By Wyndham Hacket Pain With a McDonald’s seemingly in every town centre and motorway service centre in the world it’s hard to imagine a time before the fast-food chain. Whether in the small island of Réunion off Madagascar or the Negev Desert in Israel you know the familiar burger and fries is never too far away. Over the last 60 years, McDonald’s has not just become one the world’s most recognisable and ironic products, but has also come to feed...

Brian May is an undoubtedly accomplished guitarist, but he’s hardly renowned for good taste. Yet according to their website, Mayfair tapas restaurant El Pirata (‘The Pirate’, in English) are very proud that the Queen guitarist once visited and said, “El Pirata rocks”. There’s also a testimonial from Johnny Depp, who apparently loves it here, and may or may not have visited in his Captain Jack Sparrow costume. Having been around for just under a quarter of a century, El Pirata...

Britain's SMEs are been strangled by red tape and regulations, according to a new study, with HR compliance, health and safety demands and pension admin stopping owners from growing their enterprise. SMEs account for over 99 per cent of all businesses in the UK, but they are been hindered by distractions and other admin tasks that eat up an average of 10 hours of the working week. One in ten business owners has less than an hour a week earmarked for business...

By Bea Patel, TLE Property Editor and Director of Shop for an Agent On 7 February 2017, the Government announced its plan to fix the broken housing market, as published in the 104-page housing white paper. The Government admits the housing market is broken and sets to build more affordable houses and help people buy and rent. On average, 160,000 homes have been built a year since the seventies. The Government says we need between 225,000 to 275,000 homes a...

The steady rise of house prices in the capital seems like a subject which is rarely out of the news. Over the past 10 years, despite the threats of the financial crisis and Brexit, the London housing market has not only remained strong, but also grown. New research by online property portal Settled, shows just how much the average price of homes in the capital have grown over over the past couple of decades. Using data sourced from the UK...

A posh toff at one of the world's top universities set fire to a £20 note - in front of a freezing homeless person. A shocked passer-by watched while a drunk University of Cambridge student in a white bow tie and tails attempted to burn the banknote in front of the vagrant. Video of the incident was seen by hundreds of students after it was shared on Snapchat. In the video the student struggles to light the note, while the...

Wine has long been seen as the stuff of connoisseurs, a beverage which comes with its own arcane mythology, only slurped and understood by an insufferable few. Films like Sideways and Somm have only served to deepen the mystery around the hallowed grape, and most sensible-thinking people are put off by anything breaking the dreaded £10 barrier. “Sometimes,” as the great cultural critic Alan Partridge once said, “you just want to say, sod all this wine, just give me a...

Last year punk legends Descendents returned with their first album in 12 years, and now they're heading back to UK shores. The Cali crew, who are the brains behind the mega-influential punk rock staple Milo Goes To College, have announced  a new show scheduled for Sunday 4th June at the 02 Brixton Academy in London. Tickets will be available from this Friday, 10th February from 9am (GMT) via Ticketweb:    The band played a series of shows in Latin America last December playing classics...

By Will Robinson For those of you who have seen the film 'Slumdog Millionaire' you'll have some understanding of the enormous and ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor in the metropolis of Mumbai which is depicted in the film. Mumbai (Bombay to locals and your granddad) is the richest and largest city in India, with over 20 million residents. Of this number, approximately 62 per cent are currently living in slums according to government figures. Despite this, Mumbai has...