2010’s Christmas book round-up December 1, 2010 BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS CRISIS ECONOMICS BY NOURIEL ROUBINI WITH STEPEHN MIHM Pengiuin, £25 More than just another me-too account of the crisis, Nouriel Roubini – often called Dr Doom for his Cassandra-like prophecies – gives a compelling account of the 2008 meltdown. He provides the lay reader with succinct and clearly written explanations of the [...]
Gambler’s luck needed for investment advice September 12, 2010 With my job some assignments are more taxing than others. Take the Fund Forum in Monaco earlier this summer. My producer Rose managed to turn her €100 into €300 in half an hour on the casino’s blackjack table there. She said the result came from clear strategy and gut instinct. But that was in June [...]
Journey into the mighty history of Samarkand December 12, 2010 AROUND Tashkent airport, giant hoardings proclaimed in English: “Uzbekistan Airways Wish You Good Luck”. It might have been more unsettling to read that message driving into Heathrow before our departure. In fact, we’d had an incident-free flight on Uzbekistan Airways to Uzbekistan’s capital. Tashkent sounds endlessly exotic but isn’t really. Much was destroyed by a [...]
Marylebone gets Euro-chic September 27, 2010 Café Luc 50 Marylebone High Street, W1U 5HN FOOD SERVICE ATMOSPHERE Cost per person without wine: £36 YOU might assume – I think I did – that Marylebone High Street is hardly in need of another place mixing dining and café culture. But the crowd packed into the recently opened, Belgian-owned Café Luc last Tuesday [...]
Far from the Medina crowd November 14, 2010 MARRAKECH might not immediately spring to mind when choosing somewhere to unwind. And to be sure, its main square Jemaa el Fna delivers noise, commotion, smoke and crowds, with tourists tripping over dancing monkeys and baskets of cobras to get to their next tagine. But there’s another side to the pink city, away from the [...]
Far from the Medina crowd November 14, 2010 MARRAKECH might not immediately spring to mind when choosing somewhere to unwind. And to be sure, its main square Jemaa el Fna delivers noise, commotion, smoke and crowds, with tourists tripping over dancing monkeys and baskets of cobras to get to their next tagine. But there’s another side to the pink city, away from the [...]
Why go out for dinner when dinner could come to you? September 22, 2010 WHAT’S a hungry banker with a bonus burning in his back pocket to do? Ostentatious displays of wealth just aren’t the done thing anymore, unless you want to risk attracting the attention of marauding bands of bitter taxpayers. But just because a ten course blow-out at your favourite high-end restaurant might be off the menu [...]
SELLING August 26, 2010 MANAGING DIRECTOR, PROPERTY HUNT Q.Dear Russell, with property prices projected to fall and interest rates forecast to rise, should I buy? A.As with anything to do with property, it is all about timing. The latest surveys – whether they are from the major lenders, the high-street banks or the online property portals –are all pointing [...]
Audley’s sure his blueprint for success is ready to pay November 8, 2010 AFTER an hour in the company of Audley Harrison two things become abundantly clear: This is a man who settles for nothing other than perfection and if eating were an Olympic sport, Harrison would be in with a chance of adding to the heavyweight gold he won in Sydney a decade ago. Halfway through a [...]
Bringing panache to lunchtime July 8, 2010 THE eureka moment for a new business idea can strike at any time. For Mark Lilley it was while he was eating fresh sushi with his wife in downtown Sydney in the middle of a round-the-world trip in 2002. The result was a ticket home and opening Abokado, a cross between a sushi bar and [...]