Record price set for a mansion in San Francisco by Yahoo! chief
San Francisco’s Pacific Heights is best known for its extremely expensive properties and as home to the likes of novelist Danielle Steele, SKYY vodka tycoon Maurice Kanbar and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. With the sale of 2950 Broadway for the record breaking price of $35 million (£22.5 million) to Marissa Mayer, president of Yahoo!, however, a new benchmark has been set. (more…)
Black and white analysis of the “special relationship” misses the point: it’s just turned grey
On Saturday, The Sun proclaimed that the “special relationship” between Britain and America was dead. This morning, our sofa-loving former man in Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, took the opposing view in The Mail on Sunday and suggested that it is “as strong as ever”. The truth, we’d argue, is far more complex and probably lies somewhere in the middle. (more…)
Educated at the University of Aix-en-Provence and the University of Milan, this scion of the Mondavi wine making dynasty married his wife Megan on the Nippozano Estate in Tuscany. Naturally, after proposing at the Opus One Winery, the wedding itself included a wine pouring ceremony that blended Sangiovese and Merlot varietals. He’s also into snowboarding and launched Davi, a skincare range made with the byproducts of winemaking, in 2006. We raise a glass to that.
The daughter of the billionaire publishing magnate and politician Michael Bloomberg and his Yorkshire born wife, this passionate equestrian divides her time between New York and Florida. A New York University graduate and generous philanthropist, Bloomberg has written three “young adult” novels: The A Circuit, My Favorite Mistake and Off Course. She featured in Jamie Johnson’s controversial 2003 HBO documentary Born Rich and in August 2013 commented that she’d already bought a pony for her first child – due in December 2013 – as: “We’re gonna [sic] try popping a little saddle on him, and get him ready… We have a couple of years to get him trained up”.
The co-founder of the Scissor Sisters was born in Mesa, Arizona and decided he wanted to marry Christopher Reeve when he was four. Shears, who doesn’t especially like wearing shirts, himself suggests he’s “not the easiest person in the world to be partners with” but that this singer has been with Chris Moukarbel since 2004 speaks volumes. Aside from music, he states: “I would’ve been a porn star”.
This heiress daughter of a Montana “robber baron” mining and railroad tycoon was a hence unseen recluse from 1930 until her death in 2011 following a painful divorce from the son of one of her father’s business associates after just two years of marriage. (more…)
Portland, Oregon born Cassidy is best known for his role as Zach Stevens in The O.C. He has subsequently appeared in Smallville, Hidden Palms, Argo and Scandal and is one of the main characters in Men at Work. If Cassidy weren’t an actor, he’d like to have been a novelist or professional tennis player and of how he started his career, he once commented: “Move to Los Angeles and cash in on your looks or move to New York and get real training”.
Anthony Marshall attempts to get out of jail
Anthony Marshall is a man who plainly refuses to give up. Finally jailed in June this year following his 2009 conviction for stealing tens of millions from his famous heiress mother, Marshall has put in a cynically planned bid to get out of jail on the basis of being too sick to serve his sentence. (more…)
Anthony Marshall to be released from jail
We featured the convicted and finally jailed swindler Anthony Marshall already once today. Sadly, now, we feature him again as it has been ruled that he will be paroled after serving just 60 days. (more…)
The United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom was appointed in August 2013 and is a descendant of John Winthrop, an early 17th century governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Married to the heiress to the Jack Daniels whiskey empire, Barzun was a fundraiser for Obama’s 2008 campaign and head of strategic planning for Halsey Minor’s CNET. Of the “special relationship”, this Harvard graduate has stated: “This isn’t some Downton Abbey episode”. We’ll most definitely be watching.