London Marathon 2016: What time it starts, where to watch, what the weather forecast is and the best pubs along the route April 18, 2016 Carb-loading, hamstring-stretching and thanking your lucky stars that you can actually have a lie in from next weekend onwards? Welcome to the London Marathon…. This weekend the capital will be over-taken by more than 35,000 runners (and more than a few walkers) looking to finish the 26.2m course. If you haven’t been sleeping, eating and [...]
Long Weekend: What to do and see on a city break in Vienna, Austria April 15, 2016 The weekend Spend a luxurious weekend in the city voted Most Liveable European City for the second year running. Vienna is a cultured foodie’s delight; blocks of monumental buildings hosting opera houses, concert halls, art galleries and Spanish stallions (of the equine variety). That’s not to mention the endless kaffee und kuchen establishments, the between-meals [...]
Tackle the hottest event in skiing: The Inferno is the longest, oldest (and poshest) ski race in the world April 15, 2016 Mürren is arguably the birthplace of modern ski racing and yet paradoxically is the sleepiest of ski villages. With no cars and perched on a rock ledge with little room for expansion, the feel in the 1920s must have been similar to today. For one weekend each year at the end of January the quiet [...]
The Jungle Book review: An all-star revival of a family classic with a monkey so unfathomably large it will blow your mind April 14, 2016 Dir. Jon Favreau | ★★★★☆ Think about the biggest monkey you’ve ever seen. Now double it. Now make it seven feet taller. Now triple it. Hold on, slow down, are you mad? That monkey’s much too big. But dial it down just a notch or two and you’ll be picturing an ape on par with [...]
P2P lending: These are the nine key trends in alternative finance April 13, 2016 How will P2P lending fare in a downturn? Can the industry improve securitisation practices? Why did growth slow last year? Is China really the most exciting market? What will consolidation mean for the industry? These are just some of the questions thrown about at LendIt USA. With over 4,000 attendees, including the world’s leading platforms [...]
Panama papers law firm founders begin damage limitation April 5, 2016 The founders of the law firm at the centre of the Panama papers tax evasion scandal have begun damage limitation, calling the investigation a "media witch hunt". In an interview with the Financial Times, Mossack Fonseca founder Ramon Fonseca said the disclosure was undermining legitimacy of offshore companies. Fonseca blamed hackers, and adding that in the [...]
Supermarket sales rise over Easter – but prove egg-sasperating for Tesco, Morrisons and Asda April 5, 2016 It could have been so easy for supermarkets. Not only are prices at an all-time low, but an early Easter pushed sales up compared with last year, new figures have shown. But while the Easter bunny hopped along to most of the nation's retailers, the big four continued to struggle. The figures, by Kantar Worldpanel, showed sales [...]
Peer-to-peer lending: What will happen in a downturn? March 30, 2016 Speak to any fund manager about their interest in peer-to-peer lending, and they all say the same: “it really needs to go through a business cycle, then I’ll look at it properly”. During the financial crisis, only one P2P lender was in existence – Zopa. Since then, it has been joined by industry heavyweights Funding [...]
Pet insurance claims hit record numbers, according to figures from the Association of British Insurers, with just short of one million claims being made in 2015 March 29, 2016 Pet insurance claims hit a record high in 2015, according to figures released today by the Association of British Insurers (ABI). The number of insurance claims made reached 911,000, up nine per cent compared with 2014, while their value clocked in at £657m, which is the equivalent of £1.8m a day. The average pet insurance premium came in [...]
Brussels cats are back: But why do we turn to internet cat memes like Grumpy Cat, Lolcats and #BrusselsLockdown in a time of crisis? March 22, 2016 Laughing at cats on the internet is nothing new. But using them as a tool to laugh in times of crisis could well be. Belgian authorities asked locals to avoid posting about police raids via social media for fear that information could aid terrorists, last year. People complied to this potentially aggravating censorship in an unconventional way. From hovercraft felines [...]