Last night in Mayfair, David Pun was arrested in full view of invited guests. Cuffed and taken to a police station, this renowned party crasher finally was brought to book.
Clangers overheard and snippets spotted by readers of ‘The Steeple Times’
Mobile Arabs
An Arab sat outside a shisha café on Brompton Road told her friend: “I lost my phone in Harrods today but I went back and they’d found it. Thank God it was Harrods. They’d have been so racist anywhere else but Harrods, they love us. In this country, it’s whites first and us second but in Harrods, it’s the other way round.”
Lunching (Un)like Liz
At Granger in Chelsea, a Hill House mother chatted with another of her number. She stated: “I go to lunch at 4.30pm as I don’t do breakfast or dinner. You know why: I don’t want to end up looking like Liz Hurley, do I?”
Standard Death
A pair of Russian women lunched at Chiltern Firehouse. One announced: “I went to a really f***ing budget wedding recently… One thing that is so important is alcohol but these people served Russian Standard. Social death. It’s like doing something in Shoreditch.”
Priestly Observations
Two Brompton Oratory priests lunching at Colbert on Sloane Square chatted with a fellow diner about the locality. “It’s changed very much lately,” said one. The other added: “I preferred it when there were more ladies like Miss Marple.”
Submit comments you hear to [email protected]. We publish amusing and ridiculous chatter we receive and sometimes we change names and locations to protect the identities of the vain and the vacuous.
The Duchess of Sussex attempts to morph into a modern day Mary Berry
Mary Berry is annoying enough but now, it seems, there could be a royal attempting to steal this pest’s thunder.
Yesterday at Kensington Palace, accompanied by her “ice-breaker” mother Doria Ragland, the woman formerly known as Meghan Markle launched a cookery book whilst claiming “food sealed her romance to Prince Harry.”
Whilst avoiding any many mention of her father – a man whose comparison of the royal family to “cults and Scientology” hasn’t helped his daughter one bit – ‘Murky Meg’ was videoed stirring a pot and flipped pancakes even. Later, after posing for pictures whilst her husband played with her hair, gave a three minute speech and bizarrely droned on about “the ethos of together” (whatever that means).
Actor Dudley Sutton – AKA ‘Lovejoy’s’ Tinker – passes away aged 85 shortly after giving an interview lauding the NHS
The talented actor and regular at the Chelsea Arts Club, Dudley Sutton sadly died yesterday after a short battle with cancer.
Best known for playing Tinker Dill in the brilliant BBC comedy-drama series Lovejoy in 1986 and from 1991 to 1994, Sutton most recently took the lead role in a video for the Tom Chaplin song Midnight Mass and also appeared in everything from the first production of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane in 1964 to Emmerdale and Eastenders.
Speaking about Lovejoy and himself in general in 2017, Sutton commented:
“It’s what they’re going to say on my obituary when I die, regardless of all the different and diverse stuff I’ve done throughout my life.”
“It’s good fun because Lovejoy is so popular throughout the world, wherever you go. But people recognise Tinker, they don’t recognise Dudley Sutton.”
Dudley Sutton (6th April 1933 – 15th September 2018)
In July, Sutton gave a video interview from his bed in the Royal Trinity Hospice in Clapham in which he spoke about the NHS. He spoke of how he was a Socialist and lauded doctors and nurses for “caring about people, caring about folk, caring about people who can’t look after themselves” and said: “Don’t let the NHS go. Don’t flog it away with all the rest of the rubbish… That’s all I’m saying.”
In a statement yesterday, Sutton’s family remarked:
“Today we’re devastated by the loss of our beautiful Dudley, who leaves a gaping hole in all our lives.”
“We’re grateful for the love expressed by friends and fans everywhere and for the extraordinary care he received at the Royal Trinity Hospice in Clapham, south London, where he went out fighting for our NHS.”
To those that encountered “this wonderfully disruptive cherub” at the Chelsea Arts Club and elsewhere, Dudley will be remembered for much more. This “neo-Wildean” actor and gent was charming, witty and fun and he added great colour to the lives of so many. May he rest in peace.
Alexa Chung transitions from “fashion genius” to “fashion designer” and shares her views on Googling and airports; Matthew Steeples asks: “Who’d want to miss such important news?”
