Valentine’s Day is sinfully wasteful – next time, buy bread February 16, 2021 As we survey the aftermath of Valentine’s Day – the already-wilting flowers, the extravagantly-boxed chocolates, the pithy cards bought from some trendy online retailer – it’s not difficult to spot the wastefulness associated with the most romantic day of the year. London’s first zero-waste floral bakery is doing its bit to reduce this mountain of [...]
Beautiful Samoa: Beautiful will always be here October 27, 2020 Nestled in the heart of the Polynesia – only four hours away from New Zealand, five hours from Australia and three hours from Fiji – lies beautiful Samoa. Known for its pristine beaches, lush gardens, majestic mountains, breath-taking waterfalls, powerful blowholes and stunning seascapes, the islands of Samoa celebrate the gifts bestowed upon it by [...]
Paxful CEO Ray Youssef’s Journey September 24, 2020 Started from the bottom From being homeless in New York City to the CEO of an international crypto company, Ray Youssef shares his journey as a co-founder of Paxful, a global P2P crypto marketplace with a mission to empower the forgotten four billion unbanked and underbanked around the world to have control of their money [...]
Happy Bastille Day as Binance turns 3 July 14, 2020 Greetings from the Jurassic coast where young Lady Luna (my fast growing puppy) and I are on holiday with my relatives enjoying all the Dorset countryside has to offer! My French husband and I celebrated our 23rd Anniversary on the 12th July over WhatsApp and my old university French friend Carine Remy Greenwich celebrates her [...]
This Father’s Day, give the dads in your office a real gift June 13, 2019 A shirt with the word “legend” plastered across the front? A trio of “bad boy” chili sauces? A customisable BBQ branding iron? Father’s Day really is an object exercise in gifting tat. Such tokens are inconsequential and ephemeral – destined for a cluttered kitchen drawer. Better to get dads something they actually want. Simply, more [...]
Card Factory sales flat as high street footfall drops April 16, 2019 Card Factory saw sales remain flat last year as high street footfall levels dropped, the greetings card company announced this morning. The figures Card Factory’s like-for-like sales dipped 0.1 per cent while overall revenue rose 3.3 per cent to £436m in the year to the end of January 2019. Underlying earnings fell 4.9 per cent [...]
Island Hopping in NYC: How the Big Apple’s revived ferry service kickstarted an unlikely glamping craze January 21, 2019 In the UK, a diamond-mesh fence tends to signify you’ve arrived at the perimeter of a day-release prison or, perhaps, a scrapyard. Not so in America. And especially not in New York: a goodly portion of its waterfront is lined with the stuff. But somehow the Yanks manage to put these utilitarian barriers to use [...]
Peterloo film review: Mike Leigh’s best since Secrets & Lies is a stunning piece of filmmaking November 2, 2018 First, a history lesson: on August 16th 1819, at a pro-democracy demonstration in Manchester, a skittish militia charged with keeping the peace rampaged with sabres drawn into a crowd of some 70,000 unarmed people, killing 15 and injuring hundreds. Though the crowd’s central demand – equal votes for all men – went unmet, Peterloo was [...]
Profit on the cards: Card Factory sees profits rise despite fall in like-for-like sales September 25, 2018 Card Factory hailed a double digit rise in profit today as it was boosted by record sales for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Read more: Heatwave hit retail footfall figures in August The figures The high street retailer saw pre-tax profit grow 17.2 per cent year on year to £27.2m for the [...]
Life is sweet for Hotel Chocolat as it unveils a 28 per cent surge in first-half profits February 22, 2017 Life's pretty sweet for Hotel Chocolat at the moment: it has beaten expectations in its interim results and recorded a rise in profits too. The figures The chocolatier and retailer beat expectations with a tasty 28 per cent jump in pre-tax profits to £11.2m in the first half of the financial year. Reported revenue rose 14 per [...]