‘How was it,’ asks George Eliot in Middlemarch, ‘that in the weeks since her marriage, Dorothea had not distinctly observ-ed but felt with a stifling depression, that the large vistas and wide fresh air which she had dreamed of finding in her husband’s mind were replaced by ante-rooms and winding passages which seemed to lead
Entering my name in the visitors’ book at the British Embassy in Paris last week, I saw, a couple of lines above, the signature ‘Tony Blair’. The ex-leader is in France a lot just now. Tony is very fond of President Nicolas Sarkozy, and vice versa. Tony is making it increasingly clear that he would
My chocolate chip cookies have arrived at the farm shop. Caroline apologises as I walk in: ‘I’m afraid they’re Fairtrade.’ ‘All the better,’ I reply. ‘Why on earth would that be a problem?’ ‘They’re a little dearer. Some people don’t want to pay the extra pennies.’ Eleven packets equals a few extra pounds, but I’m
A few minutes reading the Daily Mail and you might think that there wasn’t a person left in Britain with a penny to their name. But it isn’t so. Half the nation may have spent the last five years churning credit cards and overpaying for city-centre new-build flats, but the other half has been busy
Dominic Prince says that some of the world’s canniest investors have consolidated their fortunes by moving into cash as soon as economic storm clouds started to gather Six weeks before the stock market crash of 1987 Sir James Goldsmith met the Australian financier Robert Holmes à Court. Then at the height of his financial prowess,
Are you a serial investor, but with more money than time? You like the idea of being a business angel but you’re too busy to research companies yourself? Investment clubs or partnerships may be just what you’re looking for. The basic aim of an investment club is — for a fee — to allow members
Hong Kong’s underperforming Disneyland theme park has high hopes for the Chinese Year of the Rat, which arrived in boisterous style last week. As one of the few businesses heavily invested in rodent symbolism, the creators of Mickey Mouse are offering special discounts for the New Year period and have enlisted local pop stars to
Ian Cowie asks whether high-growth economies such as China’s are a safer bet than those of the debt-laden West Emerging markets have been the most profitable game in town for several years now, even after the setbacks some suffered toward the end of 2007. True, the bears enjoyed a bit of a picnic when China
How many investments can bring you joy as well as financial gain? Unless pure lucre flows in your veins and you’re the sort of person for whom an excursion into the derivatives market is your greatest pleasure, then there are not many. Wine and art spring to mind, but one relatively under-exploited investment opportunity that
