Mix it up: Insect cocktails: it’s just not crickets… Or is it? September 17, 2013 @philip_salter Throughout my childhood I had more pets than you could shake a stick at – dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, rats and even chinchillas. But one clearly stands out from the menagerie. At the tender age of 12 I excitedly dragged my parents to an exotic pet shop to buy an iguana: I [...]
The business built to help customers outsource their chores September 15, 2013 Annabel Palmer meets Raj Singh, co-founder of the online marketplace Sooqini, who shunned job security for a career as an entrepreneur ACCORDING to Raj Singh, founder of online marketplace Sooqini, we are now living in a “gig economy”. His theory, albeit paraphrased from Michael Lewis’s The New New Thing, goes that people no longer want [...]
Lloyd’s of London boss warns of flood of capital into insurance September 5, 2013 LLOYD’S of London chairman John Nelson last night issued a stark warning about the potential for a new financial crisis if the flow of investment funds into the insurance industry is left unchecked. Low yields on traditional bonds has led investors to seek new locations for their money such as catastrophe bonds, which are eating into [...]
Italian service sector slump continues September 4, 2013 While we're expecting the Eurozone services sector as a whole to show growth in August, the Italian sector remains stuck in contraction. The headline purchasing managers' index number rose from 48.7 to just 48.8. Economists had forecast an increase 49.4, bringing the economy close to the end of contraction. Any number below 50 implies that [...]
Bottom Line: Smartphones have left this pair lagging September 3, 2013 IT’S EASY to see why firms with so much in common are joining forces – both Nokia and Microsoft were the future once. Yesterday, a 30 per cent bump from the good news left Nokia shares trading around €4, a long way from the glory days of May 2000, when they topped €64 each. Microsoft [...]
Finding the right ingredients to freshen up the UK food industry September 1, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks to Patrick Drake, who switched litigation for ladles to create grocery delivery service Hello Fresh EATING well and leading a healthy lifestyle are virtues many aspire to. But if your skills in the kitchen are limited, and time even more so, sometimes such aspirations fall by the wayside in favour of a [...]
Review: Bulgari Hotel September 1, 2013 Zoe Strimpel checks in for a slice of the high-life THE name Bulgari conjures images of diamonds and decadence – it’s appropriate that its first UK hotel is in that home of international wealth, Knightsbridge. Its probably only a matter of time until the Gucci Hotel opens up on Sloane Street, or Fendi launches a [...]
How to make your fitness regime stick August 26, 2013 HOW TO MAKE THOSE FITNESS GOALS STICK Autumn can be a bit like the New Year when it comes to fitness goals. Well intentioned as you were at the start of the summer, you now realise there’s been more barbecued burgers than beach volleyball over the last couple of months. Before you start making a [...]
Review: Rock Lobsta at Mahiki August 20, 2013 RESTAURANT 1 Dover St, Mayfair, W1S 4LD Tel: 020 7493 9529 FOOD Four Stars VALUE Three Stars ATMOSPHERE Three Stars Cost for two with drinks: £100 Once upon a time I worked for a newspaper in Bermuda called the Mid Ocean News. I say “worked” – we didn’t actually do very much. Every Friday we’d [...]
Greece’s catastrophic 1930s-style depression is a salutary tale August 17, 2013 SORRY, but the fact that Greece collapsed at an annual rate of 4.6 per cent in the second quarter, rather than a little bit faster, isn’t good news. It’s terrible, awful, horrible news. Greek output is down by 23 per cent since 2008 and unemployment is at around 28 per cent; no wonder, given the [...]