Is there nothing that the ‘Queen of Instagram’ (with her 3.1 million followers) Alexa Chung cannot master? This “phenomenon,” “starlet” and “human” (that’s her very own description of herself by the way), The Guardian today announced, is “back in a different guise” and making her “debut as a designer” at London Fashion Week. “Hasn’t she been in (or out) of fashion for years?” we hear you cry.
Alexa Chung is, of course, a “human” (aside from being many other amazing things)
God help anyone who gets in this one-time (failed) television presenter’s way. She blocked me on Twitter simply because I dared to question her relevance outside of the confines of Stephen Fry-land and now (modest as ever) “it’s no surprise to me that I’m in this position now” Chung has merged her name into one word: ALEXACHUNG to accompany her transition “from muse to founder and creative director.” One might ask: “Why?” but of course the answer’s simple for this 34-year-old: It makes life easier when one is already so well known, doesn’t it?
Naturally, when she’s not (as everyone does at breakfast) “still Googling pictures of Jane Birkin,” Chung now finds herself observing the world. She remarks: “Airports are such emotionally charged places. I travel a lot, and I people-watch. And I love that British thing of wearing your holiday outfit home but with a sensible jacket because if you are British you are never not thinking about the weather.”
Just the kind of advice we all need: Thanks, Alexa.
Racist Marie-Claire, ‘Baroness’ von Alvensleben spotted dashing for sparkling wine as she ‘works the room’ at chi-chi antiques fair
Last night at LAPADA, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting innocents complete with her trademark helmet hairstyle, Marie-Claire ‘Baroness’ von Alvensleben perched on a bench at the entrance.
The wannabe Elnett ambassador’s eyes beamed when a bottle of Gusbourne English sparkling wine appeared on the horizon and a witness spotted the convicted racist dashing towards it. As a waitress poured, an observer remarked: “If she has any more, she’ll be on the floor” (in reference to the author of Absolutely Everything’s previous antics drunkenly rolling around at a party with television presenter Michael Barrymore).
Here, in our Picture of the Week, we share an image of this bigoted woman ‘at work’ in this liggers’ paradise.
Is the fuss over Kirstie Allsopp smashing up her children’s iPads justified? Or was it actually a very clever publicity stunt on her part?
On Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine show on Monday, one of the panel, The Hon. Kirstie Allsopp, shared that she’d smashed up her children’s iPads because they weren’t using them responsibly. Outrage invariably ensued.
During the programe, the “strong-minded” daughter of ex-Sotheby’s chairman Lord Hindlip and Location, Location, Location presenter stated:
“This is the first time I’ve said this publicly. In June I smashed my kids’ iPads, not in a violent way. I actually banged them on the table leg.”
“There is a game called Fortnite and another PUBG and I decided… We had made all sorts of rules and all sorts of times when we said you can’t play them and all those rules got broken and in the end I said: ‘Right that is it, I have to physically (break them).’”
In the ensuing hours, Allsopp was both lauded as a sensible parent and slated as reckless and ridiculous on social media and in reply, Tweeted:
“If you found your kids with a packet of cigarettes would you say: ‘I wouldn’t destroy these because they are worth a tenner but please don’t smoke?’ No of course you wouldn’t.”
Before subsequently deciding to delete her Twitter account due to the level of abuse she had been subjected to, she added:
“The second hand value of the iPads is about £70 each, if I feel a lesson was learned about following through then it was worth far, far, far more our family than £140. This is about the value of trust, and the value of people over things.”
Of the debacle, on ITV1’s Good Morning Britain on Wednesday, author Anna May Mangan leapt to Allsopp’s defence:
“I’ve heard her being called ‘Kirstie Allstropp’ on Twitter today. I’d have probably unplugged the router but she certainly didn’t deserve this public hanging. Is there such a thing as a perfect parent?”
Joining the thousands who’ve condemned Allsopp, another guest replied:
“It’s just a waste and sets a really bad example of how to look after possessions. Wilful smashing up an iPad is wasteful.”
“Gameboys that [sic] spoilt a family holiday for us once. Wish I’d thought of doing this. I’d have chucked them in the pool.”
