cruise control November 17, 2009 IF I told you that I recently indulged in a spot of mid-week mud-larking, then where would you picture me? The wilds of Scotland? The Yorkshire Dales? Well, not quite. This time I was in the EJ Churchill Sporting Ground near High Wycombe. When I emerge from my car, it sounds like I’ve arrived at [...]
Merlin lines up Sunderland November 16, 2009 The backers of theme park group Merlin Entertainments are lining up John Sunderland as chairman ahead of a stock market floatation next year. Merlin’s shareholders, which include Blackstone and Dubai International Capital, have identified the former chief executive and chairman of Cadbury-Schweppes to take the firm public. Merlin Entertainments, which owns Alton Towers, Legoland and [...]
Tories could give Sky the Ashes back November 15, 2009 Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said yesterday that a Tory government could overturn Labour’s decision to return a host of sporting events to free-to-air channels. Last week, a government-appointed panel – led by former Football Association chief executive David Davies – recommended that the Ashes cricket, international football World Cup and European Championship qualifying matches, [...]
Ireland can hold France in crucial Croke contest November 12, 2009 REPUBLIC OF IRELAND vs. FRANCETomorrow 8pm, Sky Sports 1IRELAND haven’t tasted defeat in Dublin since the 2006 World Cup qualifiers when they lost 1-0 to France in September 2005. Since then they have won five and drawn seven of 12 competitive home games. It is never easy to analyse international football form, as teams play [...]
BA Iberia merger set for takeoff November 11, 2009 British Airways and Spanish airline Iberia could announce a long-awaited merger agreement as early as this week, Sky News reported last night. It said the two parties were gearing up for a deal to be announced by tomorrow. BA refused to comment, saying only that talks with the carrier, which started over a year ago [...]
Fit for James Bond November 10, 2009 IT’S funny the varied reactions that you get when you are driving around in a supercar. Take a moment when I was parked unloading some things from the boot. A guy came over to the car, looked at me and probably wondered how I was going to react if he made a comment. His opening [...]
What lies beneath November 9, 2009 WHEN rumour broke that law firm Clifford Chance’s female employees were being given a £90 allowance to buy fresh knickers after all-nighters at the office, our first thought, perhaps worryingly, was not for their wellbeing. Instead, we couldn’t help but wonder just what City women are wearing under their suits, such that nothing short of [...]
Virgin Media’s Berkett joins the Guardian board November 9, 2009 Guardian Media Group (GMG) said yesterday that it had appointed Virgin Media chief executive Neil Berkett to its board as a non-executive director. The publisher of The Guardian and The Observer, which has been battling losses in the face of the advertising downturn and a consumer switch to online news sources, said it was delighted [...]
Murdoch in war over ‘theft’ of content November 9, 2009 MEDIA tycoon Rupert Murdoch threw down the gauntlet to Google yesterday, declaring that News Corporation-owned websites such as The Times and The Sun would soon block the search engine. Murdoch accused Google and Microsoft of “stealing” content from his newspapers’ online portals and said he was planning to pull their pages from search engines’ indices. [...]
Prem goal fest means punters who buy goals keep winning November 8, 2009 A FEW weeks ago, there was a story kicking about that the high street bookies were suffering because of the low number of draws that we have seen in the premier league so far this season. The high number of goals meant that there were fewer nils-nils and one-alls, and far more edge-of-the-seat, high-scoring thrillers. [...]