Reading of Leo Lewis’s evident affection for Japan’s bullet train (“Sixty years of the shinkansen”, Travel, Life & Arts, FT Weekend, September 28), can we in England expect similar magic from HS2?

Will travellers ever delight in the pure joy of a fast ride to Birmingham?

Sue Herbert
London NW6, UK

CHOCOHOLICS are going wild after a brand new Cadbury’s treat was spotted on the shelves at B&M.

The retailer has recently been stocking the shelves full of different chocolate treats – including Cadbury’s Coated Fruit & Nuts.

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A picture of the Cadbury Coated Fruit & Nuts alongside coated peanuts and sultanas were posted to a snack review Facebook page.

So far, it has wracked up thousands of likes, comments and shares with viewers desperate to get their hands on the treats.

Nearly 7,000 overexcited chocolate lovers rushed to the comments, with one telling their friend: “I’ll take them all!”

Another commented: “Need some of these.”

And: “This is a must!”

But others were slightly shocked at the price of the chocolate – despite being in the bargain retailer B&M.

An unhappy shopper commented: “£6 tho?”

Another pointed out: “I was going to say ‘yes please’ to sultanas jar then saw price and size of them!”

Despite what may seem expensive to some, the jars are sharing-sized and are seemingly perfect for the festive season.

The new selection includes various nuts and fruits coated in the delicious Cadbury’s chocolate.

Options include peanuts, almonds, sultanas and hazelnuts.

Cadbury has plenty of other exciting ranges which prop up on shelves every once in a while.

For example, this year a Cadbury’s mint-flavoured twirl appeared on shelves in B&M, originally launched in Australia, and only £1 for four.

There’s also loads of classic fan-favourites making a comeback in time for Christmas, such as the Dairy Milk Chocolate Puds.

For individual pud it costs 75p in Sainsbury’s and just 70p in Waitrose.

You can also buy bags of mini puds for £1.65 in Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Poundland.

And the rare 360g Dairy Milk mint crisp bar has returned to some shelves this year – selling cheapest in Asda for £4.

Other Cadbury Christmas bars which are available in supermarkets this year also include the Dairy Milk Classic Wonderland and Mini Snow Balls edition.

Remember to always compare prices when shopping so you know you’re paying the right amount for what you’re getting.

A great way to do this is via the comparison site Trolley which will show the prices for every store.

You can also visit the Cadbury website to browse all their latest products and launches.

It comes as B&M shoppers also went wild for a new twist on the Dream bar.

Meanwhile, chocolate lovers raved about a new type of M&M – the Candy Popcorn M&M Minis.

Nestle also added a new chocolate to its Quality Street “Favourites Golden Selection” pouch: the Toffee Penny.

How to save money on chocolate

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We all love a bit of chocolate from now and then, but you don’t have to break the bank buying your favourite bar.

Consumer reporter Sam Walker reveals how to cut costs…

Go own brand – if you’re not too fussed about flavour and just want to supplant your chocolate cravings, you’ll save by going for the supermarket’s own brand bars.

Shop around – if you’ve spotted your favourite variety at the supermarket, make sure you check if it’s cheaper elsewhere.

Websites like Trolley.co.uk let you compare prices on products across all the major chains to see if you’re getting the best deal.

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Look out for yellow stickers – supermarket staff put yellow, and sometimes orange and red, stickers on to products to show they’ve been reduced.

They usually do this if the product is coming to the end of its best-before date or the packaging is slightly damaged.

Buy bigger bars – most of the time, but not always, chocolate is cheaper per 100g the larger the bar.

So if you’ve got the appetite, and you were going to buy a hefty amount of chocolate anyway, you might as well go bigger.

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THE black silhouette of the ­mountain range emerges in the distance as we drive through the barren desert.

It looks ­ominous, like a ­location from the movie Dune.

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But perhaps that’s because my mind is on overdrive thinking about what awaits at the top of the peaks.

Not long after I’m staring across a yawning valley, hoisted horizontally onto a zipline and about to be launched over the cliff edge.

This is Ras al Khaimah, one of the lesser known Emirates that collectively make up the UAE.

While for the moment it remains in the shadow of its better known neighbours Dubai and Abu Dhabi, intense development and ambitious plans for the region mean it could soon be on a par.

RAK, as it is also known, is carving out a niche as a destination for adventure.

Depart with a scream

Which is how I find myself on the edge of a precipice about to zipline across a valley at 100mph.

Lasting three adrenaline-fuelled minutes and covering a fear-filled 1.75miles Jais Flight is the longest zipline in the world.

The waiting is the worst bit.

With such a dangerous activity, safety is paramount which means thorough checks before each thrillseeker is launched off the side of the rocky, sand-coloured Jebel Jais mountain.

Most depart with a scream and seconds later they are lost, just a dot in the distance. Finally it’s my turn.

Whizzing down head first does strange things to one’s face. Imagine a dog gleefully putting its head out of a car window, tongue flapping, while travelling at full speed along a motorway.

After the initial rush (and yes, a scream) comes a feeling of gliding like a bird over the dramatic landscape.

Thanks to the extreme length of the zipline, there is also time to truly appreciate it.

But that is not all the Hajar Mountain range has to offer adrenaline junkies.

A ­little lower down the quiet winding roads is the terrifying Jais Sledder toboggan ride.

Much like the zipline, it’s massive. As your toboggan ascends slowly to the top, it climbs and climbs. And just when you think you are at the summit, it climbs again.

But what goes up must come down.

It feels much faster than its top speed of 25mph as it hurtles around sharp corners with nothing but sheer drops below.

It’s an absolute buzz and also great value for money at just 50AED (£10) a ride, or 120AED for three goes for anyone who believes fear is a byword for fun.

There are more thrills to be had in the mountains of Ras al Khaimah.

