Cheque mates: Harry Kane and Magnus Carlsen top up stakes in football brand October 10, 2024 England captain Harry Kane and chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen have taken part in a $100m funding round for the company behind the football-themed entertainment and dining venue Toca Social. The move will help Toca Football launch further sites in London, where it already has a venue at the O2, as well as Paris, Mexico and [...]
Check out this house built from the ground up for ‘wellness’ October 10, 2024 Property of the week | Clarendon Road, Notting Hill | £8.25m | For sale through Middleton Advisors If there has been one trend that has defined the 2020s so far, it is the proliferation and penetration of ‘wellness’, that imprecise but ubiquitous term that covers everything from physical fitness to mental fortitude. Property developers have not [...]
Transformers One is the best film in this franchise. Here’s why… October 10, 2024 For 17 years the Transformers franchise has proven bafflingly successful. The four Michael Bay-directed movies, spanning from 2007 to 2017, became a byword for shallow spectacle, while the prequels Bumblebee (2018) and Rise of The Beasts (2023) were at best a marginal improvement. The series now moves into animated territory with the star-studded family film [...]
Libby takes her favourite Naked Wines on the road. This week: Hide October 9, 2024 Rarely do I decline an invitation to Hide, the Michelin-starred restaurant overlooking Piccadilly and Green Park, but especially not when at the behest of David Baker, Founder of Hermitage Cognac, to “try something special”. In truth it seems unfair to call him merely a “Founder” of a brand, as Cognac is clearly his calling, his [...]
‘Together we can discover what is possible’: Jurgen Klopp takes new job October 9, 2024 Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says he “could not be more excited” after he was appointed Global Head of Soccer at Red Bull’s multi-club network. Klopp, who left Liverpool in the summer after nine glorious years at the club, will start in January at the group, where he will oversee teams including RB Leipzig and [...]
‘Challenging policy’: What the pushback to private school VAT plans reveals October 8, 2024 VAT… easy as ABC? It may not quite be Blair’s ‘education, education, education’ mantra, or Michael Gove’s multi-academy trusts. But for Sir Keir ‘my-father-was-a-toolmaker’ Starmer, there’s been one education policy that’s been front and centre of his manifesto and the first 100 days. This is, of course, the plan to impose VAT on private school [...]
UK’s cash-strapped fintechs brace for buyouts as London IPOs stall October 8, 2024 Amid a dearth of IPO activity, the UK's fintech sector is bracing for more consolidation as successful start-ups expand and established players fend off future rivals.
With Sue Gray gone, Keir Starmer will have no more excuses October 8, 2024 Sue Gray is carrying the can for the shortcomings and mistakes of her boss, says Henry Newman Morgan McSweeney is Keir Starmer’s second chief of staff following Sue Gray’s resignation. And we aren’t even 100 days into the new government. Some of his predecessors lasted far longer. David Cameron’s only chief of staff was there [...]
The Ada Lovelace day, let’s call time on ‘tech bro’ culture October 8, 2024 Only 21 per cent of tech sector specialists in the UK are female and Black women comprise less than one per cent. This Ada Lovelace Day, let’s not just celebrate the achievements of female tech pioneers, but inspire the next generation too, says Julia Adamson As we celebrate Ada Lovelace day, we must reflect on [...]
Joker: Folie à Deux review – a strange, dark musical October 7, 2024 Joker was a fascinating outlier in modern cinema. The violent, Scorsese-inspired psychodrama was a huge risk, whisking the Clown Prince of Crime away from the world of comic books and placing him in a grimy 1980s Gotham City that resembled nothing more than Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. The gamble paid off, with an Oscar for [...]