Latest news with #Dragons'Den
Toronto Star
a day ago
- Business
- Toronto Star
Dragons' Den star Arlene Dickinson sued for $17.5 million
Celebrity entrepreneur and Dragons' Den star Arlene Dickinson is being sued for $17.5 million. The suit was filed earlier this year by former shareholders and employees of Argyle Communications, a Toronto-based public relations company which was one of four firms which merged with Dickinson's Venture Communications in 2022 to create a communications 'super-firm.'
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Scam alert: Firm uses fake images of top TV star to push £55-a-month weight loss treatment - could YOU have been fooled?
A slimming pill falsely claiming to have been endorsed on BBC 's Dragons' Den has appeared in dozens of misleading online adverts, consumer group Which? has warned. Researchers found 62 adverts for the product, called Nixol, in Meta 's ad library—many of which appeared to be published by scammers. Some of the adverts falsely claimed the weight-loss tablets had been pitched to the Dragons, while others used the Dragons' Den logo, images of investor Sara Davies MBE, or were posted from accounts named after the show. Several ads also linked to websites impersonating Daily Mail news articles, mimicking MailOnline branding to appear credible. Which? warned that such adverts are designed to mislead and may put consumers' health at risk. Most of the adverts claimed that Nixol was a 'powerful remedy' that could help users lose 26.5lb in just two weeks — a claim with no clinical backing. Others claimed it was clinically tested by more than 29,000 men and women, has no side effects, and is 100 per cent natural. Earlier this year, Ms Davies MBE, told BBC Morning Live she'd been made aware of fake adverts of her promoting weight loss tablets. She revealed one of her friend's mothers had spent £100 on slimming pills that never arrived after seeing one of them. In a Instagram post she said, 'they are all scams' and that she's currently working with legal teams at the BBC to get the ads taken down. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) warns against getting weight loss medications from anywhere other than a pharmacy or a doctor. This is because, the Which? experts said: 'Fake diet pills have been found to contain dangerous and illegal substances.' The product testing company contacted Nixol about the ads but say it has had no response from its email address. And when they tried calling up the number on the website, the experts said, 'the call didn't connect'. Then, when they looked up their business unit address, they said: 'It appears to be registered to another company.' When they contacted the company that occupies the building, they told Which? they have no connection to Nixol and had never heard of them before. The product testing website traced images used on one website to 'several other places on the internet'. This led them to find 'some were from news articles' as well as 'real people who had lost weight via other methods'. The experts also revealed the website featured an AI-generated image of judges on Dragons' Den holding boxes of the slimming pill. They said: 'Another recently created website that was linked to from the ads impersonated the Daily Mail.' 'This website was registered to the same location in Reykjavik, Iceland, where we also found several scam websites were registered to last year when we unpicked a global financial scam.' This website, they said: 'Led to a retail website where you can buy Nixol for £55 per month. It's likely that buying this will lead to a subscription trap, which is a type of scam we've previously warned about.' They also reported: 'On Trustpilot, buyers of Nixol complained of the pills not working, not being able to obtain a refund and coming across the products after seeing a fake Daily Mail report. 'One reviewer mentioned that a questionnaire they filled out advised them that they were obese, despite having a healthy BMI.' Despite the product testing website reporting the ads to Meta who have taken them down, new ads promoting Nixol have already been posted. The company Meta which owns several social media platforms told Which?, its health and wellness advertising policy prohibits certain weight loss products adds. These include any featuring side-by-side before and after comparisons, close-ups to specific body areas or promote unhealthy or negative body images. Lisa Webb, a consumer law expert for Which? told MailOnline: 'It's worrying, but sadly unsurprising, that scores of scam ads for dodgy Nixol diet pills have been allowed to slip through the net on popular social media platforms.'
