Tag: art

The Mystery of Thomas H. Lee – Clinton-Epstein Conspiracy Theories Continue

Matthew Steeples examines whether the recent suicide by gunshot of “the envy of Wall Street” billionaire Thomas H. Lee was in any way linked to a clear association with Bill Clinton and a possible one with Jeffrey Epstein

Thomas H. Lee did not appear in the 95-page infamous ‘Little Black Book’ associated with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell. Now, however, after his apparent ‘suicide’ this billionaire financier has not only described as “considerate, generous and unpretentious” and a “constant presence” in her life by Hillary Clinton, but also as having “links” to Jeffrey Epstein.

Sparking rumours of yet another example of the ‘Clinton Body Count’ – the much disputed conspiracy theory that as many as fifty people with close links to the Clintons have died in nefarious circumstances – Stephen M. Lepore for the DailyMail.com shared a photograph of Lee at a New York shindig with another billionaire named Robert Kraft and a couple named Glenn and Eva Dubin. Swedish Ms Andersson-Dubin dated Jeffrey Epstein prior to his 2008 conviction and continued to “socialise with [him] after his time in jail,” Bloomberg reported in 2019.

The 78-year-old Harvard graduate and founder of Lee Equity Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners was best known himself for having bought the soft drinks brand Snapple Beverages in 1992 for £112 million ($135 million, €127 million or درهم496 million) and sold it for a 334% profit to Quaker Oats for £1.4 billion ($1.7 billion, €1.6 billion or درهم6.2 billion) in 1994.

Known also for being an “avid art collector,” father of five Lee also served as a trustee of Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Brandeis University, Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, Harvard University, the Intrepid Museum Foundation, NYU Medical Center, and Rockefeller University.

In a statement currently opening the homepage of their website, Lee Equity Partners shared:

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our Founder and Chairman, Thomas H. Lee. He was a great partner and wonderful friend whose vision will continue to influence us for many years to come.”

“Tom’s determination, commitment and strategic vision will continue to inspire all of us at Lee Equity Partners. He was a leader, a friend, a partner, and our mentor. We know he will be proud as the firm continues on, with strength. We will work every day to meet the high standards he has set for us and the entire industry. On behalf of our employees, management teams and investment partners, we mourn his loss and extend our deepest sympathies to his family.”

Clearly illustrating that something might be amiss in the financial community, a member of the Wall Street Oasis forum last week remarked of Lee’s death:

“Self-inflicted gunshot wound. Wonder if he knows something about the future…”

Another added: “Perhaps another private equity guy with Epstein connections about to get exposed.”

Going further on Monday, Fortune shared an article with the headline: “Thomas H. Lee’s sudden death shocks partners at his $3 billion private investment firm – with a $1 billion fundraise in the balance.”

For the publication, Dawn Lim and Amanda Gordon added:

“Since then, Lee Equity’s executives have been forced to confront a difficult moment. In at least one conversation, they discussed the importance of reassuring clients that there’s no connection between his death and Lee Equity’s financial health or fund performance.”

“Lee’s death has ushered in a new level of public attention for a shop that manages £2.5 billion ($3 billion, €2.8 billion or درهم11 billion) and doesn’t have a formal media-relations team. It also comes at a critical juncture for the 40-person firm, which is raising a £833 million ($X billion, €942 million or درهم3/7 billion) fund just as investors have become increasingly reluctant to part with their cash amid volatile markets. The firm has raised the vast majority of that fund, other people said.”

“The suicide also presents a test for key partners Mark Gormley, Benjamin Hochberg, Yoo Jin Kim and Joseph Rotberg. They’re among eight executives who climbed the ranks to take bigger leadership roles and steered the firm into financial services and health care.”

“Some investors have taken comfort in the fact that succession is largely complete, people said. They pushed for the firm to spread its wealth more evenly among partners and had sway in the years after the financial crisis, when buyout firms struggled to raise new money. Lee’s cut of the profits was less than 10% for the firm’s last fund.”

“In recent days, several institutions extended condolences and provided expressions of support to the firm. Investors such as Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. committed money to the new fund. The firm’s backers have said they hope Lee’s death doesn’t rattle new investors.”

Returning to the story of the mystery surrounding the supposed ‘suicide’ also by gun shot of Bill Clinton aide turned Jeffrey Epstein associate and wannabe “international deal-maker” Mark Middleton, speaking exclusively to The Steeple Times this morning, Shaun Attwood provided comment to follow up by our two articles this week by Kirby Sommers and Matthew Steeples. The author of Who Killed Epstein? Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton? shared:

“Yet another ‘suicide’ in a long line of suicides #ClintonBodyCount. No surprises here when it comes to the Machiavellian behaviour of the Clinton crime family who’ve left a trail of corpses behind them from Arkansas when Bill was governor to the White House. It is a trail that continues to this day with Jeffrey Epstein and Jean-Luc Brunel.”

Separately, in developing news about the possible move of the “simple shooting party” bestie of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell that is Prince Andrew to Frogmore Cottage and possibly taking over Prince Harry and the former Meghan Markle’s home, Matthew Steeples and Shaun Attwood will be live at 7pm GMT on YouTube tonight to discuss this in the fourth episode of Meghan Markle Expose. Follow the link below to tune in.

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

Follow Shaun Attwood on Twitter at @shaunattwood and purchase his book ‘Who Killed Epstein? Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton?’ by clicking here.

Pictured Top – Former U.S. President Bill Clinton enjoying a jolly on the golf course with Thomas H. Lee and enjoying a bit of a bash at the White House with the sex trafficking fiends Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Was the suicide of billionaire friend of Bill Clinton and financier Thomas H. Lee in any way connected to matters about financiers linked to Jeffrey Epstein? #ThomasHLee #ThomasLee #BillClinton #HillaryClinton #ClintonBodyCount #JeffreyEpstein #GhislaineMaxwell #EvaAnderson
— Matthew Steeples (@M_Steeples) March 3, 2023

This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “Was the suicide of billionaire friend of Bill Clinton and financier Thomas H. Lee in any way connected to matters about financiers linked to Jeffrey Epstein?” He accompanied the feature with the hashtags #ThomasHLee #ThomasLee #BillClinton #HillaryClinton #ClintonBodyCount #JeffreyEpstein #GhislaineMaxwell #EvaAnderson. As of 11:30am on Friday 3^rd March, 50% of respondents favoured the option: “YES; Eva Andersson etc.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5RMKkC3pkE&list=PLPT_cCpNMvT50d_7cJ55ciKoZEY8q_YPt&index=7
To watch ‘Meghan Markle Expose – Part 4’ click this YouTube link. The 1 hour 15 minute episode first airs at 7pm GMT on Friday 3^rd March 2023. Issues covered primarily focus on the ‘FORGXIT’ saga of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex from Frogmore Cottage, but there is also discussion of Prince Andrew and his grifting wife, Sarah, Duchess of York – a woman who has still never confirmed if she repaid the loans she so disgracefully took from the since croaked paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Lee’s body was found in a bathroom at his office at 767 Fifth Avenue, New York at around 11am on 23rd February. The 78-year-old was pronounced dead shortly after. A “family friend and spokesperson” named Michael Sitrick later shared: “While the world knew him as one of the pioneers in the private equity business and a successful businessman, we knew him as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, sibling, friend and philanthropist who always put others’ needs before his own.” Just prior to the time of his passing, ‘Forbes’ estimated his worth at £1.7 billion ($2 billion, €1.9 billion or درهم7.3 billion).

