Tuesday, March 19, 2024

CREATIVES

Big Zuu (Birth Name – Zuhair Hassan)

A rapper and grime MC turned TV star of ‘Big Zuu’s Big Eats,’ Zuhair Hassan is an example of a youngster with infectious positivity and great talent. A modern-day Keith Floyd in the making.

‘Mr Black Lives Matter’

A regular outside Peggy Porschen’s Parlour in Ebury Street, Belgravia, SW1 ‘Mr Black Lives Matter’ attempts to entertain those queuing for somewhat overpriced cakes. Though little is known about this dreadlocked man and despite...

Susie Steiner

“I’m sorry I still love him” unabashedly declared author, journalist and “stationary addict” Susie Steiner of Tony Blair on Twitter during the coronavirus lockdown whilst amusingly adding of Boris Johnson: “If only I could...

Michael Russell (1933 – 2020)

Described in The Telegraph’s obituary of him as a “publisher, wit and author,” Michael Russell is best known for writing the spoof memoirs of J. R. Hartley – the charming mythical old man of...

Evelyn McHale (1923 – 1947)

Little is known about what drove Evelyn McHale to jump from the Empire State Building and be captured in the “most beautiful suicide [photograph] ever” on 1st May 1947.

Roll-Call-Wildcards

Dame Dorothy Tutin DBE (1930 – 2001)

A resident of a Chelsea houseboat named ‘Undine’ from 1953, Dame Dorothy Tutin was “one of UK’s most versatile actresses” and someone whom “bridged the gap between the classical grandes dames of the 1940s...

Gabriel and Sarah A. Chrisman

Port Townsend, Washington State residents Gabriel and Sarah A. Chrisman live as if they are Victorians. A bike shop employee and a writer respectively, the couple have never owned mobile phones and live in...

Pico Alexander (born Alexander Jogalla)

New York born actor Pico Alexander considered starring opposite Reese Witherspoon in the 2017 film Home Again “one of the sexiest scenes of life.” Of Polish heritage, Alexander is the son of a...

Eileen Gray (1878 – 1976, née Eileen Smith)

A pioneer of both the Art Deco style and the functionalist Modernist movement, bisexual Irish aristocrat Eileen Gray was best known for designing the Bibendum chair and the E.1027 table. This great tastemaker lived...

Dr Bendor Grosvenor

Harrow and Cambridge educated Old Masters expert Bendor Grosvenor describes himself as an “occasional ranter” to his 12,000 followers on Twitter. Aside from being amongst the team on the popular BBC One art programme...

Robert Adam

With such a name, this suave gent just had to design landmarks. University of Westminster educated and Hampshire based Robert Adam (born 1948) followed his more famous namesake (1728 – 1792) and became a...

Geoffrey Bayldon (1924 – 2017)

Wacky Leeds born actor Geoffrey Bayldon was best known for playing Catweazle in the 1970s series of the same name as the Crowman in Worzel Gummidge. Bayldon also played ‘Q’ in Casino Royale in...

Bob Marshall-Andrews QC

A “libertarian-left” Labour MP between 1997 and 2010, distinguished barrister and novelist Bob Marshall-Andrews defected to the Liberal Democrats in 2017. Described as “an irritant” to his former party whilst they were in government,...

Lady Ridsdale DBE (1921 – 2009, née Victoire Bennett)

Dame Paddy Ridsdale, as she generally known, was an intelligence operative, secretary to Ian Fleming during WW2 and the inspiration for the Bond character Miss Moneypenny.   A Conservative Party stalwart and married to Member of...

Miriam Margolyes OBE

In April 2017, esteemed actress Miriam Margolyes described Theresa May as “that awful woman” and hinted that she had little-to-any enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn’s “hell of a mess” also. In the same interview, in...

Charlot Malin (1969 – 2017)

Oslo born, San Francisco based interior designer and philanthropist Charlot D. Malin had a day named in her honour by The City and County of San Francisco in November 2016. A mother of twins...

Jan Harvey

Penzance born actress Jan Harvey is married to her Howards’ Way co-star Stephen Yardley. She played Jan Howard in the popular series that depicted Thatcherite, nouveau riche excess from 1985 to 1990, has also...

Baba Vanga (баба Ванга, AKA ‘Nostradamus from the Balkans’, 1911 – 1996)

This blind, illiterate, psychic Macedonian villager predicted everything from 9/11 – in suggesting that “the American brethren would be attacked by two steel birds” in 2001 many years earlier in 1989 – to an...

Jean Alexander (born Jean Alexander Hodgkinson, 1926 – 2016)

This Liverpudlian actress “preferred cats to men”. Best known for playing Hilda Ogden in Coronation Street from 1964 to 1987, Jean Alexander also appeared in Last of the Summer Wine, Heartbeat and Where the...

Mr Make a Big Issue

Big Issue sellers are normally pleasant but Mr Make a Big Issue is quite the exception. Regularly spotted in Chelsea and South Kensington, this angry individual is prone to ranting and swears at those...

Victoria Wood CBE (1953 – 2016)

Comedian Victoria Wood’s final tweet was: “Life’s not fair, is it? Some of us drink champagne in the fast lane, and some of us eat our sandwiches by the loose chippings on the A597”....

Mary Millington (marital name Mary Maxted, born Mary Quilter, 1945 – 1979)

Defined as “wanting it and wanting as much as she could get”, tragic English model and pornographic actress Mary Millington “loved money more than anything else”. Born out of wedlock and a friend of...

Lawrence Van Hagen

Big haired art curator and international jetsetter Lawrence Van Hagen is based in London and Paris. He is a graduate of University College London and the Imperial College Business School, has over 3,500 followers...

Patricia Routledge CBE (born Katherine Patricia Routledge)

Born in Tranmere, Merseyside, veteran actress Patricia Routledge is best known as Alan Bennett’s Irene Ruddock in Talking Heads: Lady of Letters and as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. Routledge has never married,...

Sir Ken Adam OBE (born Klaus Adam, 1921 – 2016)

Born in Berlin and brought up in London, Oscar and BAFTA winner Sir Ken Adam was undoubtedly the father of “larger-than-life film sets”. The creator of the “War Room” in Dr Strangelove and the...

Luigi Tadini

Co-founder of Brooklyn based creative consultancy The Gathery, Luigi Tadini was listed amongst New York’s “most stylish” by Time Out in 2012. Born in São Paulo, Brazil but very much now a fixture in...