The celebrity chef bringing peasant food to the City March 29, 2010 I’M like a snail,” drawls chef supreme Raymond Blanc in a French accent that, 38 years after he arrived in the UK, remains as textured and ripe as a perfectly aged Camembert. “I’m stuck in my shell, and can only move very slowly.” The reason for Blanc’s despondency is a fall he took at his [...]
Osborne takes a break from the campaign trail to talk to the City April 26, 2010 LAST YEAR, the future looked very different for George Osborne. With the Tories enjoying a seemingly unassailable lead in the polls, few doubted he would become the next chancellor. Privately, Tory strategists even whispered the word “landslide”. Now nearly all the polls point at a hung parliament and Osborne, who is also the Tories’ election [...]
OUT OF OFFICE January 4, 2010 EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR After a successful run last autumn, Tom Morris’s haunting production of Tom Stoppard’s dazzlingly clever play is returning to the National this month for a limited run. Julian Bleach takes on the role of Ivanov, an inmate in a Soviet asylum who believes an orchestra is playing in his mind, [...]
Global perspective needed for City reputation January 31, 2010 IT’S Monday and, having just returned to the Square Mile after leading a City delegation to the US, I now have to prepare to leave London again on Saturday for the first of two visits to the Gulf. The close proximity of these business visits throws up some major contrasts between these two markets. In [...]
New book reveals the City by night December 14, 2009 WORKING in the City, our lives are often stressful and fast-moving. It is easy when you are rushing from meeting to meeting to forget that the Square Mile is also one of the most striking places in the world. From the Victorian banks to the modern sky-scrapers, the centuries have left their imprint on the [...]
Think inside the Square: why the City is a top spot to buy a home November 26, 2009 IF YOU’RE looking for the ultimate Tube-busting pied a terre, the Square Mile can’t be bettered for history, beauty and – of course – convenience. Other financial centres are not exactly places you’d want to live: tightly packed with skyscrapers and fumes, they have a sterile, uninhabitable feel (just think of mid-town New York or [...]
Beat the blues with a slice of Caribbean sun March 25, 2010 WINTER is finally over, and the sun has been reminding us all of its existence in the past week or so. If you are already thinking ahead to next year and wondering how you will get through another few months of darkness and “snow days”, there’s a solution: buy a home in the Caribbean. Barbados [...]
FELIX DENNIS OFFERS UP A LESSON IN THE WAYS TO GET RICH QUICK March 9, 2010 WHOOMPH. On The Capitalist’s desk lands a blood-red copy of the latest money-getting guide from eccentric publishing magnate Felix Dennis, “88: The Narrow Road”. Many readers will be familiar with the book’s predecessor, “How to Get Rich”, which flew off the shelves after its release a couple of years ago. Dennis – who, as co-editor [...]
DIAMOND TAKES HARD LINE ON BONUS ROW February 16, 2010 AS AN investment banking doyen continually under the cosh these days with regard to bonus payments, it must be tough to keep a calm and unruffled façade at all times. Bob Diamond, the president of Barclays and head of its money-spinning investment bank Barclays Capital – yesterday kept mostly schtum at the group’s annual results [...]
Clegg calls for break-up of biggest City banks January 11, 2010 LIBERAL Democrat leader Nick Clegg will try to break up large banks like Barclays and HSBC if he finds himself in government after the next election. “The age of universal banking has to come to an end,” Clegg said as he launched his general election campaign yesterday. Asked if he was making an implicit threat [...]