The now deceased billionaire (second left) partying with the billionaire businessman CEO of the Kraft Group Bob Kraft, the billionaire hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin and his “allegedly racy” wife Dr Eva Andersson-Dubin. Back in April 2022, ‘The Steeple Times’ featured the story of neighbours of the “decidedly dubious Dubins” slashing the price of their Upper East Side apartment from £25.1 million to £21.2 million. Of this news, a New York realtor told us: “1040 Fifth Avenue certainly has a perky past, but whilst Jackie Kennedy and Generoso Pope Jr. were unlikely bedfellows when they both lived there at the same time, the stench of the Epstein-Maxwell connections of Glenn, Eva and Celina Dubin is actually very off-putting to buyers. Who on earth would want to live next to them? It’s no wonder no one is biting-at-the-bit to snap up the apartment currently on offer and I can only suggest the sellers perhaps put off marketing until these two social misfits move off elsewhere.”

In February 2021, ‘The Steeple Times’ shared an exclusive story courtesy of information supplied by the crusading author of ‘Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography’ Kirby Sommers concerning Glenn and Eva Dubin. In it, we featured pictures of the vile paedophile Jeffrey Epstein with one of the couple’s daughters on his lap on his notorious sex trafficking private jet. We titled the article: ‘PLANE PERVERTED.’

The house Mr Lee – who went by the self-assigned nickname ‘Tomcat’ as he believed he had “nine different lives” – shared with his second wife Ann Tenenbaum in East Hampton, New York. Of it, the ‘New York Post’ observed: “‘He was regarded as having one of the most admired houses in the Hamptons – Bill and Hillary Clinton were frequent guests, they would regularly stay there,’ the source told ‘The Post.’ The Clintons famously holed up at Lee’s East Hampton pad after the bruising 2008 Democratic primary. ‘He was a regular at Maidstone golf club,’ also, the source noted.”

Both Hillary Clinton and her husband attended the New York funeral service for Brooklyn born Thomas Haskell Lee (27th March 1944 – 23rd February 2023) on Monday 1st March 2023 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Remarking, Hillary Clinton commented: “Tom was a constant presence. “We’ve shared births and weddings and anniversaries, state dinners at the White House, lively parties from New York City to Martha’s Vineyard to the Hamptons during good times and tough ones. We’re here expressing our gratitude for years as friends, as colleagues and certainly as family members for his long, successful life.” Mr Lee leaves five children – Jesse, Zach, Nathan, Robbie and Rosalie as well as Ann Tenenbaum, the second wife he married in 1996.

Ghislaine Maxwell with Jeffrey Epstein and President Bill Clinton at the White House on 29th September 1993. Allegations that Clinton and Maxwell had sexual liaisons that became a full-blown affair have abounded, but remain unconfirmed by either party Equally, Epstein and Clinton travelled together on multiple occasions and clearly shared a mutual liking for young girls also. The former POTUS was most certainly advised about the derelict and deviant actions of the nefarious former taxi driver turned financier, yet conveniently chose to ignore such and to instead accept the dirty devil’s dollar.

March 3, 2023
Horror In The Hamptons… 2020 Coronavirus Crisis Ransackings v 2022 Cost-Of-Living Crisis Riots in This Ritzy Resort

Whilst the Hamptons was the scene of “bidding wars” and “supermarket spats” over £275 bottles of Chablis during the 2020 coronavirus crisis, it’s become the scene of socialites being arrested in “wife beaters” for assaulting “glampin’ workers” in the 2022 cost-of-living-crisis

There’s always been something about the Hamptons that attracts big spenders and badly-behaved berks.

Here is a set of tony townships rife with money, mystery, mayhem and murder and further proof of the madness of this privileged place came this week when Libbie Mugrabi – a soppy “socialite” resident best known for bizarrely once comparing herself to the late Diana, Princess of Wales – opened up to accuse her workers of “glampin’ in the Hamptons” when she got arrested for allegedly violently attacking them.

Setting the scene, during the summer of 2020 coronavirus lockdowns, “überwealthy” residents of this southern fork of Long Island hired nightclub bouncers to “prevent others from using their roads.” To “protect [their] health,” they “compounded” – “buying [up] two and even three seven-and eight-figure homes on the same street, grabbing up surrounding acres for family members” – in order to avoid others.

At the time, Vanity Fair’s Stephanie Krikorian mused of “bidding wars” and “tears,” whilst, to the New York Post’s Jennifer Gould, founder of “upscale supermarket chain” Citraella Joe Guerra lamented: “I had one customer spend $8,000. You know when you see someone with a full shopping cart? Now they have five… [They buy] pretty much everything they can… Instead of asking for one or two steaks on a tray, a customer will buy the whole tray. Then they’ll move on to shrimp, and buy all the shrimp, and then they’ll buy all the salmon steaks. Instead of asking for a slice of lasagna, they’ll buy all of it. Then they’ll buy all of our root vegetables… Business is insane.”

When not “ransacking grocery stores in epic shopping sprees,” these very wealthy folk were to be found at what they themselves termed “quarantine mansions” and many of them did exactly the opposite to what was deemed sensible.

These irresponsible brats threw “Covidiot super-spreader parties” and even worse, in one instance – which has become one of The Steeple Times’ most popular ever stories – a self-declared “power broker” and “well-regarded [estate] agent” named Jonathan Davis got into a serious spat. His crime? This “privileged, preppy prat” and Nest Seekers employed realtor became a “pesky squatter” in a Sag Harbor “dream home” that he supposedly utterly trashed. Here was not a property agent helping a landlord, but instead one seemingly robbing them and wrecking their residence instead.

Confronted by Inside Edition’s cameras in June 2020, Mr Davis raged: “I’ve got no comments except: GET ORF THE GROUNDS!” whilst the landlady to whom he owed thousands, Paula Rosado, responded: “It’s horrific. It really is just horrific… This has been a complete nightmare for us, for our family emotionally and financially…. [His German Shepherd dogs] tear apart [everything] and urinate all over rugs and couches [sic].”

Of him, one fellow agent, Zachary Belil, later commented to The Steeple Times: “The kid is a little freak. He tried suing Compass for no reason” whilst social butterfly Lynn Wyatt added: “I dealt with him once. He has no manners and is an arrogant little f**k. Zachary Belil is a realtor I’ve heard good things about and though I have never dealt with him, I back him up – Jonnie Boy is a FREAK.”

Whilst Jonathan Davis is astoundingly still employed by Nest Seekers at their Bridgehampton office, Libbie Mugrabi has taken up his mantle and featured late last week in a New York Post article by Michael Kaplan as an “arrested socialite” after the Southampton Police Department had “charged [her] with menacing, criminal mischief and criminal possession of a weapon” last Tuesday.

