Matthew Steeples on discussing the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence fifteen years ago in York on TalkTV’s ‘Crime Suspect’ with esteemed former detective Peter Bleksley
Aired first on TalkTV’s terrestrial and YouTube channels on the 5th April, the 21:22-minute version on the latter has been viewed nearly 130,000 times to date and focused on the key question: “Could there still be someone out there who knows what happened to the 35-year-old chef?”
Aged just 35 at the time she disappeared into thin air on either the night of 18th March or the morning of the 19th March 2009, here is a case in which North Yorkshire Police – to date – have performed over 48 video recorded interviews under caution, but come to utterly no conclusion.
Having similarities to the case of the also ‘vanished’ Australian Marion Barter in that no real evidence of her having ‘existed’ after the 19th March 2009 has ever come to light, I focused my commentary on Crime Suspect on the media portrayal of Claudia Lawrence and asked: “Would she have been made out to have been promiscuous and a drunk if she had been a man?”
As has also been pointed out by Joan Lawrence, the likely victim of murder’s mother, who has subsequently received an OBE for her efforts in bringing about the passing of the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act 2017 – which modified the law in order to allow the appointment of guardians for the affairs of missing people – the “intense” and “vicious stories” about what might have occurred helped nobody.
In Claudia Lawrence: A Mother’s Story, a four-part series first aired on the BBC in March this year, the problems of allowing untruths about what actually occurred to be spread is further explained, but what is now required is for a community to come together and to finally realise that it is time to put aside past allegiances. It is time to do justice for this missing-for-fifteen-years lady and her family.
To watch the full-length version of the Claudia Lawrence ‘Crime Suspect’ programme on TalkTV, click here.
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 and watch his current nightly show on YouTube at 8.30pm daily.
On Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “It’s been 15 years since chef Claudia Lawrence vanished into thin air in Heworth, York. What do you think happened to her?” He added the hashtags: #ClaudiaLawrence #Heworth #York #Yorkshire #chef #missingpeople #missing #vanish #vanished #murder #accident #death #strangecases #ClaudiasLaw #anniversary and offered four options. 78.7% of respondents favoured the answer: “Killed, someone she knew” whilst only 6.5% believe that she “disappeared” seeking a “new life.”Claudia Lawrence was born on 27th February 1974 in Malton in the North Riding of Yorshire. She vanished on either the evening of the 18th March 2009 or the morning of 19th March 2009 in Heworth, York. She has never been seen or heard from again since.A mind map produced by Matthew Steeples about the case. Whilst it is just a starting point, it illustrates the links between different members of the community of Heworth, York and the presumed victim of murder most likely. It is now time for members of that community to think of justice and reexamine their allegiances; time has passed and surely now, it is time for those that clearly know to finally tell the truth about what occurred on 18th March 2009.‘Crime Suspect’ aired its programme about the vanished-likely-murdered chef on 5th April 2024 with Peter Bleksley as host. The daughter of a solicitor and town mayor has been missing now for over 15 years and not one trace of her has been found to date.During the programme, there was much discussion of Miss Lawrence’s activities at a pub just six doors from her home, The Nag’s Head in Heworth, as well as at other hostelries she frequented.
After ‘Has-Been’ Prince Harry nonsensically claimed he was pursued for TWO HOURS by paparazzi, all he has proven is that he’s nothing but a whining whingebag
After having put in an appearance at the astoundingly overpriced £795,000 ($1 million, €915,000 or درهم3.7 million) for two tables Ms. Foundation for Women awards dinner at the Ziegfeld Ballroom at 141 West 54th Street – where the mendacious menace formerly known as Meghan Markle laughably received a ‘Woman of Vision award in spite of clearly being totally lacking in ‘vision’ of anything other than power and privilege – the trio claim to have been involved in a two hour “near catastrophic” car chase around Manhattan.
An unnamed spokesperson for ‘Walmart Wallis’ and her dopey drip ‘Has-Been’ hubby subsequently whined:
“[On Tuesday[ night, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and [Doria] Ragland were involved in a near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi.”
“This relentless pursuit, lasting over two hours, resulted in multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD officers.”
“While being a public figure comes with a level of interest from the public, it should never come at the cost of anyone’s safety.”
“Dissemination of these images, given the ways in which they were obtained, encourages a highly intrusive practice that is dangerous to all in involved.”
However, according to The Sun: “Cabbie Sukhcharn Singh, who picked up the Sussexes and Meghan’s mum Doria Ragland, said they ‘obviously didn’t grow up in New York.’ He added: ‘I think that’s all, you know, exaggerated. I don’t think I’d call it a chase.’”
Going further the paper added: “A high-ranking NYPD insider said the chase ‘definitely wasn’t two hours,’ adding its escort had around 20 minutes of interaction with Meghan and Harry’s convoy.”
Speaking to The Guardian, Julian Phillips, NYPD deputy commissioner for public information, observed:
“The NYPD assisted the private security team protecting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. There were numerous photographers that made their transport challenging. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived at their destination and there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests in regard.”
