Any Other Business – 06/01 January 5, 2014 Those of you reaping the (un)happy rewards of a Christmas spent gorging on chocolates and mince pies will be delighted to hear you can burn an average of 324 calories each day simply by going to work. Apparently, commuters in London burn the second highest amount of calories in the UK (narrowly beaten by Cardiff) [...]
20 December On this day… December 19, 2013 ENGLAND’S Ashes cricketers still spend Christmas away from home, but today’s professional rugby players do not have that worry, unlike their counterparts in the amateur days. Australia, South Africa and New Zealand would normally arrive in Britain in October and head for home in January after the traditional Barbarians match. Despite the sunshine, this Wales-Australia [...]
Lonely Christmas for traditional retail as web dominates January 6, 2014 BRITAIN’S bricks-and-mortar retailers have had another disappointing Christmas, with in-store sales failing to match inflation and online spending making up more than half of seasonal boost in spending. Compared to 2012’s Christmas period, consumption only rose by 1.2 per cent in physical retail stores, Barclaycard revealed this weekend. Despite a slight improvement, the increase was [...]
Hurricane Fly set to defy age and land an historic third Champion Hurdle March 10, 2014 BILL ESDAILE PREVIEWS THE CHAMPION HURDLE AND THE MARES’ HURDLE RARELY has a horse been more eagerly awaited than this year’s renewal of the Stan James Champion Hurdle. With the obvious exception of Annie Power, the “who’s who” of the two-mile hurdling division all make the journey to Prestbury Park to take part in this [...]
M&S Christmas trading blighted as clothes sales continue to fall January 9, 2014 No belated Christmas cheer for Marks and Spencer – the group's just reported that like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks to 28 December were down 2.1 per cent. The quarter, it said this morning, was a challenging one, and performance was below expectations. Sales in general merchandise, which includes clothes, fell for the tenth quarter [...]
The retail champion who puts fame after business December 1, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks T-shirts and Small Business Saturday with Made in Chelsea’s Oliver Proudlock THE SERGE DeNimes headquarters is a cosy studio-cum-office, located exactly where you would expect for a business whose founder has found fame on Channel 4’s hugely-successful reality TV show Made In Chelsea. I’m hesitant about interviewing Oliver Proudlock, who, when not [...]
Festive getaway boosts airports and Le Shuttle January 13, 2014 HEATHROW and Gatwick ended their busiest ever years on a high, with rising passenger numbers in December, while the Eurotunnel also enjoyed a bumper Christmas. Heathrow, Europe’s biggest airport by passenger numbers, yesterday said traffic was up 2.8 per cent to 5.8m passengers in December, taking its total growth for the year to 3.4 per [...]
Searching for Santa in the Arctic December 8, 2013 Katie Hope and her four-year-old son James embark on an 18-hour journey to find the real Father Christmas TRACKING down Father Christmas in Lapland is akin to hunting an extremely rare and precious species. Come December, his impersonators are lurking everywhere you look, but the genuine article is tucked away in the icy depths of [...]
Sainsbury’s sees “strong” Christmas sales January 8, 2014 Sainsbury's has proved expectations that it'd break its lengthy sales increase record wrong – just. The supermarket has announced like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, rose by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter, and said it saw "strong" sales in the run-up to Christmas. This marks Sainsbury's 36th quarter in a row of like-for-like growth. Chief [...]
Inside Track: London’s 2014 flotations get off to a promising start February 27, 2014 THERE have been weeks of anticipation. Now it’s time for early evaluation as the first London new issues of 2014 start trading. Which way the newly issued shares trade can set the mood for the rest of the year – or at least provide an indication of the appetite of the institutions for newly-listed stocks. [...]