Ms Mugrabi – the ex-wife of “billionaire art collector” David Mugrabi and a woman known for having described her marriage as a “gilded cage” during “New York’s nastiest divorce” in 2020 – Kaplan reported, got cuffed after attacking an “unnamed housekeeper” on 31^st July “with a mop handle and a knife, and broke her cellphone” at her 10,000 square foot house in Water Mill.

Ordered now to appear in court on 6^th December, Mugrabi showed no sign of remorse and raged to the paper:

“They should have been doing work on my house, but not living in my house. The night I came home, a lady was in my guest room – she was supposed to have been let go. I went to use the bathroom, saw her, and I got scared to death.”

“She started throwing stuff at me. She threw a cellphone and the bottom of a stringy mop at me. She was screaming like a crazy person and threw a bible at me.”

Turning to the “attack allegation leveled against her,” she conceded: “I’m not aggressive physically. I’m aggressive with my voice.”

Her mother, Jane Scher, who claims to have met the staff in question on another occasion, added: “These people had taken over Libbie’s house… They were in the pool and the hot tub and wouldn’t even give me a cup of coffee. I thought they had a better life than I do… Libbie told them to feed me. They gave me some kind of soup with ginger. It tasted OK. I was starving.”

Of the conduct of the police who arrested her, Mugrabi raged:

“[They] were aggressive for no reason. They attacked me and handcuffed me. I said they were twisting my wrist. They said: ‘It’s OK.’ I asked to read me my rights. They said: ‘We don’t read rights for this.’ … I don’t know what I did in Southampton except pay my taxes.”

Her friend, fashion consultant Marko Matysik, who was present during the 22^nd November arrest and “watching from the terrace at the time,” whined:

“Next thing I knew, Libbie was in handcuffs. She was wearing a wife-beater and hot pants. I grabbed as many of her handbags and hand luggage as I could [in case she needed anything inside them] and got into the chauffeured Suburban and followed the police car…. They were very happy to have her in the jailhouse.”

Concluding, Libbie Mugrabi ignored the cost-of-living crisis that so many around the world are currently enduring. Instead, she moaned that after the “commotion” of the arrest she’d been forced to “postpone” a trip to Miami and had instead spent “some town in her Upper East Side townhouse.” The somewhat shamed but clearly not ashamed socialite finally bleated: “I had Thanksgiving in New York. I definitely would not have had it in the Hamptons. Right now, I’m scared to go there.” Now, get those damned violins a-playing.

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.

Pictured Top – The ritzy residential resort of the Hamptons attracts billionaires with bulging bank balances because of its idyllic charm (top), but it also appeals to brash Botoxed braggarts like Libbie Mugrabi (bottom right) and her mother Jane Scher (bottom left).

Libbie Mugrabi (pictured with her billionaire ex-husband) showed her clear belief that she’s always the victim when she told ‘Page Six’ in June 2021: “I had the same thing as [the late Diana, Princess of Wales] – I got married young. She was told what to do and wear. And so was I. You’re under control and under a rein. It doesn’t matter what’s fair or what you deserve… After divorce, you can breathe, free of the gilded cage. I married someone who thought he was better than me.” She got her ‘plastic-not-fantastic look’ in spite of having had a father who was a plastic surgeon and a mother who was a nurse.

After her divorce, ‘Lovely Libbie’ briefly hooked up with Brock Pierce (pictured with her left and right in his acting days) – a former child actor who had appeared in Disney’s ‘The Mighty Ducks’ and who ran as an independent candidate in the 2020 United States of America presidential election. That didn’t last. “I didn’t know anyone at my wedding” at one point further admitted mother-of-two turned “trucker hat-seller” Ms Mugrabi before she arrogantly added in another of many self-grandiose interviews: “My artist friends compare me to Peggy Gugenheim… She was fast and furious and drove in her own lane and no one could keep up with her.” Of subsequent relationships, she’s first to admit they’ve been equally disastrous. “I got robbed by so many people since I got divorced. I’ve been robbed like 10 times… I’m open and I’m free, and I’ve had some really creepy people around me. Now I’m being much more careful. I’ve never been 41 before with money and all this stuff. It’s like a rebirth. You have to relearn everything,” she added. There’s maybe hope for this ridiculous woman yet.

During their multi-million divorce in December 2018, things got very “nasty” between Mr and Mrs Mugrabi. Of the pair, unnamed ‘sources’ close to the couple tellingly remarked: “I didn’t know people like us did this… [Libbie and David] met in Aspen and six months later they got engaged… In those days, she was the sweetest, so nice… [David’s family] tried to take her in… They were living the highest life you can imagine: A lot of staff. A lot of nannies, a lot of cleaning people and chefs. Two homes, a lot of drivers and the [Mugrabi] family airplane… Libbie is a big fashionista. [David] didn’t like paying for that.” Of her having employed a personal secretary, “family friends” were supposedly “flabbergasted” and observed: “What? ‘Little Libbie’ who doesn’t even know her way around Bergdorf’s? I think [David] created a monster.” He most definitely did.

In an undated video about her “brand” (whatever that might actually be), Libbie Mugrabi bragged: “The brand is since the pandemic and life change [sic]. It’s just happy, kind and cool, funny, spread love brand [sic]. For girls, for dogs, for women, for men, but it’s geared all towards growth; female empowerment but it can be used by blokes too.” She then banged on about ‘Tatler’ magazine having called her a “glamorous divorcee” – which she termed “nice, erm, kind” – and added: “I came up with the French version: ‘Divorcée glam’” – but failed to mention her alleged penchant for attacking her staff with mop handles and knives and breaking their mobile phones.

Jonathan Davis of realty firm Nest Seekers developed notoriety during the 2020 coronavirus lockdowns not for helping his clients in the Hamptons get places to live. Instead, this rotten realtor became known as a “pesky squatter” who allowed his dogs to urinate and destroy a house he supposedly owed many thousands of dollars in rent on.

Former editor of ‘The Sun’ David Yelland delighted in the story of the arrested socialite yesterday. On Twitter, the veteran newsman observed: “Here’s a splendid out of season Hamptons socialite story to cheer us all up… Libbie Mugrabi claims she is victim of housekeeper and Hamptons cops.” He clearly wasn’t out to show this birdbrained Botox advertisement any sympathy.

One of the “gilded cages” in the Hamptons that a woman who believes herself like the late Diana, Princess of Wales calls home and the scene where Libbie Mugrabi allegedly assaulted one of her staff with a mop handle and knife in July this year.

