City can bounce back after their first defeat December 15, 2011 IT has been a tough couple of weeks for Manchester City after being dumped out of the Champions League by Napoli and then tasting defeat for the first time in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge on Monday night. They didn’t perform badly in either game, though, and Roberto Mancini will be desperate for his [...]
MATCH ANALYSIS December 14, 2011 KEY MOMENT Kerim Frei, the 18-year-old Swiss starlet, enjoyed a reputation enhancing night, but one moment of over indulgence at the death cost his side a place in the knockout stages. With the clock ticking down the young winger would have been well advised to have taken the ball to the corner flag, rather than [...]
X FACTOR CAST GET FIRST LOOK AT SOHO’S £25M NIGHTCLUB LAUNCH December 14, 2011 CRISIS, what economic crisis? Piccadilly, at least, is experiencing a revival, says clubs entrepreneur Fraser Donaldson, who tonight opens the £25m Dstrkt on Soho’s Rupert Street. “If you look at Hakkasan, Nobu and Roka, they all have two to three-week waits for tables,” reasons Donaldson, the former owner of Prince William’s favourite club Crystal on [...]
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL UK December 14, 2011 It’s that time of year when the high streets switch on the festive lights and, despite the economic gloom, the shops become busier with Christmas shoppers out in force. Queuing to pay at a cash till here in Oxford yesterday lunchtime, I was reminded of Beauty Munthali, one of our supervisors in the southern region [...]
£265,000 NOW RAISED December 14, 2011 DONATIONS to our Christmas appeal are still flooding in and we are proud to say that these gifts have now taken our total to more than £265,000. With just one week to go, we are calling on all our readers to contribute using any of the methods below to help support loans to entrepreneurs in [...]
Stores worried by decline in footfall December 14, 2011 THE LEVEL of Christmas sales this year remains “on a knife edge” as retailers nervously wait to see if consumers will splash their cash in the final run up to the big day. Earlier this month people flooded to shops to spend their November pay packages, yet the subsequent week saw a demoralising drop in [...]
In America, the shale gas revolution is creating jobs and growth. It can here too December 14, 2011 WHEN is a job not a job? Answer: when it is a green job. Jobs in an industry that raises the price of energy effectively destroy jobs elsewhere; jobs in an industry that cuts the cost of energy create extra jobs elsewhere. The entire argument for green jobs is a version of Frederic Bastiat’s broken-window [...]
BEST CHRISTMAS READS ZOE STRIMPEL December 14, 2011 Snuff: Discworld Novel 39 by Terry Pratchett Doubleday, £18.99 When Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is reluctantly sent off for a holiday in the countryside, it isn’t going to be long until he encounters a crime – make that more of a ghastly layer cake of crimes and even “an ancient crime [...]
OUT OF OFFICE December 14, 2011 SLAVA’S SNOWSHOW AT ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL This surreal, laugh-out-loud, poignant festive-themed physical theatre troupe has been quietly gaining plaudits for years. As of tomorrow, Londoners will get their first chance in 15 years to see the larger-than-life performance. This distinctive brand of Russian clowning sees a group of rather terrifying characters put on a spectacular [...]
Inditex sales growth slows in tough market December 14, 2011 Sales growth at Spain’s Inditex, the world’s largest clothing retailer and owner of the Zara label, moderated in the third quarter as the euro zone debt crisis crimped spending in the region. The company, founded by Spain’s richest man Amancio Ortega, posted a 9.5 per cent rise in sales growth on for the third quarter [...]