour every day. What's more, 28 per cent [...]
City ignores critics with rush to float June 16, 2014 LONDON’S fragile new issues market will shrug off the fears of sceptical fund managers this week as two of the country’s biggest employers pull the trigger on multi-billion pound listings. FTSE giant Lloyds Banking Group is expected to lift the bottom level of the price range for the listing of high street offshoot TSB, while [...]
Inside Track: The new issues market drifts into ever choppier waters April 10, 2014 THIS was the week when a sudden reality check intervened in the new issues market. It came after a blissful start to the year that has seen share prices popping, books covered multiple times and investors cashing out most profitably. The big losers earlier this week were the technology stocks, with shares in AO World, [...]
The Shanghai’s the limit in this city that never stops March 29, 2015 Londoners are obsessed with christening skyscrapers. From the Walkie Talkie to the Cheesegrater, new buildings are barely granted planning permission before they are slapped with a nickname, reducing years of meticulous planning to a childish slogan. If the residents of Shanghai had a similar habit, they’d have little time to do anything else. The skyline [...]
General Election 2015: David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg on how they’re going to solve the housing crisis (and which is their favourite room) April 23, 2015 House prices are too high and there aren't enough homes on the market, a new – not altogether surprising – study has suggested. But with an election just days away, property search giant Rightmove, which conducted the research, decided to take it to the leaders of each party to see what they're going to do [...]