Retail
Has your local shop blacklisted you?
Britain’s obsession with surveillance is reaching new heights. Several of the UK’s largest retailers have quietly installed facial recognition checkpoints…
How much do we spend on workwear?
The first nimby Who coined the term ‘nimby’? — The expression, from ‘Not In My Backyard’, entered the political sphere…
Don’t look back in anger… it’s just how ticket sales work
We expect Ryanair tickets to cost more on holiday Saturdays than term-time Tuesdays and Uber fares to surge in the…
Price caps are a slippery slope
Sometimes it’s the little things that depress most. I groaned last week to hear the news item. The government is…
What’s Helsinki’s nightlife like?
Finnish lines Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said she had taken a test for illegal drugs after being filmed at…
How to save Oxford Street – and your high street
Oxford Street is ‘a dinosaur district destined for extinction’, says Marks & Spencer boss Stuart Machin – whose plan to…
My approach to wine? Wishful drinking
I fancy myself as a bit of an oenophile and during the lockdowns, when my local branch of Majestic was…
How profitable are Britain’s biggest oil companies?
A slip of the tongue George W. Bush condemned a political system where one man could wage a ‘brutal and…
Why nothing ever comes ‘for free’
‘It’s not as nice as it looks,’ said my husband, not leaving time to look it in the mouth before…
Could Haldane have helped save us from inflation?
Would Andy Haldane, the economist who left the Bank of England to run the Royal Society of Arts, have made…
Is ours the oddest high street in the land?
The window of the new shop was as brightly coloured as a circus entrance, and stuffed full of items bearing…
Why are so many classic British brands going downmarket?
Why are so many classic British brands going downmarket?
Why cash is still king to me
In defence of hard cash
Are banking apps luring young people into debt?
Are banking apps luring under-thirties into debt?
The problem with online property searches
In 1966, the legendary adman David Ogilvy set out to buy a home in France. He boarded a transatlantic liner…
How to solve the looming pigs-in-blankets crisis
This is getting serious. Never mind global shortages of microchips, plastics, copper and container ships; now we’re running out of…
Why filling Santa’s sack will cost more this year
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey looks increasingly uncomfortable as inflation notches upwards from ‘nothing to worry about’ towards the…
Will a John Lewis home be up Boris and Carrie’s street?
The Financial Times carried a curious story at the weekend about ‘the secretive process to elect the Lord Mayor of…
Why private equity sharks are shopping at Morrisons
The late Sir Ken Morrison — founder of the eponymous supermarket chain that’s the latest UK target for US private…
Is Farrow & Ball’s business model flaking?
The happiest thing that happens in May is the coming into leaf of my long beech hedge. The shift from…
The insidious creep of corporate friendliness
The insidious creep of corporate friendliness
The importance of gossip (according to the ancients)
Gossip appears to be good for the mental health. That should make the females of the ancient world some of…
Can the ‘next Bicester Village’ take off without tourists?
Retail footfall will be the first measure of recovery this spring. Everywhere I look, from central London to small-town Yorkshire,…