In a similar show of out-of-touch behaviour, in March 2020, another self-appointed Hamptons “philanthropist and socialite,” Jean Shafiroff, told the ‘New York Post’ that she was normally “accustomed to dining out on a nightly basis” whilst at her home in the ritzy enclave. The paper continued: “In the face of the coronavirus, she has taken the unfamiliar step of cooking for her husband, daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend. And it’s not been cheap. ‘I’m spending $300 to $1,000 a day on food and supplies,’ she said. The money goes toward chicken and salmon steaks, some of which she freezes, as well as for cleaning supplies and food for her dogs. ‘I even bought the drugstore out of all its dental floss. I wanted to make sure I had enough, along with extra toothbrushes, soap, toothpaste and body lotions,’ she said. ‘If I have to be quarantined, I better look nice.’ Shafiroff also is buying canned goods like the rest of America, but only out of an abundance of caution. ‘I can donate them later,’ she said of the items like Progresso chicken noodle soup and Del Monte peas and carrots – brands ‘I had never heard of before.’ How the other half live; previously, in September 2017, Mrs Shafiroff wailed to ‘Page Six’ about how she’d been attacked by bees at the Hampton Classic horse show. In spite of not actually being stung, the attention seeker told the paper: “I tried to stand still and let them fly off but they wouldn’t get off my face. I was terrified. They must have liked my perfume (which was Nanban).” ‘Page Six’ concluded: “Bystanders tried to help the swarmed socialite by swinging at the bees who eventually buzzed off.”

“Gym-bodied and catalogue-model-handsome” Thomas Gilbert Jr. personifies “the Hamptons gone bad.” In 2013, this Princeton graduate and son of hedge fund manager Thomas Gilbert Sr., founder of Wainscott Capital became the primes suspect of throwing a Molotov cocktail into his former roommate Peter Smith’s 300-year-old Sagaponack family home and burning it to the ground; in January 2015, he sent his mother out to get a sandwich and then shot his dad dead with a .40-caliber Glock pistol. Imprisoned to life with an earliest release date of April 2044, prisoner 19A3615 is now said to be dating Lila Chase, the niece of the actor Chevy Chase. An extra also in the 2013 short film ‘And After All,’ Gilbert Jr. was described as “delusional,” is said to have “avoided New York’s JFK airport at all costs” as he viewed it to be “severely contaminated and faked suicide during his trial by claiming he’d swallowed a battery. On being taken for an X-ray, he was found to be holding a battery over his stomach. It’s lucky that this lunatic and the definitely delusional Libbie Mugrabi didn’t meet; the pair might have gotten on like a house-on-fire.

What’ll little miss ‘Divorcée Glam’ do next? Apologise? Unlikely… This motormouthed menace will more likely be found ranting and raving to yet another media title than mopping up her own mess. This Marie-Antoinette like woman might be an aspiring “extravagance knows no bounds” Barbara Amiel type figure, but she’s clearly not got the brains, brawn or beauty to pull off even that look. Next!

November 29, 2022
Word of the Week 2022 – Galanthophile

In cultivating a new variety of snowdrop Joe Sharman – known to many as ‘Mr Snowdrop’ – has brought joy to ‘galanthophiles’ everywhere and made himself £1,850 from just one bulb also; amusingly there’s even a variety named ‘John’s Y-Fronts’

It’s always great to improve one’s grasp of etymology and this morning I learnt about a word that describes a charmingly endearing collection of people. That word? Galanthophile.

A noun of 19^th century origin that takes the snowdrop galanthus’s taxonomic name from the Greek gala, galkt ‘milk’ and antho- ‘flower,’ those that so enthusiastically collect these “magical and really special” bell-shaped flowers are known as galanthophiles.

The official flower for January birthdays and brought to Britain by the Romans, the “milk flower of the snow” – as it is sometimes described – is said to symbolise hope, purity, innocence and sympathy. It is the first flower to bloom at the end of winter and though Victorians associated it with death and bad luck, on Saturday, The Guardian’s Steven Morris charmingly reported on “hordes of galanthophiles” descending on Buckland Monachorum on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon this week to “take in the sight of a beloved flower that this time of year provides a vivid reminder than warmer, cheerier seasons are ahead.”

In a second article for The Guardian this morning, the paper’s Jamie Grierson enthused that a single bulb of new type of snowdrop – a variety named ‘Golden Tears’ – that has just sold on eBay for the remarkable sum of £1,850.

Grown by Cottenham, Cambridgeshire plantsman Joe Sharman (AKA ‘Mr Snowdrop’) of the Monksilver Nursery, ‘Golden Tears’ received 55 bids and finally hammered down to a buyer “unidentified.” It was listed as:

“A narrow-flowered yellow pterugiform with a very large mark and bright yellow ovary. Very beautiful and distinct. Quite different from Golden Fleece. Exceptionally vigorous. 25cm. The result of a deliberate cross by me using the same parents that created Golden Fleece. First time sold by us on eBay only named 2 weeks ago. Only one for the season.”

In 2015, in an interview with The Guardian – clearly the paper with the most enthusiasm for snowdrops on the planet – Joe Sharman concluded:

“They come up early in the year when nothing else is growing, so if you have the kind of brain that needs lots of things to think about, you focus in.”

“They seem to be almost infinitely variable. You collect the 10 you recognise, then you realise that you can recognise 20 and it just goes from there. I don’t think there is another group of plants quite like it.”

Pictured top – Joe Sharman (right) and the now famous £1,850 flower he has spent years cultivating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQv7kHDHb5E

Britain’s leading botanist by far Dr Shirley Sherwood OBE – the widow of the late buccaneering businessman and one-time owner of hotels including the Cipriani in Venice and the Venice-Simplon Orient Express train service also James Sherwood – is a noted enthusiast on the subject of snowdrops. In December 2021, this delightful lady took to YouTube to discuss a painting of the flowers by Susan Ogilvy and commented: “I love snowdrops. I have lots in my garden and we have a very particularly version of the snowdrop. Whole groups of people, clubs of people who like snowdrops and grow every single kind they can think of. I think there are many, many varieties and of course there are wild snowdrops too.” Of her painting, she endearingly declared: “This is a lovely painting and it justifiably is one of the favourite ones in my collection.”

Speaking to the ‘Daily Mail’ yesterday, gardening writer Val Bourne remarked of the bulb sold of eBay: “[It’ll] go under the knife. They’ll cut it into 20 pieces and start selling individual plants. They’ll get their money back in three or four years. It’s a mad hobby.” Going further previously, Mr Sharman commented: “Security is a big problem. I know people who have opened their gardens and had everything stolen. I don’t open my garden or nursery. But stealing snowdrops is like stealing a Van Gogh. If it’s rare, all the galanthophiles will know who propagated it and where it was stolen from.” In 2019, two men were arrested for stealing 13,000 bulbs from the Walsingham Estate in Norfolk and amongst famous collectors are Lord and Lady Heseltine. The former Deputy Prime Minister under John Major has accumulated over 700 varieties at Thenford House in Northamptoshire in his “garden of major importance.” Whether they have the variety named ‘John’s Y-Fronts’ is unknown.

Anyone who picks an endemic variety of the plant in the national park will be fined £5,954 ($8,070, €7,113 or درهم29,600, 110,000 Turkish Lira) according to a report published in the ‘Hurriyet Daily News’ in February 2022. The fine has risen from £4,330 ($5,870, €5,174 or درهم21,600, 110,000 Turkish Lira) last year and of why, Halil Ernalçacı, the head of Mount Spil Nature Park, told the paper: “Our visitors should be cautious when they walk in the park. They should look for where they take their steps.”

