The Times on LinkedIn: From boat tours to kebabs: the Taylor Swift cash-in comes to Britain (2024)

While Americans are feeling the economic strain and tightening their belts in many areas, the psychic services industry continues to grow. Psychics are benefiting as the election looms and people seek advice on finances and their love life

Witnesses in the hush money case suggested the former president and first lady live separate lives — yet he values her opinion and may need her on the campaign trail

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Forget Baa Baa Black Sheep — today’s toddlers seem more likely to want AC/DC’s Back in Black.More than a quarter of parents claim that nursery rhymes are outdated, as young children these days now prefer other genres like grime, R&B and rock music, research reveals

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Sidara has stepped up its pursuit of John Wood Group with a “fourth and final” approach worth nearly £1.6bn.The Scottish engineering consultancy’s Dubai-based rival also called on its target’s board to engage in talks and an extended deadline

The size of the British Army has dipped below the Conservative’s target figure for the first time, with a former senior chief blaming the “very poor” state of equipment and “desperate cuts” in training.The government had planned to shrink the army from 82,000 to 73,000 by 2025, the smallest size since the Napoleonic era and a figure that had already concerned American and European allies

A London-based financial technology company has set out plans to launch the first alternative to the Apple Wallet.Curve’s system will allow users to choose to pay using “tap and go” on their phone by downloading an app and setting it as their default so that it will appear when they click the side button. At present, the only option to pay using this function on an iPhone is with Apple’s own system

A top-ten shareholder in the parent company of Royal Mail has spoken out against the £3.6 billion takeover by its Czech tycoon shareholder.Columbia Threadneedle Investments, which holds about 5% of International Distribution Services, believes that the offer of 370p a share undervalues the postal services group

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Having worked alongside it for the past two decades, my general impression of public relations is that it is not a life-or-death occupation. You might get a client shouting down the phone about being misquoted. Maybe they’re upset if a photograph shows them in a particularly unattractive light. But you’re not going to get a gun to your head. How wrong I am. A few pages into his revelatory memoir, I Was There, Alan Edwards, PR of legend to David Bowie, the Spice Girls and countless others, finds himself pulled into a game of Russian roulette with a horrifically scarred Hell’s Angel in a balaclava. And all in the name of getting punk reprobates the Stranglers a review in The Sun

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The number of homes for sale is at the highest level in eight years, according to Zoopla, which expects the extra supply to keep a lid on house price rises this year.The property search website has calculated that there are 20 per cent more homes on the market than there were at this time last year, when soaring mortgage rates pushed would-be buyers and sellers to the sidelines

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