There is room for two on the US’s east coast November 18, 2012 Hopping over a grate steaming with hot air from the metro system below, I stroll past the gleaming plate glass wrapped around the ground floor of the towering skyscrapers of downtown. As I swing open the door of the city’s chicest fashion boutique, the rooftop bar next door breaks through the traffic noise with an [...]
Lech has all the goodness of the Alps without the crowds October 14, 2012 LECH is what Aspen wants to be when it grows up,” is how I’ve heard Austria’s Alpine region described. Now, I’m no skier (hate the cold and don’t have great balance) but this statement alone made me want to visit Lech. So, full of Olympic fatigue and eager for a change of scenery, I headed [...]
Duck & Waffle doesn’t have the greatest kitchen in the world but the views are ace September 24, 2012 RESTAURANT DUCK & WAFFLE Heron Tower, 110 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AY FOOD ** SERVICE **** ATMOSPHERE ***** Cost per person without wine: £44 MY HOUSE is what estate agents would euphemistically call “lower ground”, which translates almost exactly as “basement”. Outside the front door, running underneath the pavement, is a cupboard, which would, once upon a [...]
Duck & Waffle doesn’t have the greatest kitchen in the world but the views are ace September 24, 2012 RESTAURANT DUCK & WAFFLE Heron Tower, 110 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AY FOOD ** SERVICE **** ATMOSPHERE ***** Cost per person without wine: £44 MY HOUSE is what estate agents would euphemistically call “lower ground”, which translates almost exactly as “basement”. Outside the front door, running underneath the pavement, is a cupboard, which would, once upon a [...]
CITY VIEWS | WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE PASTY TAX U-TURN? May 29, 2012 HOWARD WATT FIDELITY I bought a pasty from Greggs this morning and it did seem a little expensive, but it’s still much cheaper than a lot of the other food that is being sold in the City. I think booze and cigarettes should be taxed to encourage healthy lifestyles and pasties are quite fattening too. To [...]
Battle of the cabs: Hailing competition in London’s transport August 12, 2012 WHEN I lived in Monaco, I had Ferraris. Now, living in London, I have a basic car but barely use it. The hassle of parking and traffic have made me a cab and minicab user, and I’ve recently noticed interesting things going on in their business world. Cabs have had two unique selling points. Unlike [...]
A taste of Mother Russia in a Knightsbridge salon August 13, 2012 RESTAURANT MARI VANNA 116 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7PJ el: 020 7225 3122 FOOD ** SERVICE **** ATMOSPHERE **** Cost per person without wine: £55 There are two facts you need to know about Mari Vanna. One: it’s done up like a Russian babushka’s dining room – albeit one with a more than a dollop of Tsarist [...]
Visit Malaysia for the birds, the bees and the leeches October 7, 2012 MY HERO swoops down in the nick of time. I’m perched atop a bare rock, too petrified to move when she flies to my rescue. Barely seven inches tall, the blue-winged pitta flits to the ground and within moments, her beak is filled with what look like needle-thin worms. I’ve never been happier to see [...]
Conquer a daunting wall of ice without a trip to the Antarctic July 30, 2012 Clinging precariously to a sheet of rippling blue ice, the summit in sight, I took a leap of faith. Digging my spiked shoes into the metre-thick walls of the “chimney” of frozen water, I lunged with an ice axe, connecting for a brief second, only to dislodge a block the size of my fist: it [...]
Investors need to actively manage their Sipp funds September 16, 2012 SELF invested personal pensions (Sipps) are an increasingly popular kind of tax-efficient pension scheme. But like all investments, they are not suitable for everyone. Sipps allow better control over what your money is invested in and investors benefit from increased transparency. Compare this to stakeholder pensions, for example, where you have no control over how [...]