Shopping in style at the City’s 10 best June 17, 2012 Paul A Young, Bank 1 London’s most delectable chocolatier has shops in Islington and Soho, but our favourite is the outpost on Threadneedle Street. Just a stone’s throw from Bank, the store is a beacon of temptation, with its opulent display window and signature purple exterior. Paul, who has flame-red hair, oversees an operation in [...]
Ascot ready to welcome Australian sprinting sensation Black Caviar June 17, 2012 ROYAL Ascot will once again host a strong international raiding party when the world’s most famous five-day meeting gets underway tomorrow. Horses and jockeys now regularly travel to Berkshire from throughout Europe and from as far afield as Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA. However, it’s the visit of one Australian [...]
Cosmopolis is flawed but compelling June 14, 2012 FILM COSMOPOLIS Cert 15 | By Steve Dinneen **** In the future, nobody will move their face. That is, at least, in David Cronenberg’s dystopian vision, adapted from Don DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis. Through billionaire finance whiz-kid Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson), Cronenberg seems intent on building an American Psycho for the 21st century, with Pattinson essentially [...]
How the British summer can put your head in the clouds June 11, 2012 Look out of the window. Chances are, it is raining. Just like it was yesterday. The British summer is in full swing, once again failing to live up to its early promise of sunshine and blue skies. The Met Office warns the weather is likely to remain “unsettled” for at least the next month – anyone [...]
London’s contemporary design lustre is a reflection of its inspiring heritage June 7, 2012 THE Barbican’s new Bauhaus exhibition is full of ghosts. These early twentieth-century disciples of modernism are renowned for furniture as coolly perfect as an equation, but it is the human messiness of achievement that haunts every room. A chair that takes the breath away is posed between half-finished student exercises, invitations to parties and dozens [...]
Fifty shades of blockbuster success June 7, 2012 BOOKS FIFTY SHADES OF GREY By EL James (Arrow) An urgent message reached me last week as I was heading to the airport for a Jubilee weekend trip to Israel: “Bring four copies of Fifty Shades of Grey pretty please.” It came from a 34 year old friend in Tel Aviv who, along with three [...]
A tale of two companies shows why chief execs count May 30, 2012 IT WAS the best of times for Britain’s biggest food wholesaler Booker on 24 May. Its preliminary results showed another good year: sales of £3.9bn, pre-tax profit up 27 per cent to £90.8m and a net cash pile of £63.4m. Why then did its share price rise yesterday by almost 10 per cent after it [...]
CITY VIEWS | WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE PASTY TAX U-TURN? May 29, 2012 HOWARD WATT FIDELITY I bought a pasty from Greggs this morning and it did seem a little expensive, but it’s still much cheaper than a lot of the other food that is being sold in the City. I think booze and cigarettes should be taxed to encourage healthy lifestyles and pasties are quite fattening too. To [...]
The Facebook debacle deserves a reaction from London May 28, 2012 THE controversies surrounding the historic $104bn flotation of Facebook in the US should have reminded all of us that although the New York financial markets may currently be the place to go for technology flotations, they are not infallible. What is disappointing is that with so much wrangling about how the float was handled, very [...]
Harsh but efficient: the lemon detox May 28, 2012 FITNESS & DIET EXPERT This week I continue my search for the city’s best beach shape-up regimes. Here I try and test the Lemon Detox (www.lemondetox.com). This is one of those diets that if you’re any kind of self respecting weight watcher, you’ll want to try once in your lifetime. Beyonce used it to drop [...]