Holiday hell: no Blackberry July 27, 2011 SOLVING YOUR LOVE & LIFE PROBLEMS DEAR VEXED: My wife has banned me from using my Blackberry while we’re away for our August holiday. That’s three weeks. She claims my addiction to it is ruining our family; yet the idea of being unconnected for that long terrifies me. Help! Mark, 34, fund manager YOU are [...]
BEACH READS | WHERE QUALITY MEETS RELAXATION July 27, 2011 You by Sleep With Me author Joanna Briscoe is an addictive novel about a teenager, Celia, a student in the 1970s at a Bohemian school in Dartmoor. James Dahl is her attractive English teacher and tensions rise to breaking point as Celia’s mother finds herself drawn to Dahl’s intriguing wife. The Booker Prize longlist has [...]
Small cameras for snap-happy holiday makers July 27, 2011 LEICA V-LUX 30 German brand Leica is known for its high-spec, ever-so-groovy cameras, and the new V-Lux 30 is a case in point. Sleek and compact, it’s got an impressive 16x zoom, touch-screen controls, GPS tagging can create 3D photos and records video in HD. £550 www.leica-camera.co.uk NIKON COOLPIX P7000 Launched last autumn, Nikon’s smart [...]
Lady-friendly gadgets? A bit patronising, but on the rise July 27, 2011 TECH TALK MANUFACTURERS are feminizing their hardware more these days. There are endless variations being launched which are aimed at women. Kodak’s Easyshare Mini is a credit card sized camera with three-step sharing feature for uploading your photos on to Facebook or Google+. You can tag them using the Face Recognition feature. On the video [...]
Manufacturing slows in July says CBI July 27, 2011 British factory orders fell more sharply than forecast in July while industry expects the slowdown in manufacturing to continue over the coming months. The survey by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) doused hopes for improvement in the third quarter a day after official data showed the economy barely grew in the second quarter. The [...]
Ofgem fines British Gas £2.5m July 27, 2011 Energy regulator Ofgem is to fine Centrica’s British Gas, the country’s biggest household energy supplier, £2.5m for breaching regulations related to the handling of customer complaints. The complaint handling regulations took effect from October 2008 and set out the service that domestic and micro-business energy customers should expect from energy companies if they raise a [...]
ITV ad sales down but forecasts pick up in market July 27, 2011 ITV reported a six per cent drop in second-quarter national advertising revenue and saw the decline continuing as it remained cautious about the TV ad market and the economy. The company, which is one year into a five-year transformation plan under new management, reported a four per cent increase in total external revenue to £1.03bn [...]
Santander profit dented by UK insurance payouts July 27, 2011 Spain’s Banco Santander is to take a one-off charge of 620 million euros (£547m) to provide for insurance mis-selling claims in Britain, hurting its first-half profit. British banks including Lloyds and Barclays have unveiled billions of pounds of charges to cover compensation for mis-selling on payment protection insurance policies (PPI). Santander said on Wednesday first-half [...]
Aegis sells Synovate for £525m July 27, 2011 British marketing company Aegis Group said it agreed to sell its market research unit Synovate to French group Ipsos for £525m and planned to return a portion of the proceeds to shareholders. Aegis, which also has a media buying arm, said on Wednesday it would return £200m to shareholders via a special divided and added [...]
BAA narrows losses as traffic rises July 27, 2011 British airport operator BAA reported narrowing first half losses, helped by growth in long-haul travel, and said it continued to consider appealing a ruling saying it must sell two of its airports. BAA, majority owned by Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial, reported an adjusted pretax loss of £116.9m in the six months to the end of [...]
