Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie review: A faithful rendering of the classic comic strip December 18, 2015 U | Dir. Steve Martino ★★★★☆ Like Elvis, apple pie and widespread gun ownership, Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts” is woven into the fabric of American culture. The animated Christmas Special from the 60s has become part of the holiday tradition, and now the team behind 2011’s Rio are bringing the characters into the 21st century. [...]
Christmas travel: Engineering works to disrupt train services including Gatwick Express, Heathrow Express, Thameslink, Southern, Southeastern and many, many more December 18, 2015 Hoping to get away this Christmas? Well, start working on plan B because Network Rail has other ideas. This Christmas and New Year, one of the biggest-ever investment programmes is being carried out on the country's train infrastructure. New station facilities, longer platforms, extra tracks, new junctions and thousands of pieces of new equipment will be installed [...]
The UK’s love affair with salmon and breakup with soup: Three charts showing how our festive shopping habits have changed December 18, 2015 If you're planning on sitting down to a breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on Christmas morning, you won't be alone – after UK manufacturers reported a 25 per cent increase in salmon sales between 2013 and 2014. That's according to a release by the Office for National Statistics, anyway, which has published details [...]
As survey expects 31 million car journeys to be made over Christmas, Transport for London unveils festive roadworks on Embankment, Blackfriars Road and Old Street December 18, 2015 Transport for London (TfL) has announced the details of its festive road work programme, which will hit parts of the Embankment, Blackfriars Road and Old Street – on the same day a survey suggested 31 million car journeys will be taken over the Christmas period. TfL said it was taking advantage of a time when roads in [...]
Npower on Ofgem’s naughty list as it is handed a £26m fine over billing and complaints failings December 18, 2015 Looks like Npower will find nothing but coal in its stocking this Christmas. The power supplier has been hit by a £26m fine from energy regulator Ofgem, after it was accused of failing to handle complaints from customers effectively. The issue affected more than half a million customers between September 2013 and December 2014, the [...]
UK workers aren’t impressed at the level of chief executives’ salaries – with 60 per cent saying it “demotivates” them December 18, 2015 Your staff are talking about your pay packet behind your back – and the things they're saying aren't very nice. That's according to new research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which found more than 70 per cent of employees think the amount UK chief executives are earning is either "too high" or (gasp) "far [...]
High street retailers preparing themselves for a pre-Christmas spending rush December 18, 2015 High street retailers are bracing themselves for a pre-Christmas spending boom, with shoppers tipped to splurge around £4.7bn in stores over the next four days, allaying fears that November’s Black Friday bonanza and the rise of online shopping would keep customers away. Brits will splash out around £5.9bn on last-minute presents and food over the four days starting tomorrow [...]
High German business confidence points to strong end-of-year growth December 17, 2015 The German economy is expected to make a strong start to 2016 after a survey published this morning showed businesses were in a confident mood. The business climate index compiled by the Munich-base IFO Institute edged down slightly to a score of 108.7 points this month from 109 in November. Despite the marginal dip, it remains [...]
That Christmas feeling: Scientists have located the “Christmas spirit” in our brains December 17, 2015 That warm, fuzzy, Christmassy feeling we get every December is not just in our imagination – it's a physiological change that can actually be located in our brains. A study published in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal shows how the “Christmas Spirit” is present in five different areas of the brain during [...]
New Year wil be Airbnb’s busiest night of the year as one million renters expected – twice as many as last year December 17, 2015 The number of people spending New Year in an Airbnb will double this year, the home sharing platform has said, as more people than ever before choose to escape the celebrations by renting out someone elses home. More than one million people are expected to be staying in a place rented on Airbnb when the clock strikes midnight, compared [...]