FOREX FLASH January 26, 2010 CHAVEZ ORDERS £93BN SALE OF DOLLARS Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has ordered the first sale in six years of $93bn of dollar reserves in an attempt to shore up the recently devalued bolivar. Chavez has given the central bank orders “burn the hands” of speculators betting against the currency. Chavez said last week that he [...]
The Tipster January 26, 2010 YESTERDAY’S fourth quarter GDP figure for the UK was uninspiring. The main casualty was sterling. In just two hours following the announcement sterling-US dollar had dropped by 100 points, extending a decline that has been in place for the past week. But sterling could have fallen too far. There are still plenty of events that [...]
SIGNS OF LIFE January 26, 2010 BRITAIN has emerged blinking from its deepest post-War recession but there seemed little reason to be cheerful yesterday as paltry growth of just 0.1 per cent in the last quarter of 2009 hammered home the fragility of the recovery and the very real risk of a relapse in 2010. Policymakers had optimistically forecast a V-shaped [...]
A salt of the earth therapy for congested Londoners January 26, 2010 ENTERING the treatment room at South London’s Salt Cave clinic is a bit like stepping into Narnia. You may be going via an anteroom in a converted Earlsfield community centre rather than through the back of a wardrobe, but what greets you is an all-white environment, with powder spread in little ripples and dunes across [...]
LIFE COACH January 26, 2010 I’m a nervous public speaker and I suffer from confidence problems. What can I do to feel, appear and act less nervous and also deliver a good speech? John, 41, lawyer Confident public speaking begins in the head. “The first thing to work on is the inner game,” says Amanda Vickers, managing director of Speak [...]
OUT OF OFFICE January 26, 2010 ROPE AT THE ALMEIDA Based on a real murder case, and later turned into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock, Patrick Hamilton’s darkly effective 1929 play is about undergraduates who murdered a colleague before inviting his friends and family round to tea. Roger Michelle (the film Notting Hill is among his previous successes) directs this [...]
Warm up this winter with a chic hip flask January 26, 2010 MAYBE it’s because of the rough year and a half we’ve just been through, or maybe it’s because fashion designers have a sixth sense and predicted this would be a particularly icy winter. Whatever it is, hip flasks have become such a must-have fashion accessory that Dunhill’s models sported them on the catwalk at last [...]
A rose by any other name… can be better January 26, 2010 WHEN you hand your lady flowers on Valentine’s Day this year, she’ll be swooningly happy. But if you have been insufficiently creative, a little part of her will roll her eyes – roses are nice, but perhaps just a little bit too clichéd. Frankly, you can do better. Therefore we got florist to the stars, [...]
French go back to the future January 26, 2010 REMEMBER the Citroen DS, the futuristic sensation born in 1955 and used endlessly in films of car chases in Paris in the 70s? It was all long and pointy, with a Pope mobile–like cabin, such was the rake of the windscreen and cabin glass. It’s back. Well, the name is, anyway. Citroen has relaunched the [...]
UK economy limps out of recession January 26, 2010 THE UK has officially come out of recession – but only just. Data released by the Official of National Statistics showed the economy grew just 0.1 per cent during the fourth quarter of 2009. Although the figure compares with a decrease of 0.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2009 it still comes way [...]
