…AS RBS HIT BY TREASURY BONUS CAPS December 2, 2009 ROYAL Bank of Scotland’s board was on a collision course with the Treasury last night after the government threatened to veto the bank’s plans to pay up to £1.5bn in bonuses to its investment bankers. Stephen Hester, the bank’s chief executive, and the rest of the RBS board are said to be prepared to resign [...]
MY OTHER CAR’S AN ASTON, BUT THE G-WIZ IS PERFECT FOR LONDON December 1, 2009 IF YOU watch Top Gear, you will have recently seen Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond trying to build an electric car to rival the best-selling G-Wiz. The presenters hate electric cars as they stand for everything that they don’t. I am no greenophile – my other car is an Aston Martin. Yet I [...]
Gunners to start strong but beware of the Drog November 26, 2009 ARSENAL VS CHELSEA SUNDAY, 4.00PM SKY SPORTS 1 ARSENAL will be smarting after last weekend’s defeat at Sunderland and the loss of Robin van Persie is obviously a major blow to Arsene Wenger. A win against Chelsea would put them right back in the title race, but they lost 4-1 against the Blues here last [...]
POWER-DRESS LIKE A LADY November 26, 2009 Sara HollambyStyle Counsel THANKS to a 19th century decree, Parisian women are – apparently – banned from wearing trousers, because it says that women should not dress like men. Maybe this is why Parisian women have such a reputation for being chic – they are female and proud of it. In London, however, it’s hard [...]
EasyJet boss sees blue skies November 26, 2009 The chief executive of low-cost airline EasyJet believes the worst of the recession is over for the airline industry, but warned recovery would be slow. “I think the worst is over but I don’t see any improvement either and expect demand to be stable for the next nine months at least,” chief executive Andy Harrison [...]
A tale of betrayal and backstabbing in vicious Westminster-on-the-Tiber November 25, 2009 LUSTRUMBY ROBERT HARRISHutchinson, £18.99 ROBERT Harris is the author of best-selling historical novels such as Fatherland and Enigma. In 2003, he wrote the first of his books based in Ancient Rome, Pompeii. This was followed in 2006 by Imperium, the first in a trilogy about the statesman and orator Cicero. Lustrum is the second. It [...]
Google needs to start rewarding its customers November 23, 2009 WHY is Google winning? And what does it tell us about the future?A fortnight ago, Rupert Murdoch told Australian Sky that he would stop Google from indexing all of his content, preventing it from becoming a one-stop aggregator. Murdoch has been saying for a while that he wants to stop his newspapers haemorrhaging cash by [...]
Microsoft and News Corp in Google attack November 23, 2009 MICROSOFT has held talks with News Corp about removing the latter’s online news content from Google’s search results and listing them exclusively on its Bing search engine instead. Talks are still at an early stage, with a question mark over the terms and payment for the deal. The giant media companies are said to be [...]
Trekking with condors and canyons makes the Wild West unforgettable November 22, 2009 COMPUTER-controlled fountains rising out of an artificial lake on the Las Vegas Strip cavorted to the strains of The Pink Panther. Later we joined the midnight crowds singing along to Don McLean’s American Pie at a laser show in Fremont Street, downtown where the first casinos were built. It couldn’t be a greater contrast with [...]
Liverpool can come out on top in front of Kop November 19, 2009 LIVERPOOL vs. MANCHESTER CITYTOMORROW 12.45PM, SKY SPORTS 1IT is too early to start talking about six pointers, but a win for Liverpool against Manchester City at Anfield tomorrow will send out a clear message that they are still very much part of the Big Four. Rafa Benitez has been under pressure since the very first [...]