Artist, botanist and horticulturist Edward Augustus Bowles (1865 – 1954) of Myddleton House, Enfield, London was a well known “snowdrop enthusiast.” In January 2013, the blog ‘Plant Heritage’ delved into his connections to the flower after visiting a snowdrop sale at his former home.

Types of Snowdrops

Snowdrops bloom from September through to March and peak in January and February. Amongst the many types – there are in excess of 1,700 in the collection of Joe Sharman alone – are:

Galanthus ‘Dionysus’

Named after the god of the grape harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit.

Galanthus ‘Elwesii”

Named after H. J. Elwes, an English plant collector who found the original plants in Turkey. Its leaves “neatly fold inside the other” and its “flowers have two green spots on the inner petals, which sometimes fuse together.”

Galanthus ‘Fly Fishing’

Features a “long, slender pedicel (stalk) that looks like a fishing rod.”

Galanthus ‘Golden Fleece’

Joe Sharman spent 18 years developing this and sold a bulb of this variety for £1,390 ($1,884, €1,661 or درهم6,920).

Galanthus ‘Golden Tears’

A new variety and record breaker in terms of the £1,850 ($2,508, €2,210 or درهم9,210) price Joe Sharman sold it for, this variety features a “narrow-flowered yellow pterugiform with a very large mark and bright yellow ovary” and is noted as “very beautiful and distinct” and “exceptionally vigorous.”

Galanthus ‘Ivy Cottage Corporal’

“Features two green Vs resembling a corporal’s stripes.”

Galanthus nivalis ‘Norfolk Blonde’

Rather like a blonde bimbo, this snowdrop features “pale leaves and pale yellow flowers” and has a “long ovary” also.

Galanthus ‘Ophelia’

Named after Shakespeare’s tragic young noblewoman of Denmark who ends up in a state of madness that ultimately leads to her drowning.

Galanthus ‘Nothing Special’

Modestly named though lauded by Joe Sharman as “one of the best forms I have selected,” this “very clean white and wonderfully scented” snowdrop is supposedly “vigorous” also.

Galanthus ‘Primrose Warburg’

Described as a “dainty snowdrop with yellowish leaves” and named after the “legendary galanthophile Primrose Warburg.”

Galanthus ‘Trumps’

Described as having “an elegant flaring pagoda shape” and thankfully has nothing to do with the 45^th POTUS of the same name.

Galanthus ‘Wendy’s Gold’

Described as “far more vigorous than [other] yellows.”

Galanthus ‘John’s Y-Fronts’

This variant is described as “small, late, neat, single with a very clearly Y-shaped mark on inner.” It has grey leaves. Could it’s name have been inspired by the former British Prime Minister John Major’s “underpant episode” with Edwina Currie where he allegedly tucked his shirt into his allegedly grey Y-fronts?

February 22, 2022
Tracey Emin: “Narcissistic, Deranged, Screaming Banshee”

Serial party goer Tracey Emin CBE, RA bizarrely claims she doesn’t like parties but gets it spot on when she states she is treated as a “narcissistic, deranged, screaming banshee”

On Saturday, Tracey Emin told The Guardian’s Miranda Bryant: “You cannot be an artist hanging out a giant party, it’s never going to work” in spite of the fact she’s been constantly pictured at parties for decades.

In July 2012, of the attention seeking artist’s very own parties, Tatler’s ‘Bystander’ gushed: “When Tracey Emin throw’s a party, it’s always brilliant. Always amazing. Hip hip hooray” and added: “Tracey Emin: great party host.” Strangely, that pearl of wisdom didn’t get a mention in The Guardian.

Known for hanging out at ritzy joints like Annabel’s and the GQ Awards with everyone from Prince and Princess Michael of Kent to Sir Elton John and his titleless husband David Furnish, super-connected, moaning multi-millionairess Emin used Saturday’s interview to bleat about how her life as an artist is “really lonely.”

Going further, this 58-year-old Turner Prize nominee bizarrely bleated of one of her works exhibited at the rather prestigious Royal Academy in 2020:

“I think I’ve been overlooked. I think they just thought I was some sort of narcissistic, deranged, screaming banshee.”

Self-absorbed Emin seems to forget she leads a life that is slightly more privileged than most of her struggling contemporaries. Aside from having taken up a CBE in spite of threatening to quit Britain for France over tax and her appointment as Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy, this motormouthed harpy has benefitted from an education at the Medway College of Design, Maidstone College, Royal College of Art and Birkbeck University. Not many artists get that lucky.

In addition, exhibited at the likes of the Saatchi Gallery, National Gallery of Scotland, Tate Britain and La Biennale di Venezia, here is someone who cannot accept how fortunate she truly is. It’s time for Tracey Emin to do one thing: Finally learn the art of good grace and thankfulness.

Pictured top: Artist who allegedly doesn’t like parties (and claims not to be taken seriously) Tracey Emin CBE, RA at various parties.

Tracey Emin – whom once claimed: “I’m simply not willing to pay tax at 50%… I’m seriously considering leaving Britain” – with fellow fruitcake Dame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI, a woman who curiously based her companies in Luxembourg and got turfed out of the Green Party as a result (left) and slumped drunk in a car after a night out, um, er, partying.

Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ (1999).

Tracey Emin on…

Life:

“I found that life has to be edited to continue.”

“I had become conscious of my physicality, aware of my presence and open to the ugly truths of the world. At the age of 13, I realised that there was a danger in innocence and beauty and I could not live with both.”

Gender:

“A man doesn’t know what it’s like to be a woman. It’s that simple.”

Her childhood:

“I never grew up.”

Her birthday and bodies in the Thames:

“My New Year’s Eve is always 2^nd July, the night before my birthday. That’s the night I make my resolutions. And this year scares the life out of me, because no matter how successful, how good things appear, there is always a deep core of failure within me, although I am trying to deal with it.”

“My biggest fear, this coming year, is that I will be waking up alone. It makes me wonder how many bodies will be fished out of the Thames, how many decaying corpses will be found in one-room flats. I’m just being realistic.”

Herself as an artist:

“I think I’ve been overlooked. I think they just thought I was some sort of narcissistic, deranged, screaming banshee.”

“There’s a part of you that has to go deep inside, like I say, ‘inside the cave’, and if you don’t go inside the cave, you’re never going to make any art. You need to be able to stand and see yourself to be able to make the art.”

Beds:

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in the bedroom like some people who just go to bed and never get out again.”

Her friends:

“I have hardly any friends who aren’t gay.”

“I really love animals. My little cat is my little soulmate. He’s not just a cat, he’s my friend.”

Having children:

“My mum has never wanted me to have children. She thinks I would be destroying my life, even now.”

“I’d make a good friend, not mother. I’m too selfish. I think a lot of mothers are selfish and they end up having children, but I don’t want to put some tiny small person through that.”

Failure:

“I had to come to terms with my failure as an artist… I had to find a way for myself.”

Art and commerce:

“I’m not opposed to commerce, even though I’m an artist.”

Success and censorship:

“One thing that success has taught me is censorship.”

Truth:

“What is truth? Truth doesn’t really exist.”

“Maybe I don’t believe things myself… Truth is such a transient thing.”

