Journey into the mighty history of Samarkand December 12, 2010 AROUND Tashkent airport, giant hoardings proclaimed in English: “Uzbekistan Airways Wish You Good Luck”. It might have been more unsettling to read that message driving into Heathrow before our departure. In fact, we’d had an incident-free flight on Uzbekistan Airways to Uzbekistan’s capital. Tashkent sounds endlessly exotic but isn’t really. Much was destroyed by a [...]
Gifts for kids December 8, 2010 DISNEY CARS LIGHTNING MCQUEEN 12-INCH BIKE, £99.99 Let your child be their very own Lightning McQueen on this bike modelled on the popular cars film. www.toysrus.co.uk BUZZ LIGHTYEAR, £49.99 The toy that goes to infinity and beyond. All good retailers TRON ZERO GRAVITY LIGHT-CYCLE, £34 The remote controlled Light Cycle can defy gravity by climbing [...]
The new four-seat frontier December 7, 2010 SHOULD a high performance sports car be practical and should practicality even be a consideration in terms of its design? What if the car is an Aston Martin? Good grief: has the world gone mad? Well it seems not, because these days when 50 is the new 40, a four-seat supercar can well be all [...]
Five ways to cut costs, whatever your business December 1, 2010 1. ASK “WHY?” If you think that something is wasteful, don’t accept that it is “just the way we do it here”. Bad habits can become engrained. In her book 100 Great Cost-Cutting Ideas, Anne Hawkins tells the story of a technology manufacturer which had been including needless technical information with all its products for [...]
2010’s Christmas book round-up December 1, 2010 BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS CRISIS ECONOMICS BY NOURIEL ROUBINI WITH STEPEHN MIHM Pengiuin, £25 More than just another me-too account of the crisis, Nouriel Roubini – often called Dr Doom for his Cassandra-like prophecies – gives a compelling account of the 2008 meltdown. He provides the lay reader with succinct and clearly written explanations of the [...]
Hooray: Hakkasan comes to Mayfair November 29, 2010 Hakkasan (Mayfair) 17 Bruton Street, W1J 6QB Tel: 020 7907 1888, www.hakkasan.com FOOD SERVICE ATMOSPHERE Cost per person without wine: £55 LAST week I gained half a stone. It all started (relatively) modestly with a couple of (gastro) pub meals. And it ended modestly: eating a cheeseburger and chips while standing up at the crowded, [...]
Lady liberty has found her sense of humour – PJ O’Rourke checks in November 29, 2010 POLITICIANS,” growls PJ O’Rourke, “don’t understand finance at all – even the last little bit. Yet they’re increasingly in charge of it.” America’s greatest living satirist is back in town and training his anger on the political enterprise. His new book is titled Don’t Vote! It Just Encourages The Bastards. The idea of politicians setting [...]
When the torrent turns into a trickle November 28, 2010 THANKSGIVING might not make much of an impact on most British households, but for those trading on the financial markets, it will certainly have been noticeable. As millions of Americans take leave from work to eat turkey, drink, shop and nurse their hangovers, the number actually still trading shares drops off heavily. But it isn’t [...]
ASK THE EXPERTS November 24, 2010 LAST week the government said that it wants to measure the country’s wellbeing, and not just GDP. But it’s not just politicians who should be interested in wellbeing, but employers and workers too. So how do you make work a happier place? Dr Jo Perkins Coaching psychologist, Orbit Consulting Research demonstrates that psychological wellbeing is achieved [...]
There is no folly in eating here November 22, 2010 The Folly 41 Gracechurch Street, EC3V 0BT Tel: 0845 468 0102 FOOD SERVICE ATMOSPHERE Cost per person without wine: £20 THE City, it appears, has been truly starved of a good, affordable restaurant/bar with funky design (yes, funky, rather than drab, formal, sticky or cafe-style). Because from the moment the Folly, the enormous, windowy multi-story [...]