If it’s broke, then buy it and fix it up for a tidy return November 10, 2011 Q.Why should someone consider an unmodernised property? A.Unmodernised property provides the opportunity to buy at a lower price than a recently modernised equivalent, and the chance to create one’s own home to one’s own taste and standards. People also enjoy the experience of renovating a property; it’s creative and fun. Q.What are the biggest upsides? [...]
Here is the Next step for Marks & Spencer to take November 8, 2011 TWENTY years ago, the UK was in recession and Marks & Spencer had just changed its boss: some things never change. Under Rick Greenbury, M&S went on to have a good 1990s, before over-expansion led to the inevitable and painful correction, under a new management team. Twenty years on, the competition is much tougher and [...]
A Playboy queen in chef’s whites November 8, 2011 IMAGINE, for a moment, the head chef at a Playboy Club. Whatever image just sprang to your mind, I am fairly certain it is not Judy Joo. A Korean-American former Wall Street banker (she was a sales-trader on the fixed income floor of Morgan Stanley; her husband works for a hedge fund in London), Joo [...]
In the snow in British Columbia November 6, 2011 RUNNING through Vancouver in bright ski gear, carrying boots, boards and skis is an experience in itself. Before hitting the steep and deep slopes of Whistler Blackcomb – British Columbia’s powder playground – we decided to find our ski legs at Vancouver’s nearby family resorts of Cypress, Seymour and Grouse Mountains. The local resorts are [...]
The zombie menace of anti-capitalist thought November 3, 2011 WHEN the Occupy protest movement began, how twenty-first century it seemed: leaderless, emergent and driven by a fury at unprecedented cronyism between high finance and high politics. But how quickly it has decayed, in its London incarnation at least, into reheated anti-capitalist slogans with nothing original to say. Commerce is ancient, and so is the [...]
Two cookbooks to add flavour to your winter kitchen November 2, 2011 My Kind of Cooking Mark Sargeant Published by Quercus £20 Odd bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal Jennifer McLagan Published by Jacqui Small £20 Mark Sargeant was a Gordon Ramsay protégé and Head Chef at Claridges formerly unnoticed in the shadow of his boss. Now, he’s done it on his own – [...]
CAUDWELL FLIES FROM BULLIES TO BILLIONS October 31, 2011 HOPE FOR everyone who had a miserable time at school – it might not stop you becoming as successful as John Caudwell, the freckle-faced Phones4U founder who rose from his “dog eat dog” start to become a self-made telecoms billionaire. “My childhood was a permanent challenge,” said the once-bullied tycoon. “On my very first day [...]
Reflections on a positive year October 27, 2011 Q.Are you happy with One New Change a year on? Has it been a commercial success? A.In just 12 months, and despite tough economic conditions, One New Change is playing a leading role in transforming the City of London into a desirable weekday and weekend shopping and eating destination for Londoners and visitors to the [...]
When black bowler hats gave way to red braces October 26, 2011 THE BIG Bang set the City on a course of profound expansion, not just of wealth, but of people and culture and even location. Twenty-five years after deregulation, London’s financial and legal districts are full of the sort of people that would have made the bowler-hatted old boys of the post-war period shudder. Women, foreigners, [...]
All souped up in Soho: yet another super-cool food bar enters the fray October 24, 2011 DUCK SOUP 41 Dean Street, Soho, W1D 4PY www.ducksoupsoho.co.uk FOOD *** SERVICE *** ATMOSPHERE **** Cost per person without wine: £30 IT’s all part of the Soho experience – the perch at the bar, the swiveling stool, getting up close and personal with the waitress pushing past you. Duck Soup, which is staffed by alumni [...]