Revenge:

“People don’t remember. Revenge is sweet.”

The art world’s opinions of her:

“I’ve been slagged off completely by the art world.”

Her mistakes:

“All the mistakes I’ve ever made in my life have been when I’ve been drunk. I haven’t made hardly any mistakes sober, ever, ever.”

“Me and my mum were in Margate, sitting on a bench eating some jellied eels, when the scout person came and asked us if we would be extras [in the BBC’s Only Fools and Horses]… I thought I was too good to be an extra in Fools And Horses. How deranged was I?”

Asking for an apology:

“I don’t ask for an apology because it’s only tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper.”

Brexit:

“It isn’t pushing people away, it isn’t pushing the whole of Britain away, it isn’t about Britain being demoted to some tiny demented island in the North Sea. It’s about people like me saying I’m very proud to be British.”

“If we leave Europe and it turns out OK and we’re happy eating our cabbages and we’re happy living on an island with our island mentality then fine, I’ll go along with that.”

Tony Blair and David Cameron:

“Both of these men, who are fine politicians and essentially good people, will be remembered in history for doing the most terrible things to our political system and I don’t understand why they fell for it; I don’t understand why they did it.”

“It really aggrieves me to know that I supported both of these men. All I know is that with both of these actions, we are in such a mess.”

Boris Johnson:

“I saw twits like Boris Johnson run when it actually dawned on him what he was doing.”

What she thinks of other people:

“People try constantly to use me and I hate it.”

What she thinks of herself:

“I’m better than all of you.”

“I’m such a nice person and I have a couple of drinks and I’m really good fun and then I’m really not fun.”

What she thinks other people think of her:

“They look at someone like me and I just really get up their nose. I really wind them up.”

When she’s not out partying, Tracey Emin focuses on taking selfies and self-promotion. She clearly just cannot help herself.

November 2, 2021
Guilty Gulbenkian

Toothy tea leaf Angela Gulbenkian admits stealing £1.1 million and pleads guilty as fellow art crook Inigo Philbrick remains in the clink also

“Grifter heiress” Angela Gulbenkian once mused “life is art” on her Instagram page, but for her, after putting in a guilty plea “to scamming collectors out of art they never received,” she might opt to change that to “life is prison.”

Branded an “ultimate deceiver” alongside the equally audacious art broker Inigo Philbrick in The Steeple Times last June after legendary Chelsea interior designer Jane Morris of Percy Bass called out the crook for conning her firm also, Gulbenkian yesterday admitted two charges of theft at Southwark Crown Court.

Married to the great-grandnephew of the British-Armenian art collector and oil baron Calouste Gulbenkian – father of the legendary Nubar – this wicked wench used her surname to give herself a “veneer of respectability in her work as an art advisor” supposedly. She even used a fake familial foundation email to back up her “shady dealings” and exploited Instagram in a manner similar to Philbrick’s dopey baby mama and Made In Chelsea whining warbler, Victoria Baker Harber.

Sadly, however, for the many victims of this bleach blonde bimbo turned art lifter, it seems that those who handed Gulbenkian over a million pounds will find it hard to recover their funds according to Artnet. In an email provided to them, Metropolitan Police officer Duncan Graham declared: “A confiscation order was made for the amount stolen. At present no assets are present within the UK to realise this confiscation.”

Speaking to The Art Newspaper, Christopher Marinello of Art Recovery International, who is representing one of private jet loving Gulbenkian’s victims, added:

“[The plea] was not too surprising to us because we had her dead to rights. She signed a stipulation of settlement in 2018 where she acknowledged owing the money that she stole, and that she was going to pay it back, but of course she defaulted, so the trial would have been very quick.”

“We pursue these fraud cases vigorously, and I think it’s the only way you can do that. The art world is seeing a rise in fraud and we went after Gulbenkian and anything and everything she touched. We think that the way to take on these fraud cases is to be relentless, and that’s what we’ve done.”

Angela Gulbenkian (née Ischwang and deservedly nicknamed ‘Awful Ange’ by a former friend) – who has been on remand since being extradited from Portugal after failing to show up at court in May 2020 – will be sentenced on 28^th July. She will subsequently potentially face trial over separate charges in relation to a case involving the sale of a Warhol portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at a later date. Long may this grubby grotbag rot!

Birds of a Cell – Bearded bullshitter Inigo Philbrick, a wannabe ‘Talented Mr Ripley,’ and toothy tea leaf Angela Gulbenkian share not only a love of art, but also the pleasures of the pokey currently. Philbrick, like ‘Awful Ange,’ was quite deservedly “grabbed” after he sought to evade justice by hiding out in Port Vila, Vanuata, South Pacific in June 2020 and then flown “under instructions from the FBI” to the United States of America. He now faces charges of theft, misappropriation, borrowing money against artworks he did not even own and selling overlapping shares of artworks and has been branded a “pillock” and “Ponzi schemer.” His victims number the Reuben family and art columnist Kenny Schachter.

The crimes of both Gulbenkian and Philbrick have involved the works of pumpkin sculptures designed by Yayoi Kusama.

A socialite who traded on the name of the late, great Nubar Gulbenkian and the billionaire family of the same name, ‘Awful Ange’ thought declaring “life is art” appropriate. Now, though this monstrous mess will quite rightly languish in the pokey for quite some period, members of the public should be warned that she is someone to most definitely avoid. Period.

July 9, 2021
Wally of the Week 2021 – Mandy Selhurst

Roundabout ranter Mandy Selhurst plainly has nothing better to do than moan about wildflowers others would find wonderful; here is a traffic twerp with too much time on her hands

Somebody ought to gift artist Mandy Selhurst a copy of Kevin Beresford’s 2004 book, Roundabouts of Great Britain. It’d keep her occupied for eons and it is something that she could go round and round and round and round again looking at.

When not painting plainly perfectly acceptable “semi abstract seascapes and landscapes,” Selhurst is a woman whom spends her days worrying about wildflowers that she considers are “blighting” two roundabouts in Bridport, Dorset. And worry, she bloody does.

Whilst most would welcome nature being allowed to blossom and plants that encourage birds and bees to pollinate and thrive, Selhurst took up the subject with the Bridport & Lyme Regis News first in April this year. At the time, she began by remarking:

“[The first roundabout] could be such a welcome. But it isn’t. Both roundabouts are a neglected disappointment long term.”

“Planting of low-level shrubs, colourful flowers, maybe some boulders to give a rockery effect would make such a difference to the first impressions of our lovely town to all of us ‘locals’ and to visitors.”

Last week, the clear obsessive crackpot returned to the subject and, having plainly achieved nothing with her first rant, penned a lengthier complaint to another paper, the Dorset Echo, on the subject. It read:

“Again, I am writing to my local paper. And again, it’s about THAT roundabout.”

“Wildflowers? No. Surely not. They are wonderfully welcome in so many different places, but not on a roundabout.”

“Shame on Dorset Council that they can’t come up with something a little more thoughtful than that.”

“As for saying that anything – as suggested by Bridport Town Council, aesthetically pleasing – might be a possible distraction to motorists, let me say that a cheap, quick fix of a few packets of seeds will surely fill motorists with surprise and disappointment.”

