Where the Champagne flows and the meat pie comes with foie gras April 3, 2012 LE BALCON 8 PALL MALL, SW1Y 5NG FOOD **** SERVICE **** ATMOSPHERE *** Cost per person without wine: £XX The Balcon is not somewhere you’ll have necessarily heard about. It’s not a buzz-generator. This, I suspect, is for two reasons: one, its location in the gentleman’s club hinterland of Pall Mall (which is to say: [...]
FOOD & DRINK NEWS April 3, 2012 Wine website launches Lot 18, a groovy members’ only wine website stocking everything from Château Pontet-Canet Pauillac 1995 to Francis Ford Coppola’s Inglenook Rubicon Estate Blancaneaux 2009, has recently launched in the UK. If you fancy access to wines that are a little harder to find, at good prices for a limited period, it’s probably [...]
Alfa’s TCT transmission impresses April 3, 2012 IN these cash-strapped times, it’s lamentable that the choice of which car to buy can come to a simple toss-up between fuel economy versus fun. It’s a question that many car buyers struggle with. More powerful engines usually use more fuel, which is one reason why squeezing every last drop of fuel economy out of [...]
CAR TALK April 3, 2012 Citroen’s award-winning DS5 Citroen’s award-winning DS5 goes on sale this week, with prices starting at just £22,400 for the top-of-the-range DSport Hybrid4 version. The five-door DS5 features four different engine options, and the DS5 Hybrid4 delivers just 99g/km making it Congestion Charge-exempt. Saving fuel will repay dividends Rather than freaking out in the queue at [...]
Have a cracking Easter with our guide to London’s best April 3, 2012 EASTER AT HAMPTON COURT PALACE 6-9 APRIL, ALL DAY Hampton Court Palace is one of the most scenic sites near London at any time of the year but over the Easter weekend a host of eggstras will be laid on. King Henry VIII, a famous past resident of the stately home, will be milling around [...]
BSkyB chairman James Murdoch to quit April 3, 2012 BSkyB non-executive Chairman James Murdoch, under fire over his handling of a phone hacking scandal, is to step down from his role at Britain’s dominant pay-TV company, the group’s news channel reported. A spokesman for BSkyB declined to comment on the report, which said that Murdoch would step down after a board meeting later today.
JJB confirms financing talks April 3, 2012 Sportswear retailer JJB Sports , which nearly collapsed last year, said it was in talks with its bank and an unnamed “potential strategic partner” to raise financing. The company, which counts the richest man in the US, Bill Gates, among its major shareholders, issued the statement in response to a sharp rise in its share [...]
Molson to buy StarBev for £2bn April 3, 2012 Molson Coors Brewing said it will buy eastern European brewer StarBev for 2.65 billion euros (£2.19bn) to expand in central and eastern European beer markets. “The Central and Eastern European beer market is attractive, with strong historical trends and upside potential as the region returns to its pre-economic-crisis growth rates,” chief executive Peter Swinburn said [...]
Hannam to leave JP Morgan after FSA market abuse fine April 3, 2012 JP Morgan Cazenove chairman of capital markets Ian Hannam is leaving the bank after being hit with a £450,000 FSA fine for market abuse. Hannam, a star banker who has been at the firm for 20 years, was fined after allegedly disclosing inside information to a prospective client in 2008. He is appealing against the [...]
Construction activity shows strong growth April 3, 2012 Activity in Britain’s construction sector unexpectedly accelerated in March as orders rose at the fastest rate in 4-1/2 years and firms became more optimistic about the outlook, in another sign that Britain’s economy is on track for recovery. Following a surprise acceleration in manufacturing growth in March, the jump in the Markit/CIPS construction Purchasing Managers’ [...]
