Aaron Tyme

As much as we love its pleasant pastures and mountains green, sometimes we Brits get tired of the UK’s grey skies and want to see a little bit more of what the world has to offer. These days, our UK passport is our ticket to freedom, but how far (and for how long) can this little book take us? The good news: with a UK passport you can travel to a lot of countries, often with little to no entry requirements. The Arton Capital Passport Index currently ranks the UK passport as the 7th most powerful globally. The less-good news? It can be a little hard to keep up with what restrictions apply and when. Most of the countries you can travel to visa-free will let you stay for a period of 90 days out of 180, meaning you’ll then have to come back home for three months before you can go again. This applies to all of the 29 European Schengen countries. For the countries that require a visa on arrival, be prepared to travel with a pen and a little bit of cash in hand as you’ll probably have to fill out a form or two at the airport. The ominous countries with ‘other requirements’ are not so bad either, you’ll most likely just have to pay a small fee online before travelling. We’ve tried to make this a bit simpler for you by grouping countries into whether you can travel there completely visa-free, by obtaining a visa on arrival or by following other non-visa entry requirements. All that’s left for you to do is to decide whether you’d prefer to hear the steel drums of Trinidad or ride th

People who like getting their meatballs, hot dogs and flat-pack furniture in one trip will be pleased to hear that IKEA has just opened its very first high street restaurant in the UK. The restaurant is on King Street next to IKEA’s Hammersmith store and it offers cheap and cheerful meals 12 hours a day all week.  The Swedish company, best known for its self-assembly furniture, has instead assembled a menu filled with a variety of cost-effective dishes. It centres around the star-of-the-show: IKEA’s iconic meatballs with mashed potatoes, peas and lingonberry jam, for a reasonable £5.50 (the plant-based alternative comes in slightly cheaper at £4.95). The kids’ meal, which offers pasta and tomato sauce with a drink and a piece of fruit, costs only 95p, while the breakfast menu offers a nine-piece cooked breakfast for £3.75. Aside from main meals, the new restaurant also sells IKEA café and bistro items, providing customers with snacks and pastries. IKEA’s restaurant replaces a former Wasabi and seats up to 75 people.  This all comes as part of the Swedish giant’s plans to ‘bring IKEA to you,’ which has already seen the launch of over 100 mobile pick-up points at Tesco locations, with 100 more planned for the future. The opening of the Oxford Street store is due for spring 2025, alongside a further expansion in the number of its dedicated restaurants in the city.  The Standard reported that the Hammersmith restaurant sold close to 2,000 meatballs on its first day and is current

Following in the footsteps of the likes of Southwark and Walthamstow, Sutton in southwest London is the latest in a never-ending chain of areas slated for redevelopment in the capital.  Sutton Council has announced the demolition of the St. Nicholas Shopping Centre as part of a project to bring a brand new ‘civic hub’ and retail centre to the high street. Built in 1992, the shopping centre has become something of a Sutton landmark. It was purchased by the council in 2021 And now Sutton Council has officially revealed a regeneration plan for the shopping centre and its surrounding area. A new town centre is set to create 740 new homes (50 percent of which will be affordable housing), new leisure facilities and fresh retail spaces for use by both new and existing businesses.  The proposed plans look to make ‘better use’ of the site, replacing the current civic centre with what the council says is a more sustainable alternative. An improvement both environmentally and for Sutton’s pockets, the new hub is apparently set to save a whopping £1 million per year in operating costs.  Image: Genr8 Kajima Regeneration Ltd (GKRL) By the time of the new civic hub's completion at the end of the decade, Sutton residents may hardly recognise their high street. A spokesperson for the council said that the new civic hub will be its ‘front door’ on the high street, giving residents direct access to all their council services in the heart of town.  But not everyone ison board with the plans. S