TomTom to cut 300 jobs amid AI shift
The group said the staff reductions concern its units working on the application layer, as well as sales and support functions.
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Daily Mail
21 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Welsh Rugby Union set to confirm radical club plans as part of restructure of the game
The Welsh Rugby Union is set to propose reducing the number of Wales' professional clubs from four to two as part of radical plans to restructure the country's national game. Chief executive Abi Tierney, chairman Richard Collier-Keywood and director of rugby Dave Reddin are set to officially confirm the news on Wednesday. However, they will not be finalised as definite because a six-week consultation period will then follow where the WRU will seek the opinions of the Welsh game's stakeholders. Dragons, Cardiff, Ospreys and Scarlets are Wales' domestic sides as things stand. But at least two of those organisations will be at risk moving forward with any halving of teams set to officially come into operation for the 2026/27 season. Cutting from four to two is one of a number of different options being considered by the WRU but the governing body's preferred direction of travel. It remains unclear at this stage whether the two sides the WRU wants to have moving forward will be teams which already exist or new entities altogether. Either way, the plans represent the most seismic moment in Welsh rugby history since Wales moved from a club-based system to what were initially five regions in 2003. The WRU is doing so in reaction to more than two years of struggles in which their men's national side lost 18 straight Test matches. Wales' four current clubs have also struggled to compete for success in the United Rugby Championship and in Europe. In the coming years, the WRU plans for its two teams to have squads of 50 players apiece and have annual playing budgets of £7.8million. It is hoped that will improve their chances of domestic trophies. In time, the WRU also plans to build a new national centre of excellence at which their two domestic sides will be based. Both will also have a women's counterpart. However, the introduction of such plans is unlikely to be straightforward. The WRU owns Cardiff after it fell into administration earlier this year, but the other three teams are all independent businesses and are likely to launch legal action if they're put at risk. The URC is looking at the option of replacing the loss of Welsh sides by adding two teams from the USA to its cross-border competition.
Times
21 minutes ago
- Times
Is a pub's service charge on beer at the bar a rip-off?
The pint is ordered. The tap handle is pulled down firmly, from completely closed to completely open. Having pulled several thousand of these things myself, once upon a time, I can see it's a textbook start, and it only improves. The glass is held at 45 degrees and raised high against the tap, limiting, but not entirely restricting the drop height of the liquid. Then, as the level rises, the angle is slowly opened and the glass is lowered, ensuring consistency of drop height all the way through the pour, agitating the carbon dioxide within to the optimum level required for a solid 2cm of foamy head. It's perfect. I mean, it's not very hard. Anyone can master it in about five minutes, as I once did, aged 18. But it's still perfect. It's only at this point that things get a bit lively. Drinkers at the Well & Boot in London's Waterloo station, with its panoramic view over surely the nation's single ugliest concourse, must now ask themselves a difficult question. Was that short moment of perfection worth an extra 31p? Or does the existing £7.65 for the pint itself adequately cover the act of pouring it out? The reason they must ask it themselves is because no one else is going to. The pint they've just ordered is about to have a 4 per cent service charge added to it, even though it's been ordered at the bar and paid for at the bar. It won't, in fairness, be drunk at the bar, as there is no bar to speak of, not one with seats anyway, or an actual bar top, and that's the real scandal here, which we'll get on to shortly. The Well & Boot has hit the headlines over the past 48 hours, for its not-so-obvious 4 per cent service charge on drinks at the bar. Two days of newspaper coverage have not been sufficient to compel the bar staff to mention it. It's in the small print on the bottom of the menu, but who looks at that? It's on the receipt if you happen to ask for one, but who gets a receipt for a pint of beer (apart from journalists, obviously)? When you see it printed out and written down, it's a bit irksome. If, back in the year 2000, I'd been paid 31p for every pint I'd poured, I'd have ended the Friday night shift with several hundred quid to show for it, not £15.85 and, I realise now, severe PTSD from over-exposure to Dancing In The Moonlight by Toploader. • 9 of the best pubs in London — chosen by our beer expert The Well & Boot is banking on customers