On a balmy Summer’s afternoon in Rome, a reasonable lunch time had passed. Having traversed the city’s cobbled streets for the past six hours, fuelled on a breakfast of five espressos, I was irritably hungry. All of the restaurants littering the plazas surrounding the Pantheon had one key similarity: an overzealous waitress perched outside, attempting to reel potential customers through the door like prized Marlins. “Do you know James Blunt?” One particular waitress asked, presenting a blurry photograph taken with...

Light pollution from white and bluish lamps are three times more disruptive to creatures than those with yellow, amber or greenish hues.

Herald Investment Trust - From small acorns …. - Herald Investment Trust (HRI) provided very strong returns during 2017 (NAV and share-price total returns of 26.9% and 32.7% respectively) with positive contributions coming from all of its regional portfolios. During 2017, a significant proportion of HRI’s NAV performance came from 24 holdings, all of which at least doubled in share price terms. These stocks, which accounted for 8.2% of the portfolio at the beginning of 2017, contributed 63% of HRI’s...

Communication has always been an important facet of what it means to be human. It's one of the distinguishing characteristics that sets us apart from other lifeforms – not only the ability to communicate, but the ability to do so in an exceedingly complex manner. This occurs through speech, appearance, hearing, body language and even smell. As we've evolved so too has the way in which we communicate. We need only look around to see how true this is: from...

Six UK rivers sampled with microplastics three times higher after it has gone through a water treatment plant

By Richard & David de Winter - Sports Editor @TLE_Sport  @rgdewinter  @davidjdewinter In the second part of their preview of World Cup 2018, Richard and David discuss Groups E-H, including England, Brazil, Germany and...Switzerland. They also reveal their tournament winner and their pick for the Golden Boot.

A Conservative minister, Dr Phillip Lee, has quit his job over the way Theresa May is delivering Brexit Dr Lee also went against official party policy by saying that the government should “go to the people, once again” in a second referendum over the eventual Brexit deal that is agreed upon. The ex-justice minister said he is “incredibly sad” to be leaving his job, but argued that he could “better speak up” for his constituents on EU withdrawal once off the government payroll. He took...

A jogger has been filmed trashing a homeless man’s possessions and throwing them into a lake in Oakland, California last Friday evening. “I’m picking up trash, what do you want me to do? Look at this,” the man says in the shocking video, which was captured by Oakland film-maker and photographer JJ Harris. “It’s disgusting.” Watch shocking video here https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/must-reads/shocking-cctv-shows-thug-setting-sleeping-homeless-mans-tent-fire-arson-attack/12/10/ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/must-reads/couple-furious-cafe-refuses-let-buy-coffee-homeless-man/05/02/

Digraced father-of-two Julian Monaghan, 49, had been due to be the third pilot on an overnight Boeing 777 flight from Gatwick to Mauritius