Lessons in wine: Tis the season to get tipsy on our top Christmas picks November 17, 2015 Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat and it is time to start planning Christmas lunch. While the true meaning of Christmas is peace and goodwill to all, a delicious lunch and good wine comes in a strong second. Sometimes the only way to get through TV re-runs, that protracted and competitive game of [...]
Tesco’s professional Christmas light un-tangler jop opening sparks a huge response November 17, 2015 Tesco has been inundated with one hundred CVs this week after opening up a role for a professional Christmas light un-tangler. The vacancy came to light (groan…) after the firm opened up a Christmas light de-tangling service in its Wrexham store, and now needs a handful of extremely patient job-seekers to do the honours. Tesco, which began advertising [...]
UK inflation stays at -0.1 per cent in October as food and booze prices fall November 17, 2015 Just in time for Christmas. Prices in the UK fell for the second consecutive month in October, figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed this morning. The annual inflation rate was -0.1 per cent, led by sharper falls in the prices of food and booze and a slower rise in tobacco prices. Food prices were down three [...]
FTSE 100 index opens higher, led by British Land and Smiths Group, despite further losses by Easyjet November 17, 2015 The FTSE 100 opened higher this morning, following rallies in both the US and Asia. The UK's top blue-chip index was 1.16 per cent up at 6,217 points as the market opened. British Land's share price rose 1.89 per cent to 835.5p, after the company reported higher than expected growth in the value of its assets. Underlying pre-tax profit was also [...]
Kantar figures show Aldi and Lidl combined now account for 10 per cent of UK grocery market November 17, 2015 Budget supermarkets Aldi and Lidl now account for 10 per cent of all spend on the British grocery market for the first time since they launched in the country, new figures reveal. The two grocers have stolen market share from the more established supermarkets in a short period of time. Just three years ago, their [...]
Vote with your wallet: It’s time to turn shoppers into investors November 16, 2015 It frustrates me that consumers are so valued as shoppers, yet so underserved when it comes to putting money to work in other ways. From the moment we are born, we are marketed to thousands of times a day, “trained” as consumers through hundreds of billions of pounds in advertising, yet are left to our [...]
Black Friday 2015: A third of British and American retailers say the sales bonanza is unprofitable November 16, 2015 Britain's biggest online shopping fixture Black Friday is dividing the retail industry, with a third of major retailers saying it is unprofitable while the same number believe it provides a major fillip, research by LCP Consulting shows. The business consultancy firm’s annual Omnichannel report released today found that retailers with an established presence both in bricks [...]
Discounters Aldi and Lidl pick up the space race left by Big Four supermarkets November 15, 2015 The big four supermarkets may have called an end to the space race. But for Aldi and Lidl the race has just begun, after new figures show the discounters have submitted plans for nearly five times as many stores. The latest data from construction data firm ABI Barbour shows that Aldi has submitted 93 planning [...]
The Burgundy Puzzle: a frustrating wine that can astonish or appall, here’s how to get it right November 13, 2015 The other day I was invited to a friend’s birthday party where the wine was given star billing. It was a Santenay 2012 and we were told it was “amazing”. I was bitterly disappointed: it was green and desperately thin, like over-diluted Ribena without the vitamin C. And probably cost a fortune. It put me [...]
From Sainsbury’s Christmas advert to the Lord Mayor’s Show 2015: Here’s what got us talking this week November 13, 2015 Boris got into all sorts of bother in Israel. London's saddest skyscraper got given a new lease of life (fingers crossed). And Generation Rent got told to quit their whining. Here's what got us talking this week 1) Are you ready for the Lord Mayor's Show? Today marks the 800th time the procession has been [...]