“I can only hope that next year, when the roundabout reverts to the responsibility of Highways England, that perhaps something more in keeping will emerge.”

“Bridport, and that crucial location, deserves more of an effort. Something eye-catching in the shape of structure, form, colour, whatever. Wildflowers here? No. A total waste of their impact.”

Reactions to this diatribe of drivel on the Facebook group Angry People in Local Newspapers were predictable. Echoing the mockery of the Tesco shopper who got in a tizzy over shelf movements in February, clearly “triggered” Selhurst was dubbed “Mandy… The new Karen” and told: “Sounds like [she] hasn’t had her lithium today.”

With other responses numbering “Blimey, what a miserable woman,” “what a bellend” and “somebody needs to get a life,” another quite rightly pointed out that we should: “Say no to wildlife! Nothing like bee death and grey concrete to start the day off right, eh Mandy?”

‘Miserable Mandy’ clearly has both a lot of time on her hands and utterly no conception of the real problems affecting Britain and beyond. “It really makes me wonder what sad purposeless life someone would have to complain about wildflowers,” a lady named Tone Grina concluded.

Five roundabouts ‘Miserable Mandy’ might actually like…

Given our Wally of the Week has a clear obsession about roundabouts, she could perhaps take herself on a world tour and perhaps use her passion for painting to document such. Here, we share five unusual examples that should pique her interest and which she could quite easily document on canvas.

The Double-Whopper Burger, Rotterdam, Netherlands

The Stoned Car, Sydney, Australia

Water, Water Everywhere… But Not A Drop To Drink, Ypres, Belgium

Booked But Not Ticketed, Nizwa, Oman

Roundabout Wars, Scarborough, Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Reactions to ‘Roundabout Ranter’ Mandy Selhurst on the Facebook group ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’

June 9, 2021
A Cottage For A Quid

Crumbling stone-built seaside cottage in Welsh foodie destination and royal town of Caernarfon goes on sale for just £1

The Royal Town of Caernarfon sits on the eastern shore of the Menai Strait in North Wales and as a result of its proximity to Snowdonia and history dating back to Roman times is a “major tourist centre,” according to Wikipedia. It has a marina, award winning arts centre, a maritime museum and numerous popular pubs, bars and restaurants.

Situated down an alleyway behind the now shuttered Morris Bros Gors Bach Bakery shop at 72 Pool Street, a stone-built derelict cottage is currently being marketed by the Doorsteps online estate agency for the seemingly remarkable price of just £1.

Though clearly in need of total renovation, the space offered is just a three minute walk from the seafront and directly adjoins the town’s revamped shopping district where the annual food festival attracts around 30,000 visitors each May.

Of the property offered, the Mirror last week observed: “It now needs a total makeover to become a dream seaside cottage in the heart of the holiday town” and could instead be converted to a studio space even.

In their very brief marketing literature, Doorsteps, however, add: “Terms and conditions apply,” but when contacted for comment were somewhat curiously not able to elaborate further.

Bidding for the cottage to the rear of 72 Pool Street, Caernarfon is scheduled to commence online on 6^th May 2021 at 12 noon and will conclude at 1pm on the same day. Interestingly, a bidding deposit of £500 is required to participate – some £499 or 49,900% more than the property’s guide price.

The interior of the cottage is nothing but an empty shack currently, but there is plenty of character that could be incorporated into its potential reuse as a home.

The space could be used as a holiday cottage, permanent residence or a studio even – subject to any necessary planning consents being granted.

The currently derelict cottage is behind an also currently derelict bakery that had been in business for over 50 years and accessed via a somewhat unappealing alleyway.

The annual Caernarfon Food Festival is not happening in 2021 due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, but it is normally a popular event and attended by around 30,000 people.

The festival occurs throughout the town and on the sea wall even.

Previously in February 2017, ‘The Steeple Times’ featured the sale of a far grander residence in Caernarfon, The Old Court House, at a price reduced from £650,000 to just £525,000. The building’s then owner, an English property developer named Aaron Hill, told ‘Wales Online’ he was selling after “vandals had smashed his windows 46 times, daubed graffiti across doors, attacked his car and urinated through his letterbox.” He told the paper “he had reported about 26 incidents to North Wales Police and remarked: ‘They said: ‘You need to f**k off where you belong. We don’t want you here. We’ll burn the place down.’” The building was subsequently converted into a bar, bistro, restaurant and event venue in 2018.

In June 2014, ‘The Steeple Times’ featured another property once sold for £1, the Grade I listed Palladian gem Barlaston Hall in Staffordshire. It was saved from near collapse in 1981 by former ‘Country Life’ editor Marcus Binney and sold on for £300,000in 1992 and offered for sale again in 2014 for £2.3 million after renovations were completed. After its asking price was reduced to £2 million, it subsequently sold for £2 million through agents Fisher German in April 2019.

In the very same article in June 2014 in ‘The Steeple Times,’ we also included another £1 property, Old Whitehall House in Chirnside, Berwickshire, Scotland. Derelict since 2007, this B-listed Georgian mansion required at least £1.2 million spent on its refurbishment, but came complete with an ornate music room decorated in Italian plasterwork and 7 bedrooms.

May 3, 2021
Maxwell Booked

As she is quite deservedly denied bail for a FOURTH time, mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell sues the publishers of a book about her and Jeffrey Epstein; we respond by urging readers to buy ‘Vice Island’ now

Jean-Gabriel Fredet – the former editor of the popular French news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur (now known as L’Obs) – is a greatly respected journalist. He has written about the “greed” of artists such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons and their “megalomaniac collectors” and now after turning his pen to the activities of the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell, she’s decided to sue.

In spite of being incarcerated and facing a likely sentence of upto 88 years if convicted for trafficking and abusing minors, Maxwell – via the frankly ridiculous RealGhislaine.com website set up ‘in her honour’ by her family – decided on Wednesday to issue a press release announcing she is taking legal action against Albin Michel, the publishers of Fredet’s latest book – L’île de tous es vices (Vice Island).

Claiming Fredet’s publishers have “violated her legal right to the presumption of innocence” via a French lawyer named Oliver Laude and issued in a two-page PDF document by “crisis communications expert” Yves-Paul Robert, founder of the Plead agency, Maxwell arrogantly announced:

“The publication of this book by Albin Michel constitutes an unacceptable attack on the presumption of innocence of Ms. Maxwell. Given the imminence of her criminal trial, to present her as already guilty – which this book does – is as repugnant as it is irresponsible.”

“Everyone has the right for the presumption of innocence to be respected. Where a person is, prior to any conviction, publicly presented as guilty of matters under judicial investigation, the judge may not only compensate the damage suffered, but also take all necessary measures, such as the insertion of a correction or the dissemination of a press release, in order to stop the violation of the presumption of innocence, and this at the expense of the person, or persons, responsible for that violation.”

“The violation in such an egregious fashion of the fundamental right to the presumption of innocence to which Ms. Maxwell is entitled calls for Albin Michel publishers to be made an example of, as much for their own flagrant breach of the law as to deter other media owners in France and indeed around the world from believing they can proceed thus with impunity against her or other persons in similar circumstances.”

