Category: EDITORIAL

Mendacious minx Meghan Markle increasingly comes across as nothing but personally ambitious and out of touch with reality suggests Matthew Steeples

The engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was something I initially thought no bad thing. I went, in fact, as far as to laud Markle’s “independent success” and “energy,” but now realise that I got this mendacious minx totally and utterly wrong.

Markle’s mistakes began when she tried to present herself as a cross between Mother Theresa and Diana, Princess of Wales. She touched the hands of children and told them they “could achieve anything.” She promised to “inspire” but then in wearing a £56,000 dress for her engagement photo she illustrated her true colours and showed herself to anything but the “down to earth girl” she had previously been lauded as. By now Barbara Amiel-like in her “extravagance knows no bounds” behaviour, the soon-to-be newest member of the royal family, it has been suggested, is set to order a wedding dress costing around £400,000 and will allegedly spend £120,000 on a honeymoon also. These are hardly the actions of someone who describes themselves as “ordinary” and “balanced” and are hardly the choices of a woman who once remarked: “I never want to lose touch with reality.”

More recently, in refusing to invite relatives including her disabled half-sister Samantha Grant to the forthcoming wedding, “I’m a sucker for a compliment” Markle has generated publicity she could have done without. Aside from ignoring her bankrupt father – and I accept that all families have rifts – she has caused Grant to go ahead with the publication of a book named The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister [she is not, by the way, referring to Princess Michael of Kent] and caused the media to go into overdrive in searching out other disgruntled family members. If, Markle had just them at her £32 million wedding party, they’d have kept shtum and been lost amongst her 3,440 guests.

Yesterday, the feminist Germaine Greer perfectly summed up Markle in a Mrs Merton on Debbie McGee kind of way. She asked: “Why would a girl born in poverty marry a man with 53 million quid?” and she is right. ‘Murky Mucky’ – as I now refer to her – is a girl with an agenda and that agenda is sadly apparently simply fame and money.

Follow The Steeple Times on Twitter at @SteepleTimes and Matthew Steeples at @M_Steeples.

Matthew Steeples suggests businessman Max Mosley should keep his beak out of press regulation

Max Mosley has the right to do whatever he wants. He is a rich man and if he wants to partake in orgies that’s entirely his right. That he wants to fund the body that regulates the press, however, whilst rightfully his choice financially, is somewhat more dubious and that he wants his past woosh-clunked is somewhat preposterous.

Just as is the case with a certain old crooner and his titleless, olive oil filled paddling pool loving sidekick and their pointless super-injunction, Mosley’s activities with a bunch of hookers in a flat in Chelsea are so incredibly well known. His attempt to erase them from history is quite pointless and though many are getting worked up about press freedom, I simply say this: Max: Don’t brandish the birch, just get on with your life.

Follow The Steeple Times at @SteepleTimes and Matthew Steeples at @M_Steeples.

Matthew Steeples slams ITV’s ‘Loose Women’s’ latest outrageous episode

If there were a programme named Misogynist Men there would be an uproar but that a bunch of obnoxious middle aged wenches gather each day to host a show on ITV named Loose Women is an utter disgrace.

Criticised even in the equally pugnacious Mail Online this week for “sexual innuendo” and “objectifying” a Dancing On Ice “reality star” named Jake Quickenden, the panel are said to have “cooed over his body” whilst the “mostly female audience” “tittered and whooped.”

Here, with their “oogling” of Quickenden’s groin was an example of hypocrisy given that the very same panel has previously said that “grid girls” should be axed as they considered such “sexual exploitation.”

Previous ridiculous episodes of this lowbrow show include an hour long episode with the supposed “international celebrity” Sir Cliff Richard. In it, the “modern day Cilla Black” and all-round busybody Gloria Hunniford toadily gushed about the Christian pop singer’s sexuality whilst on another occasion alcohol loving Judy Finnegan suggested the convicted rapist Ched Evans should be allowed to return to football. What a brazen bunch.

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Matthew Steeples suggests UKIP is a dead duck and it is time it closed up shop; the beneficiaries of its likely demise remains to be seen

The United Kingdom Independence Party is made up of fruitcakes and philanderers and news that Nigel Farage may end up becoming the leader of their “movement” just proves one thing: The party’s well and truly over.

Current head honcho Henry Bolton, like Farage also, might like a young dolly bird but aside from that he’s also prone to surrounding himself with bigots and braggarts. As the award winning journalist David Hencke most interestingly pointed out on Friday, UKIP’s demise will not only be “more of a problem for Labour than the Tories” but also that “Labour should not take the next election for granted.”

Supposedly now also near bankrupt UKIP’s legacy will actually be just three things: Encouraging the onset of a truly divided country, making Nigel Farage famous and destroying the BNP. Beyond that, it’d be better if this ragbag of rubbish was consigned to damnatio memoriae.

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Matthew Steeples remembers the late, great Arthur Woodham, the owner of Arthur’s Cafe in Dalston and La Brasserie’s best customer at the bar on a Saturday afternoon

Arthur Woodham told me: “I don’t drink in my manor” each and every Saturday. We sat together at the bar at the sadly now defunct La Brasserie in South Kensington and whilst he drank Smirnoff Vodka (he’d certainly never tolerate anything else; especially “that poison” Grey Goose), I had my rather oversized gin and somewhat limited tonic. We chatted about all sorts of nonsense, encountered many a mad drunk and occasionally Arthur’s delightful daughter, Elaine, came and took him home in her taxi.

The pair of us (and many other equally drink-friendly ‘bar fly’ friends) sat enjoying the very best (and cheapest) drinks in SW3 and observing the restaurant’s best and worst customers also (Arthur was particularly amused by ‘The Crossword Couple’ – a pair he described as “bloody bores” due to the fact they shared a cocktail and complained about the music). We laughed and we chatted and Arthur regaled me with tales of the East End’s greatest and grimmest. He informed me the Krays were “ponces” and he told me all about his renowned establishment, Arthur’s Cafe in Kingsland Road, Dalston.

Sadly, I visited Arthur’s business on only one occasion. Arthur refused to take payment from myself and my two friends but he gave us the greatest experience. He didn’t serve toast after 11.30am and he didn’t serve chips before 12 noon. Here was a man with a mantra but here also was a gent with a heart. Arthur was a truly lovely man and he was the best company many could have imagined.

Many articles have been written post his passing about the food and drink he served but I’d like to say this: Arthur – I hope you’re having as many Smirnoffs as you want in the sky. You were a true gentleman and I am honoured you were my friend.

Arthur Woodham died aged 91 on 7^th January 2018. He leaves behind his wife Eileen, two children, two grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

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