London Report: UK labour data and inflation report to form rates outlook August 10, 2014 LABOUR market data and the Bank of England’s quarterly inflation report due this week will point to the likelihood of rate rises in the near future. “Latest labour market data is likely to show a further marked drop in unemployment but still muted earnings growth,” said Howard Archer, of IHS Global Insight. “A further marked fall [...]
Latis Homes founders Robert Luck and Krishan Pattni talk dream designs and planning nightmares August 10, 2014 Without the regulatory constraints imposed on our housing market, between 1974 and 2008, average house prices would have risen from £79,000 to £147,000, rather than to £226,000. That’s according to a new report by Christian Hilber of the LSE and Wouter Vermeulen of UV University that looks at the impact of supply constraints on house [...]
Co-op shelves plans for online grocery service August 8, 2014 THE CO-OPERATIVE Group has shelved plans to join its rivals and launch an online grocery service just months after unveiling a plan to turn around its embattled food business. The mutual began trialling click-and-collect service – where customers can pick up groceries ordered online – at a store in Stockport in November, but has now [...]
Fatal attachment: Dotmailer’s Tink Taylor talks automation, dinner parties and kitesurfing August 3, 2014 How long could you survive without email? Estimates of how many are sent globally every year range from 100bn to 200bn. And every year, dotmailer’s founder Tink Taylor gets asked the same thing: is the death of email just around the corner? It’s a question he finds laughable. Recent research by Gigaom found that 86 [...]
Meet elBulli’s Ferran Adrià: We interview the world’s greatest chef July 29, 2014 Once upon a time, the language of culinary pretension was French. If a chef wanted to bump up the prices on his menu, all he had to do was add a dash of “jus”, a splash of “vin”, perhaps a little “petit”. French words forged a connection between whatever slop the chef was serving up [...]
What your business card says about you July 29, 2014 A man pats his slicked back hair as he slides his business card across the table to his colleagues. It’s off-white and the words “Patrick Bateman, Vice President” are embossed on it in a finely etched black font. “Picked ‘em up from the printers yesterday. That’s bone. And the lettering is something called Silian Grail,” [...]
The New York power breakfast: A world of billion-dollar deals and $23 bowls of cereal July 29, 2014 Every morning, Leigh Wynn, the maitre d’ of the most expensive and exclusive breakfast spot in New York, wakes up at 4.30am. From 7am to 10am, her job is to find a table for some of the biggest and most demanding names in business, media and politics, and personally cater to their every whim, while [...]
Why the Jaguar F-Type Coupé is the best sports car of its generation July 29, 2014 Getting into an F-Type coupé is like the first haircut you have when you graduate. You’re starting to face reality and a job interview is on the horizon. Every mirror solicits a double-take – you never knew you could look so smart. But this car is stunning from every angle. There are great works of [...]
Why did the dinosaurs go extinct? Bad timing, scientists say July 28, 2014 It wasn't just the impact of an asteroid thundering down to Earth that wiped dinosaurs off the face of the planet: their extinction was the result of a longer chain of events, according to new research. There are several theories about how the prehistoric creatures met their abrupt end 66 million years ago, [...]
In a field of his own: FarmDrop’s Ben Pugh talks crowdfunding and the future of our food July 27, 2014 In the time it’s taken FarmDrop founder Ben Pugh to discuss his company with me, it crowdfunded £13,000. After just eight days on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, FarmDrop raised more than its £400,000 investment target. A new way of doing food is, it seems, quite popular. The FarmDrop concept is simple: it streamlines the food [...]