25 trends at London fashion week

1 Colours that almost clash now look more stylish and well-put-together than colours that "go". See: emerald with salmon at Nicole Farhi, and chartreuse with lilac at Betty Jackson.

2 The Angular Hourglass is the new silhouette. Sharp shoulders, small waist and the new diamond-shaped skirt.

3 Rolling the hems of your trousers up just-so is essential to show off your new shoes, but is not as easy as it looks.

4 The Mulberry Bayswater handbag is a new classic. Next season, you can go girly with the pale pink bow-trimmed version or channel Alexa Chung tomboy chic with the satchel-strapped one.

5 When you see the new Luella collection, you are going to want to wear sky blue and lemon yellow. Really.

6 Apparently, we are going to be wearing ankle boots all next summer.

7 Croque monsieurs are fashion's new favourite snack.

8 The most expensive item in the average British person's wardrobe cost £293, according to new research by insurer Hiscox.

9 Shagpile carpet is set to make a comeback, if the swooning over Jaeger's thick cream catwalk is anything to go by.

10 Big shoulders are here to stay.

11 Double denim could be set for a shock comeback. Will Sienna Miller be wearing this outfit from her Twenty8Twelve collection next summer?

12 Cleavage is totally over. Even Kelly Brook wore a high-necked, smock-style dress to Philip Green's party.

13 Grace Kelly will be the style reference to drop next summer.

14 Very posh cardigans are the new evening coats. Next season we want Pringle's luxe, louche cable knit or Christopher Kane's slashed navy cardi. Until then we're wearing our Kate Moss Topshop silver sequined number to death.

15 The first sightings of the Powder and Flash power-mesh-backed sexy silk frocks by Preen on the party circuit will be next season's Galaxy moment, mark our words. Order one now, while you still can.

16 Betty Jackson rocks. Her pink-and-coffee floral dress is top of our summer shopping list.

17 Simon Cowell is the celebrity's celebrity. The starry crowd at Sir Philip Green's dinner at The Ivy on Sunday – Kate, Naomi, Lily Donaldson, Kelly Brook and co – went decidedly giddy in the presence of the Mayor of Saturday Nights.

18 It is no longer fashionable to be late. When the Peter Pilotto show still hadn't started after 25 minutes of waiting, Anna Wintour took off her sunglasses, made eye- contact with the PR and tapped her watch. The show started within seconds.

19 Erdem Moralioglu, alumni of the DVF studio now designing his own label in London, could be Britain's Jason Wu – the go-to designer for First Ladies and shadow first ladies. Sarah Brown wore an Erdem abstract-floral frock for her Downing Street bash; four days later Sam Cameron turned up in the front row at the Erdem show.

20 Sequins are now perfectly acceptable daywear. Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue, wore sequined cardigans for two days of shows.

21 The dress to wear this autumn, before next season's trends hit the shops, is this one by Christopher Kane, £1,485 from net-a-porter.com. Tout le monde is wearing it at the shows this week.
22 Somerset House is a beautiful venue, but cobblestones and spike heeled sandals is a dangerous combination.

23 "Research shows that investing in the fashion business pays dividends for London at a ratio of 30:1." We don't know where Boris Johnson got this statistic, but we like it.

24 Next summer, polka dots will be the new Breton stripe. Itsy-bitsy on bikinis at Caroline Charles, blown up to giant scale at Luella.

25 It is time to put your GHD straighteners away and master the arts of backcombing and crimping. Finger-in-the-plug-socket hair is the way to go next season.

Travel advice: card-users beware

Airlines and travel companies are charging customers increasingly high fees for debit and credit card transactions. Here are some of the worst offenders.

It isn't just the extras we're increasingly asked to pay to check in luggage that inflates the cost of travelling. The method of payment can bump it up too. Last month, Eurostar introduced a fee of £3 per booking for payment by credit card over the phone or online. The company defends the move, saying: "We aren't making a profit [on the fee], this is just a proportion of the charge made to Eurostar by credit card companies – we're finding that these costs are spiralling out of control."

Not that others aren't applying similar charges: booking through a call centre (rather than through a website) and using a credit or debit card invariably means you'll be charged more. However, these costs do vary from company to company, as the following examples demonstrate.

Brittany Ferries (www.brittanyferries.com) No fee for call centre bookings or debit cards; credit card fee £5 per booking.

British Airways (www.ba.com) Call centre fee £5; credit card fee £4.50; no fee for debit cards. Charges are per passenger, per booking.

Bmibaby (calls cost 65p per minute; www.bmibaby.com) Call centre fee £7.50; credit card fee £3.75; debit card fee £2.75. Charges are per person, per one-way fare. No fee for payments with a Visa Electron card.

easyJet(www.easyjet.com) Call centre fee £15; credit card fee £2.95 per cent of the total transaction with a minimum charge of £4; debit card fee £2.95. No fee for payments made using a Visa Electron card.

Eurostar (www.eurostar.com) No fee for call centre bookings or debit cards; credit card fee £3 per booking.

Flybe (www.flybe.com) Call centre fee £12; credit card fee £3.50; debit card fee £1.50 (minimum £2 per booking). Charges are per person, per one-way flight. No fee for payments with a Visa Electron card.

P & O Ferries (www.poferries.com) Call centre fee £5; credit card fee £2; no fee for debit cards. Charges are per booking.

Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) Call centre fee £5; credit card fee £5; debit card fee £5. Charges are per passenger, per one-way fare.

St Pancras International, London

Shiny, renovated St Pancras is one of London’s must-see sights, whether you’re hopping on a Eurostar to the continent or just treating yourself to a glass of fizz at the champagne bar stretching beside the platforms.

It is celebrated for its Victorian architecture.

The Grade I listed building stands on Euston Road in St Pancras, London, between the British Library, King's Cross station and the Regent's Canal. It was opened in 1868 by the Midland Railway as the southern terminus. At the time of opening, the arched Barlow train shed was the largest single-span roof in the world.

From 1840, Midland trains to and from London ran from Euston using the London and North Western line via a junction at Rugby. Congestion and delays south of Rugby quickly became commonplace as services expanded. Construction of the station foundations did not start until July 1866.

The first train, an express for Manchester, ran non-stop from Kentish Town to Leicester - the longest non-stop run in the world at 97 miles (156 km). By the 1960s, St Pancras station came to be seen as redundant, and several attempts were made to close the station.

The station has since been rebuilt. On 4 September 2007, the first test train ran from Paris Gare du Nord to St Pancras. The full Eurostar timetable came into operation on 9 December 2007. The basic service provides 17 pairs of trains to and from Paris Gare du Nord every day. Additional weekend leisure-oriented trains also run to the French Alps during the skiing season.

Fictional uses

Platform 2 is used for the arrival of a Royal train in the film King Ralph.
The station is used as the location for the Berlin Railway Station scene in the 1992 movie Shining Through.
It is used as the seat of government for the King in Richard III.
Mr. Bean attempts to leave this station without a ticket in Hair By Mr. Bean Of London.
The music video for the Spice Girls song Wannabe was filmed inside the former Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras.
Part of the film 102 Dalmatians was shot in St Pancras.
St Pancras station can be recognized in the exterior shots of King's Cross station in the Harry Potter film series.
The interior corridor and stairwell shots of Arkham Asylum in the film Batman Begins were shot in the disused Midland Grand Hotel.
The gargoyles from the station roof come to life and play an important part in Charlie Fletcher's children's book Stoneheart.

Susan Boyle checks into London clinic suffering from 'emotional exhaustion'

The frumpy pop sensation Susan Boyle was checked into a London clinic Sunday suffering from "emotional exhaustion," British papers reported.

Boyle, 48, the Scottish church employee who became an international YouTube phenomenon, ranted "I hate this show" after her disappointing loss in a television talent show Saturday.

Paramedics and police were called to help the "spaced-out" star through a hotel lobby early Sunday, according to the Sun newspaper.

Newspapers said she was taken to the private Priory Clinic in London, but management would not confirm or deny that the star was being treated there.

A "Britain's Got Talent" spokeswoman said last night Boyle was "exhausted and emotionally drained" from Saturday's show. The newspapers reported that Boyle ran down a corridor shouting, "I hate this show," after her defeat and said she threw a cup of water on a floor manager who tried to calm her down.

Ticket machines on Tube upgraded with 17 languages

Ticket machines on the London Underground (LU) have been upgraded to operate in 17 different languages.

Some of the touch-screen machines were already available in six languages - English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.

From today, all machines in every station will also have Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Polish, Punjabi, Tamil, and Turkish.

More than 300 languages are spoken in total in London.

Kulveer Ranger, Transport Director to the Mayor of London, said: "Boosting the number of languages on our ticket machines is just another step in making life easier for those who live in, or travel through, the capital.

It would give many people added confidence, help maintain London as a city that supports its cultural diversity and would also improve tourists' visits to the city."

Public Holidays 2009

Public Holiday Date

New Year's Day: January 1, 2009
Good Friday: April 10, 2009
Easter Monday: April 13, 2009
May Day Holiday: May 4, 2009
Memorial Day/Spring Bank Holiday: Monday, May 25, 2009
Summer Bank Holiday: Monday, August 31, 2009
Christmas Day: December 25, 2009
Boxing Day: December 28, 2009
New Year’s Day: January 1, 2010

Swine Flu Dilemma - To Travel or Not to Travel?

Fearing that their vacations could comprise of surf, sand and swine flu, potential travelers are turning to health organizations for guidance on whether to pack their bags or stay home. Contradictory advice from various sectors doesn't seem to make it any easier to decide whether to fly or not to fly.

The European Union's health commissioner Androulla Vassiliou told reporters in Luxembourg that she was "not worried at this stage" about a pandemic sweeping across Europe, but she urged travelers to avoid Mexico and the United States anyway. That prompted a swift rebuke from Richard Besser, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, who rejected her advisory as "quite premature."

On the other side, the CDC website "recommends that U.S. travelers avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico." The World Health Organization, is calling on nations to keep their borders open and to avoid restricting international travel, and emphasizes that a pandemic is not inevitable. Despite the plea, Argentina and Cuba have suspended all flights from Mexico, and tour operators and airlines across the globe — including some based in Canada, Germany and the U.K. — have canceled flights and holiday packages to sunshine destinations like Cancún and Cozumel.

Geoffrey Lipman, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, says "We know from the past that restrictions don't actually serve to hold back the spread of this kind of virus. It's already out there around the world in different places."