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
ALISON BOSHOFF: Dragon's podcast gives ‘biased and dangerous' advice, says cancer expert
Dragons' Den star Steven Bartlett stands accused of spreading 'dangerous' misinformation on his latest Diary Of A CEO podcast. Bartlett, 32, hosted Dr Roger Seheult, a 'vitamin D expert', who he described as a 'world-leading doctor in internal medicine, lung health, critical care and sleep medicine'. In the trailer for the podcast, already viewed 4.5 million times, Dr Seheult describes a patient who was 'cured', miraculously, 'by sunlight'. Dr Seheult said: 'A 15-year-old boy was diagnosed with blood cancer but he developed a flesh-eating infection in his lung. He wasn't going to make it. So he had one request – to go outside. That's what they did. After the second day, the infection was 60-70 per cent gone. It became clear to me that sunlight has so many health benefits.' He added: 'For example, if you are closer to the window, you are discharged from hospital faster.' Broadcaster and retired surgeon Dr Liz O'Riordan was alarmed by the claims in the trailer. 'This is one of the current problems with podcasts – clips carefully edited to go viral with shocking statements.' She added: 'The clip implies that leaving ITU for sunlight can stop people dying – and yes, it is dangerous. 'The medical information this doctor tells us is second-hand – from the boy's mum, who is not a doctor – and we don't know what made her tell him this. But as a guy pushing sunlight, there will have been some bias in this interview.' (Coincidentally, a link on the podcast's social media offered listeners the chance to buy a sunlight lamp.) Dr O'Riordan, a breast cancer awareness campaigner diagnosed with the disease herself in 2015, said: 'Steven doesn't appear to challenge his guests or ask for the evidence.' She noted the study Dr Seheult mentions, about patients by windows being discharged earlier, was only a small trial, decades ago, of people being treated for bipolar disorder. Meanwhile, on TikTok, a video criticising the Dr Seheult episode of Diary Of A CEO (DOAC) has received more than 15,000 likes. Last year, the BBC World Service broadcast an investigation into Bartlett's podcast – the biggest in the UK, according to Spotify. It flagged that, in one episode, claims by cardiologist Aseem Malhotra that the 'Covid vaccine was a net negative for society' went unchallenged, allowing misinformation to be spread. (In response to the BBC investigation Dr Malhotra said he accepted people disagreed with his views but 'that does not mean that they have been debunked'.) The Lancet medical journal estimates that Covid-19 vaccines saved up to 1.5 million lives. The BBC highlighted other episodes, which aired claims that autism and schizophrenia could be caused by gluten, and that cancer can be 'managed' by food rather than 'medieval' chemotherapy. A spokesperson for Bartlett's production company, FlightStory Studio, said: 'Each guest episode is thoroughly researched prior to commission. DOAC offers guests freedom of expression and believes that progress, growth and learning comes from hearing a range of voices, not just those Steven and the DOAC team agree with.' Dr O'Riordan told me: 'Podcasts like this are a big-money business. The more shocking you can make the story, the more clicks you get. Podcasts are not regulated, people can – and do – say anything they like.' Bartlett said in 2024 he expected to make £20 million that year from his podcast. Adria steps in to ensure it's not the end of the Affair... The Thomas Crown Affair – telling the story of a millionaire who commits heists for the sheer hell of it, and falls for the insurance investigator who is on his tail – is so good they've made it three times. First, of course, was the 1968 classic with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway (pictured below) – and soundtrack featuring The Windmills Of Your Mind. Then it was remade in 1999, with Pierce Brosnan alongside Rene Russo. And now comes another reboot with actor, director and producer Michael B. Jordan, who is hot right now thanks to the success of the film Sinners. His version, slated to come out in 2027, started filming in London a couple of weeks ago, but within days the leading lady Taylor Russell stepped away from the movie, with sources saying that there were 'creative differences' between her and Jordan. Luckily, Adria Arjona has leapt into the breach. Arjona, who is stepping out with actor Jason Momoa, appears in the Disney Star Wars spinoff Andor, and also starred in Hit Man with Glenn Powell and Blink Twice with Channing Tatum. Big new role for Barbie star Margot TIM Burton is set to direct Margot Robbie in a remake of the 1958 cult classic Attack Of The 50 ft Woman. The trade papers report that Robbie is going to star in and produce the project, which has been in development at Warner Bros since early 2024. In the movie, an heiress has a close encounter with an alien spacecraft, causing her to grow to the size of a skyscraper. The original starred Allison Hayes, and there was a 1993 TV version which starred Darryl Hannah. Meanwhile, Burton's Wednesday – his series for Netflix about Wednesday Addams – has been commissioned for series 3. The second series comes out next month. $6,000 a ticket, Macca? This had better be good Fans may have been stunned by the price of tickets to see Taylor Swift during her Eras tour – but they ain't seen nothing yet. While some resales to see TayTay ran to $900, the price of seeing Sir Paul McCartney on the US leg of his Got Back tour has reached … $6,308 a head. Tickets went on sale this week and were quickly snapped up, only to appear on resale sites like Viagogo, StubHub and Ticketmaster. Some tickets in Nashville and Pittsburgh are running at more than $6,000 each, with tickets elsewhere ranging between $200 and $1,600. McCartney's management team were not available for comment. But his former publicist Geoff Baker deplored the mess, saying on Facebook: 'The drawback with allowing dynamic pricing at your gigs to raise the cost of a ticket to $1,600 is the huge pressure that you then put on yourself. 'Because if people are paying that much many will expect … not only the best show that they have ever seen, but the best show that you have ever given.' Stephen Mangan met his wife Louise Delamere on the set of a film called Offending Angels. Mangan, who presents The Fortune Hotel on ITV from August 6, said proudly: 'It's the lowest grossing film in British history and made £94 at the box office.' The film, released in 2000, also starred Andrew Lincoln and Jack Davenport. LA sources say that the plastic surgeon's most requested standard of modern beauty is ... Emily Ratajkowski, who plays a super-beautiful influencer in Lena Dunham's hit Netflix comedy Too Much. Apparently everyone wants her cheekbones and jawline. Another satisfied customer! I hear that Olympic diving champ-turned-TV fixture Tom Daley has left the agency YMU, following Claudia Winkleman, Amanda Holden, Emily Atack, Gabby Logan, Rob Rinder, Amelia Dimoldenberg and others out of the door. Football's NOT coming home! Ted Lasso is back – but this time nearly all the filming will be done outside the UK. The popular Apple TV+ show made a bit of a star of the London borough of Richmond, and also filmed around south London. But the latest series is being made mainly in ... Kansas City, where star Jason Sudeikis grew up. (Though it's still set in Richmond.) The new episodes will see Lasso start coaching a women's football team. Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein are among the returning cast.