Bear Grylls Explorers Camp offers extreme ­experiences, with guests staying in a camp and learning survival techniques approved by the TV personality.

Opening soon will be Via Ferrata, an extreme hiking trail, featuring ladders and zipwires allowing non-expert climbers to ascend the mountain.

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But for me it was time to leave the rugged terrain and head to the fishing village of Al-Rams to let my imagination go on an adventure.

Here I boarded a traditional wooden boat, with its decks covered in colourful rugs, destined for a pearl farm in the waters of the Persian Gulf.

There our guide, dressed in traditional clothing, explained the history of pearling.

His storytelling was aided by the use of props including ancient maps that would have been used hundreds of years ago in the pursuit of the precious gems.

It was impossible not to conjure images of the jewels being traded at bustling markets and picture those who dived for them ­centuries ago despite the very real risk of death.

Stepping off the boat after we were brought back to shore, it felt a shame to have to return to reality.

The UAE has a reputation for luxury, and RAK is no different, playing host to top hotel brands including Ritz-Carlton, Hilton and InterContinental along the 40 miles of soft, wide sandy beaches.

Thrilling journey

I stayed at the Waldorf Astoria which was impossible to fault.

Superb restaurants from a traditional grill to a vibrant Japanese ­eaterie were among the highlights of the sprawling 5* resort.

It also includes the Al Hamra golf course which, during my stay, was playing host to some of the world’s top golfers at a DP World Tour event.

From the hotel’s beach, an army of cranes at work across the water were signs of the intense construction taking place in the region.

RAK will soon feature the UAE’s first casino — Las Vegas behemoth Wynn is currently building a 1,500-room resort on a man-made island. It plans to open in 2027.

And there are already some great value mid-range hotels offering four-night stays with flights from just £885pp.

Already a destination for thrill seekers, Ras Al Khaimah is seemingly on a thrilling journey of its own.

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An unfounded assumption in Gillian Tett’s piece “Data centres alone won’t stop the AI energy squeeze” (Opinion, FT Weekend, October 5) is to believe that artificial intelligence is already an integral component of what you call the digital economy. Not so fast: most of this economy still runs on non-AI technology. For now, it’s merely a potentially lucrative investment trend. So, a sensible policy is simply to not meet this demand, by raising the price of energy for AI use.

Xi Zhu
Board Chair, Tonkünstler-on-the-Bund, Shanghai, China

A GRANDAD who won £200,000 in the People’s Postcode Lottery has described how he immediately went next door – only to be met with bad news.

George Mounsey, who lives in Breaston, Derbyshire, heard the news of his enormous this week.

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His first instinct was to immediately pay next-door neighbours Paul Rowland, on one side, and Alison Browne, on the other, a visit.

It was there that he learned the disappointing news that his lottery winnings weren’t what they originally seemed.

Although the Postcode Lottery jackpot was worth £1 million, rules dictate that the sum is split between all players within that postcode.

So when George heard that Paul and Alison had also entered, as well as two other neighbours elsewhere on the street, he was forced to watch his life-changing £1 million prize plummeting to just £200,000.

George, who is married to his childhood sweetheart Margaret, said: “We didn’t know they were in it until we went round and banged on the door and asked, ‘Are you in the Postcode Lottery? Have you had a phone call?’”

Turning his thoughts to how he would spend the reduced winnings, he said: “Margaret would like a static caravan in Yorkshire somewhere. We’ll see, we may invest.”

As for this year’s Christmas, he added: “We might even get a bigger turkey!”

George and Margaret met as teenagers but rekindled their romance decades later.

 George said: “We’ve known each other since we were teenagers. When I was 15 and she was 16, we went out together for a year.

“We later got married to other people and were both widowed.

“Fifty years later we met up again in Asda and we’ve not been apart since. That’s 16 years ago now.”

Margaret tragically lost both a son and a daughter to cancer but has four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Meanwhile, Paul and Alison were delighted to have unexpectedly bagged a slice of the winnings.

Paul said: “There’s a lovely community spirit and it’s lovely to have three winners in a row.

“I was going to take my wife for a weekend away. Now it’ll be a fortnight away. What are the chances of this happening here?”

Alison added: “I don’t know what to think. This is life-changing, it really is.”

Further to Andy Haldane’s piece “The unpleasant fiscal arithmetic holding back UK growth” (Opinion, FT Weekend, October 12), I suspect that merely changing the definition of the UK’s debt headroom, to permit further borrowing for investment, will not suffice to enhance the country’s growth rate or deal with the chronic lack of productivity.

Leaving aside the difficulties of reforming our complex planning system — much discussed elsewhere — one of the major problems facing successive governments, though less acknowledged, lies within the Treasury itself. So long considered a “super ministry”, the Treasury has become almost entirely focused on short-term revenue raising, cash flow and debt management. In other words, acting purely as a finance ministry. This has become embedded in the culture and has often resulted in a brake on government growth initiatives.

Surely now is the time to create a parallel economics ministry with a clear mandate to promote policies for growth over the medium to long term. Indeed, the current government could do worse than simply repurposing the existing Department for Business and Trade, imbued as it already is with some excellent civil servants and thinkers in this space.

But such a department crucially needs stature — in a 21st century world surely the relevant secretary of state should be regarded as holding one of the “great offices of state”. The Harrington Review of Foreign Direct Investment, to which I contributed in a very minor way, made some excellent recommendations, but creating a cabinet-level committee to focus on growth and investment is not, I fear, going to be sufficient. The issue of low growth and the reward for changing our trajectory is so significant that surely it warrants an entire ministry devoted to solving the problems and realising the UK’s untapped potential?

Stephen Hill
Former Lead Non-Executive Board Member, UK Department for Business and Trade, Jersey, The Channel Islands