TRAVEL NOTES January 31, 2010 Venice for Valentine’s Still looking for a romantic getaway this Valentine’s Day? Kirker Holidays is offering four nights for the price of three at the four-star superior Liassidi Palace in Venice, a luxury boutique hotel a short walk from St Mark’s Square. Price from £528pp includes flights (London airports, with regional departures on request), hotel [...]
John Lewis starts the year on a high February 12, 2010 JOHN Lewis has reported one of its healthiest starts to a financial year. Total sales in the first week of February were up 32 per cent. Fashion, including lingerie snapped up for Valentine’s Day – led sales gains by rising 47 per cent as new season ranges came into stores. John Lewis’s flagship store in [...]
Stylish Valentine’s wining and dining February 3, 2010 THE GREENHOUSE Chic but inviting, with a rustic touch and no expense spared on either the food or the opulent interior, and there’s an impressive wine selection – the owner has been collecting since he was a teenager. An ideal destination for the hardest-to-impress lover, and the Valentine’s menu cannot fail to thrill, either. Canapes [...]
the INSIDER February 18, 2010 It’s that time of year when the two-year-olds face the stalls for the first time. The outcome is polarised. They are either indifferent to the starting stalls and walk in, or they have to be man-handled into the offending metal framed contraption. Witnessing the careful preparation of 40 or so individuals makes you realise just [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS March 10, 2010 Reed Smith The law firm has hired advertising law expert Marina Palomba to its partnership. Palomba joins the firm’s advertising group in London from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), where she has been legal director for eight years, advising all the main agencies in the UK including M&C Saatchi, Abbott Mead Vickers and [...]
Diversity is a great asset if managed properly February 15, 2010 Love means never having to say you’re sorry. Or so the 1970s film Love Story, starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neil, famously claimed. I never agreed with that sentiment then – and I still do not today. Valentine’s Day on Sunday got me thinking about how important what you actually say is. For us Yanks [...]
Marcus Wareing’s top five European romantic tables February 3, 2010 TO me a great restaurant must encompass location, ambience, as well as great food, wines and service. Top fine dining restaurants must have the element of romance in order to achieve the ambience to match everything else.” BRAS, LAGUIOLE, FRANCE “A stunning restaurant set high in the mountains of Laguiole in the southern Auvergne. The [...]
OUT OF OFFICE January 28, 2010 MOHI MATAL’S SPICE MASTERCLASS Learn to know your cumin from your garam masala at Holborn restaurant Moti Mahal’s spice-blending masterclasses, where you will be taught by head chef Anirudh Arora how to mix Indian spices. Afterwards, you get a three-course lunch and your own spice-blending starter kit. Courses are running on the last Saturday of [...]
HEDGE FUND FASHION GURU HAS A SALES BOOM February 11, 2010 WE ALWAYS knew women were good at multi-tasking, but Britt Lintner really does take the concept to a new extreme. Regular readers may remember Lintner, who heads up her own flourishing womenswear label while managing to hold down a tough job in hedge fund sales at GLG Partners. And now I hear that not only [...]
MILLION-DOLLAR MAN THAIN LEARNS ERROR OF HIS PRICEY OFFICE WAYS February 8, 2010 HAPPY days for John Thain, the former Merrill Lynch chief executive who demonstrated yesterday that not only has he managed to stage an impressive comeback on Wall Street, but has actually learnt a lesson on the way as well. Thain, of course, is best remembered among the financial community for the dual distinctions of having [...]