BBC News
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Turtle art trail opens in London to raise marine conservation awareness
A trail of life-sized turtle sculptures has been placed around central London, to raise awareness of marine conservation Tusk Turtle Trail takes visitors to 16 locations, including Covent Garden, Carnaby Street, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and the top of The wildlife conservation charity Tusk has worked with a number of celebrities to design the street art installations, including Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and Dragons' Den dragons Deborah Meaden and Steven trail features stories that highlight the reasons why ocean conservation is needed. Meaden said: "We see wildlife on land, and it triggers emotion: it is visible, tangible, and easy to connect with."The ocean is too often out of mind, and yet it is the beating heart of our planet - the force that sustains all life forms."If the ocean dies, so does the planet. It's that simple, and that urgent." The trail's organisers described it as a "vibrant public art exhibition highlighting the urgent need to protect our oceans and endangered sea turtles".The sculptures will stay in place until September, before they are auctioned off through Tusk to raise funds for marine conservation.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Grove Park health club withdraws 80 home proposal after neighbours objected
A Grove Park health club has withdrawn its proposal to build 80 homes next to its grounds after neighbours were up in arms about the loss of green space. The club has confirmed it hopes to submit a new application 'in due course'. Bannatyne Health Club in Grove Park, on the border of Lewisham and Bromley, submitted an application to build the sizable residential development on land to the north and east of the club, as well as improvements to and the provision of sports pitches around the 11.6 acre site, last December. The application was validated by both Bromley and Lewisham Councils earlier this year. The 80 homes would have been 'a mixture of types and tenures' with 28 of them being affordable units in a split of 60 per cent social and affordable rented houses and 40 per cent intermediate provision. Bannatyne outlined what it saw as the benefits of the proposal in planning documents, stating it would provide 'much needed' market and affordable housing as well as 'new and improved sporting facilities' and 'formal public open space'. The health club operator—founded by Scottish entrepreneur and Dragons' Den alum Duncan Bannatyne in the 1990s—also believed that developing the 'long unused site' would be a positive due to the Quaggy River to the east being a 'defensible boundary' to the wider Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) and green chain in which the development site lies. However, nearby residents to the health club took the opposite view, with one objector stating that the proposed loss of MOL 'must be of grave concern to all Londoners'. They continued: 'If the application is approved it sends a strong message that all protected land is under threat.' MOL is a form of land designation that provides the same level of protection as the green belt and it is intended to protect areas of landscape, recreation, nature conservation or scientific interest. Many residents bemoaned the potential loss of MOL green space that the homes would cause, especially the loss of around 250 mature trees and the effect that would have on local ecosystems. One objector commented: 'The destruction of all the natural habitat and trees is unacceptable.' Another said: 'We are in the midst of a climate emergency and the destruction of green spaces, especially given their cooling effect on the urban surroundings, is difficult to contemplate.' CPRE London, a charity dedicated to protecting, preserving and promoting the capital's green spaces, said: 'This is inappropriate development on MOL. Exceptional circumstances cannot be said to exist and the proposed benefits of the scheme do not outweigh the enormous damage that would be caused to this beautiful and unique area of countryside. 'The impact of the development on the openness of the MOL would be so great that its designation would cease to have any meaning.' Other concerns included the potential for flooding caused by the development's close proximity to the River Quaggy. The development site was on a flood plain and some neighbours feared their houses would be at risk of flooding if the proposal was approved. Another issue raised by objectors was the potential pressure on local infrastructure that could be caused by an influx of new residents. Traffic and transport were also concerns as the 80 homes would only have one vehicular access point via Marvels Lane. One resident said: 'Since the introduction of LTNs and the road works on the A205, the amount of increased traffic along Winn Road, Exford Road and Marvels Lane has been horrendous in that I feel imprisoned during rush hours. 'To try and get to Grove Park, Lewisham or Mottingham by car or foot can take an inordinate amount of time just to exit or cross Winn Road, Jevington Way, Exford Road or Marvels Lane. 'Travelling though Grove Park during rush hour is not to be considered unless absolutely necessary. With this development, exit onto a corner of Marvels Lane would be impossible. 'I suspect a through way will be proposed by way of Jevington Way and create a 'rat run' to Grove Park through roads that are not designed to cope as it is single traffic only with parked cars.' In response to the planning application withdrawal, a Bannatyne spokesperson said: 'Following discussions with relevant planning authorities we have withdrawn the initial application. After further dialogue we hope to submit a new application in due course.'