Maxwell, a woman prone to banging on about the hardships of having not one but two computers in her cell, is demanding that “Albin Michel publishers be ordered to pay her damages for the prejudices suffered” and wants the “pulping of all extant copies of Vice Island” also.

What’ll this conniving crackpot be demanding next? Aside from Krug on tap in the pokey, this mendacious minx will probably be putting in a request via her PR peddler Brian Basham for a tame personal biographer to spin her as the modern-day Sister Wendy.

A hearing regarding Vice Island, according to the press release, is scheduled for the 19^th May 2021 in France and thus The Steeple Times now urges all interested readers to purchase a copy as a sign of support for Mr Fredet and Albin Michel today.

To buy a copy of ‘L’île de tous les vices: Sexe, pouvoir et impunité, révélations sur l’affaire’ by Jean-Gabriel Fredet, click here.

Pictured top: An especially smug, smirking Ghislaine Maxwell boozing with Mick Jagger (left) and the cover of Jean-Gabriel’s ‘Vice Island’ (right).

Maxwell Booked – “The publishing of Albin Michel’s book ‘is as repugnant as it is irresponsible.’ As Ghislaine awaits trial she is presumed innocent and yet this book ‘constitutes an unacceptable attack on the presumption of innocence of Ms. Maxwell’” stated the team behind RealGhislaine.com on Thursday on Twitter. PR peddler Brian Basham (pictured left), chairman of a firm named ACUITY Reputation, is generally spokesman for the mucky madam, but now she’s added others to the rota and in doing so illustrated the vast resources she’s throwing at the case.

Maxwell Booked – Jean-Gabriel Fredet’s book ‘Vice Island’ is described as follows: “How did a billionaire received by the entire American elite find himself, after years of madness, plunged into a dizzying descent into hell? Jeffrey Epstein is unquestionably rich. However, he left no trace in the world of finance. Its main activity? Satisfy his impulses in an organised gang! For more than twenty years, hundreds of young girls, many of them minors, made the trip to her island in the Antilles archipelago, aboard the ‘Lolita Express,’ one of his private planes. Who helped Jeffrey Epstein? Who participated in his sex trafficking? Who, among the rich and famous registered in his little black notebook, accompanied him to the island of all vices? Clinton, Trump, Kevin Spacey, Prince Andrew … and others? Prosecutors under influence, unscrupulous lawyers, nouveau riche and old fortunes … the Epstein affair sheds light on the flaws of a society indifferent to the crimes of those who live by their own rules and who know only one law: that of impunity.”

Maxwell Booked – Yves-Paul Robert is described on his firm Plead’s website as: “[A] chief executives on their oversight of communications, advocacy and intermediation strategies. He is also a recognised expert in crisis communications and has developed specific expertise in media relations. Prior to setting up Plead, Yves-Paul was head of crisis communications at Havas Paris. In 2017 he wrote a book entitled ‘Le Despote-Consommateur’ (‘The Consumer Despot’) published by Editions Plon, which analyses the way that consumer behaviour is influenced by brands and social media in an increasingly digital world.”

April 23, 2021
Oysters Ahoy!

Native oysters bizarrely reappear in Belfast Lough after 100 years of absence without any human intervention

In March, as the world locked down due to coronavirus, one note of positivity came in the form of reports of Venetians reporting that their canals were clearer and cleaner.

Now, this morning, the Guardian, followed up with similarly good news from Northern Ireland in sharing that “native oysters have unexpectedly returned to the shores of Belfast Lough after more than 100 years” absent.

“Fished to oblivion” from the 1800s, a systematic survey in May and June found 41 live ostrea edulis European flats along the coast and of the news, Joanne Preston of the University of Portsmouth told the paper: “I think it’s really interesting. The take-home message is, if you create the environmental conditions… then the species will be able to establish again.”

Obviously a “boost to biodiversity in the lough, since [they] filter seawater and their shells provide a habitat for many other sea creatures including tiny worms, snails, algae and anemones,” David Smyth of Bangor University in Wales commented: “The big question is, how did they get there?”

Citing that “the lough could one day be home to a future oyster fishery right near Northern Ireland’s capital,” here indeed could be one light of hope for the fishing industry as we career into Brexit Britain 2021.

When Covid-19 restrictions allow, we urge readers to head to Britain’s oyster capital, Whitstable, and visit the restaurant we reviewed in March 2016, the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company (first established as a cooperative in 1793). Here, we suggest, you’ll find the finest seafood that will utterly delight you.

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Credited with reviving interest in oysters, the current owners of the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company, the Green family, have very much led the transformation of Kent’s answer to Burnham Market in Norfolk or Salcombe in Devon into a fashionable destination for foodies and art lovers. Could the same eventually happen in Northern Ireland at Belfast Lough?

December 26, 2020
The Filthy Money of Maxwell (and Borgerson and Epstein)

As two associates of Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew get snared, the money of Ghislaine Maxwell (and her supposed “boss”) starts to be clawed back for victims

Just as the monstrous molesting model boss Jean-Luc Brunel (famed for supposedly supplying Jeffrey Epstein with two 8-year-old girls as a birthday gift) and the dirty designer Peter Nygard (best known for having an “orgy pit” on his private jet and holidaying with ‘Randy Andy’ and his family) deservedly got themselves arrested this week, the shit also hit the fan of the finances of Ghislaine Maxwell and the estate of her late paedophile “boss.”

Whilst many justifiably believe Maxwell was actually the mistress of the money rather than the ex-school teacher Epstein himself – given some £500 million of her father’s ill-gotten gains vanished prior to her move to New York in the wake of him “falling” off the back of his yacht – the ability of Scott Borgerson, the 58-year-old mucky madam’s 44-year-old husband, to find the £23 million of wonga he’s using to try to get her bail should also be examined. “Where is this cash coming from?” should be the question the authorities should be shouting out.

Elsewhere, in the wake of Artnet News revealing that “prosecutors are issuing subpoenas to Sotheby’s and Christie’s” demanding they “turn over documents relating to Epstein’s art purchases,” the Mirror exclusively revealed this morning that the first two “victims” of the croaked criminal “have now agreed [thus far undisclosed] cash settlements with the billionaire financier’s estate.”

It is now time that justice was done for all who’ve suffered at the hands of this elite excrement and it is especially time that non-sweating, horse allergic Prince Andrew came forward and told the truth to the FBI about what he really knows. Of course, sadly, he won’t.

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Author Kirby Sommers shared the supposed first photograph of Ghislaine Maxwell with her now husband Scott Borgerson on her Twitter feed yesterday, whilst the ’New York Post’ reported that it was taken in 2013 at the Arctic Circle assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland in October 2013. Speakers at the event included Hillary Clinton and Google chairman Eric Schmidt.

Nobody has ever managed to convincingly managed to explain where Jeffrey Epstein’s billions came from. Nobody has ever convincingly explained where his ex-lover Ghislaine Maxwell’s deceased daddy’s missing millions went either.

December 18, 2020