not noticing the difference between £7.65 for a pint of beer and £7.96 for a pint of beer, and it's a safe bet. Once you've paid £7.65 for a pint your subconscious is already doing everything it can to suppress the pain, just to allow you to enjoy it. You can, if you like, ask for it to be removed, and, having done the job myself, I simply couldn't face hassling a bar worker to go through the necessary rigmarole on the till just to do themselves out of 31p. Is it a rip-off? I don't know. Pint number two — all in the name of research, obviously, was a Guinness — and that one was brought to the table, at which point a 4 per cent charge for table service is quite good value. All the other customers were having a lunchtime meal, ordered and brought to the table, so 4 per cent for that sort of service is extremely cheap. What really irks is that it is a calculated effort to strip out the entire purpose of tipping culture. Having lived in New York for a bit, I am a passionate believer in tipping culture, which British holidaymakers to the United States rarely understand. There, it is routine to hand over a dollar bill for every drink (an amount which has not gone up in at least 20 years, even while the cost of the drink itself has doubled). But — and here comes the whole point — should you stay for four or five drinks, you are likely to receive a drink on the house in return for your generosity, which has cost you in tips a lot less than the cost of the drink itself. It is a virtuous circle of conviviality. Decent wages for service workers in return for cheap drinks for loyal punters, the purposeful nurturing of a good atmosphere, and all of it done off the books. A few dollars are handed over in cash, a bit of liquid goes missing, no need to worry about the spreadsheets or the taxman. Proper tipping culture is the same double victory as paying the plumber in cash, except there's also booze involved. • Pubs must wake up and smell the coffee: morning money is the future It doesn't work if it's all done on card (the Well & Boot does not take cash), and it certainly doesn't work if it's done in secret. Of course, what's actually going on here is yet another case of long pub Covid. Pubs with no discernible bar, where you shout over the taps and then are cajoled into having your drinks brought to a table you haven't even found yet. Where people still order and pay over app, or queue in single file, and no one truly understands what the point of it all is. At least, I think that's what's going on here. I might be wrong. Perhaps if I'd racked up £7.65's worth of 31p tips, my 25th pint would have been on the house. I might, however, have missed my train.
Daily Mail
21 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Footsie hits record high on Ukraine peace hopes: Blue-chip index ends session up 0.3% at 9189.22
The FTSE 100 hit a record yesterday as European markets rallied on hopes of peace in Ukraine. London's index of blue-chip stocks ended the session up 0.3 per cent at 9189.22 – its highest ever close. The rally came after Donald Trump held talks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and European allies, including Keir Starmer, at the White House. The US President said he has begun arranging talks between Zelensky and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, sparking hopes of an imminent end to the conflict after more than three years of war. In London, the FTSE 100 – which has gained more than 12 per cent this year – was boosted by retail stocks, offsetting a defence sector drop. And the mid-cap FTSE 250 rose 0.4 per cent, snapping a three-day losing streak. In Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris rose 1.2 per cent, while Germany's DAX 40 closed up 0.5 per cent. Meanwhile, oil prices slumped on investor expectations that a peace deal will likely lead to an easing of sanctions on Russia. Despite the stock market rally, London-listed defence giants took a hit on signs that the conflict in Ukraine could come to an end. The companies have been boosted as European leaders raced to rearm amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Babcock International fell 7.4 per cent, BAE Systems dropped 3.9 per cent and Rolls-Royce lost 2.1 per cent. But the losses were offset by retailers, which made big gains despite news of a delay to official sales data. JD Sports jumped 6.8 per cent following an upbeat statement from protein powder seller Applied Nutrition, which is backed by the sportswear chain. Shares in Marks & Spencer rose 3.5 per cent and Next shares were up 3 per cent. Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at broker AJ Bell, said: 'Far from the adversarial and uncomfortable scenes in the White House earlier this year, the dynamic between the presidents of the US and Ukraine was positive, even friendly.' 'There seems to have been a shift and there may be a feeling that if the fighting ends, the requirements for additional armaments could end with it, although any peacekeeping forces will need kitting out appropriately.'