Just like the reaction when the foul mouthed yet highly amusing aristocrat Francis ‘F***ing’ Fulford’s wife threw her television in a lake because her children wouldn’t “turn the f***ing thing” off” back in 2004 on the reality show The F***ing Fulfords, ‘Allstropp-gate’ is nothing but a storm in a teacup. It is one, however, that has done one thing: It has generated Ms Allsopp more column inches and thus yet more money making opportunities. To her, that’s most certainly worth smashing a couple of no doubt worn out old iPads for.
As Victoria Beckham embraces being a ‘bag lady,’ one could argue she’d simply do best to keep her head inside for good
On the surface, Victoria Beckham has it all: Fame, fortune and friends. In spite of this, this pop princess turned fashion fiesta never smiles and frankly seems as miserable as sin.
Christian crooner Cliff Richard rightly accused of “hypocrisy” after launching his pretentiously titled new album ‘Rise Up’ on the BBC
Cliff Richard likes to have his cake and eat it. He extraordinarily received £210,000 damages against the BBC over the supposed invasion of his privacy but now he’s back on the Corporation’s channels plugging his appalling new album, Rise Up.
Branded a “hypocrite” by many, this “rebirth” album was slated on Twitter and elsewhere. Of it, one user, Packman, remarked: “What a hypocrite! The BBC was the devil until there was a record to sell. #itsallaboutme”
Another, Thomas Shackleton, added: “So Cliff Richard sues the BBC and wins because they muddied his name yet guess who is live on BBC Radio 2 promoting his new album? #hypocrite #whataknob #allaboutmoney”
Jim Waterson, media editor at the Guardian, took a more moralistic analysis of the album and observed:
“I am listening to the new Cliff Richard single in search of hidden messages about reforms to media law. There are no hidden messages about reforms to media law.”
Cliff Richard moralises on Rise Up about “being a dreamer” and “never [learning] to quit.” Tellingly to those in the know, he arrogantly announces: “They’re never going to take me down,” but it is time for this Christian crooner to instead take a very long summer holiday. If he did, our ears would all be extremely thankful.
A 20-question interview with Lebanese-American actor Haaz Sleiman; he has starred in ‘24’, ‘ER’, ‘Killing Jesus’, ‘NCIS’, ‘Nurse Jackie’ and ‘Person of Interest’
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
Love.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
“If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?”
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2018?
Who is she?
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
Definitely not him. I hate politics. I’d say: My future husband. Where is he?
What might you swap all your wealth for?
To be adopted by Madonna.
Donald Trump was once a case of: “If you owe the bank a thousand, they close you down; but if you owe the bank a billion, you own the bank”. What’s your view on the state of the financial system?
It is terrible. We have a vanishing middle class.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
‘Retard’.
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home”. What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
I support anything to do with homeless LGBTQ youth and animals.
The judge in Law Abiding Citizen states: “I can pretty much do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?
I’m sorry but I don’t understand the question.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
My parents and all my siblings with their families.
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
In the most lush and exotic natural habitat with tonnes of trees and waterfalls or by the ocean. I’d have the best steak and fries with the most expensive bottle of red wine possible.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
I don’t drink much really.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
Tea.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
I enjoy concerts because I love seeing how music makes the people come together. Thank you Madonna.
Who is the most positive person you know?
E-Jay Randolph, my mentor.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
RuPual’s Drag Race.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
A cross with a naked Jesus hanging on it wearing a Star of David pendant around his neck. Jesus would have a tattoo in Arabic on his left pec of the most important line in the Quran, the line that you would need to say to become Muslim. I am interested in inclusion.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
A Tesla.
Cilla Black presented Surprise, Surprise. Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
I’m a baby in a grown ass man’s body. It’s a good thing.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
A framed picture of my beautiful mother.
Haaz Sleiman is a Lebanese-American television and film actor. He starred as Jesus in the TV series ‘Killing Jesus’ and has also appeared in series such as ‘24’, ‘CSI: Miami’, ‘ER’, ‘NCIS’, ‘Nurse Jackie’ and ‘Person of Interest’. He describes himself as: “A lost soul finding its way back home.”