Tellingly: “Buckingham Palace has declined to comment on the reports,” but, naturally, the meddling mouthpiece Omid Scobie had to get his plastic-not-fantastic face onto the screens to spout salaciously about the non-incident. Speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight – a show that should know better than to bring on this tittle-tattling twerp – the one-time ‘bestie’ of the not-so-glamorous glamour model Jodie Marsh whinged:
“It is impossible not to think of Princess Diana when we hear about car accidents and this kind of aggressive paparazzi chase and so, I was really surprised to hear from sources that not one member of the royal family – including King Charles and Prince William, who are obviously heavily affected by Princess Diana’s death – had not reached out to Prince Harry hours after this news had broken.”
“You know, it was sort of on every single headline around the world. Sadly, that shows the kind of disrepair that that relationship is. It is hard not to forget that Harry was here just a couple of weeks ago for King Charles’s coronation.”
“You would have thought that that may go towards building some kind of path towards reconciliation in some way, but it seems like that’s not felt on the other side and that would no doubt of been a sort of disappointing addition to what had already been a traumatic 12 hours for the couple.”
It is now time for just one further development; it is time for ‘MeGain’ and ‘Has-Been’ to take a taxi to Siberia.
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.
This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “Do you believe claims of dopey drip Prince Harry & his mendacious menace wife, the wicked wench formerly known as Meghan Markle, that they spent TWO HOURS being chased around NYC by paparazzi?” By 11:30am on Friday 19th May 2023, the majority of respondents favoured the answer: “No; exaggerated nonsense.”
All of the Meghan Markle fans in my mentions screaming “NO-ONE SAID IT WAS A HIGH SPEED CHASE”. Errrr, straight from their mouthpiece Omid Scobie telling lies as per usual stating it reached 80mph
— FAN of the Prince & Princess of Wales (@TribesBritannia) May 18, 2023
On ‘Newsnight’ PR peddling pillock Omid Scobie whined: “It is impossible not to think of Princess Diana when we hear about car accidents and this kind of aggressive paparazzi chase and so, I was really surprised to hear from sources that not one member of the royal family – including King Charles and Prince William, who are obviously heavily affected by Princess Diana’s death – had not reached out to Prince Harry hours after this news had broken. You know, it was sort of on every single headline around the world. Sadly, that shows the kind of disrepair that that relationship is. It is hard not to forget that Harry was here just a couple of weeks ago for King Charles’s coronation. You would have thought that that may go towards building some kind of path towards reconciliation in some way, but it seems like that’s not felt on the other side and that would no doubt of been a sort of disappointing addition to what had already been a traumatic 12 hours for the couple.Omid Scobie being sent on a media circuit gadabout to bang on about the non-event is further proof that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have well and truly lost the plot. This couple would do well to belt up, wrap up and shut up, but sadly they simply won’t.On Friday morning, Matthew Steeples observed on Twitter: “Prince Harry is a brain dead berk. Period.” Hundreds of people liked and shared the tweet and thus provided indication of how the public view the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as now nothing but a laughing stock and in the league of the late Duke and Duchess of Windsor; here is a couple who frankly would do better just to give up. Equally, the former Meghan Markle’s decision to accept an award has rightly been called out. Royals should GIVE OUT awards, they SHOULD NOT accept them. Here is another example of the duo’s attitude of “rights over responsibilities” shining through. Shame on the pair of rotten toerags.An annotated map, courtesy of a ‘Daily Mail’ report, shows the route the couple took. It proves that their claim of the incident lasting two hours is total twaddle. This ‘storm-in-a-teacup’ is nothing but just that. In attempting to play the Diana, Princess of Wales accident card, all the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have achieved is to make utter fools of themselves. They should be reminded: “When you are in a hole, it is best to stop digging.”
What’s the truth about the many ‘curious stories’ that abound about the Duchess of Sussex?
Of her claiming having got married the day before she actually did, Mr Markle stated: “Lying about the archbishop? How can you say: ‘We’ve been married three days before we got married’? Her lies are so obvious, I don’t know why she says them.”
Her very own half-sister, Samantha Markle, who is currently bringing a defamation case against her, has called her out as a liar on multiple occasions also. It has been proven that the duchess’s claim that she hasn’t seen her sibling in over 20 years was untrue given a photo of the pair together 14 years ago proves quite to the contrary.
Her very own half-brother, Thomas Jr., said of her: “I told Prince Harry, I think she’s going to ruin your life. She’s very shallow… She’s a phony, a bully, a jaded, shallow, conceited woman.”
The wife of Prince Harry has been called out on multiple occasions for spinning stories against other members of the royal family, most especially the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Queen Camilla.
Staff who’ve worked for her have complained that she is a bully and investigations into this remain ongoing.
The Duchess of Sussex is a known manipulator of the press and paparazzis and it has been claimed that she’ll “twist the truth” to get any headline she wants.
Questions remain as to how many times she’s actually been married in total. Some say twice, some say thrice.
What’s the truth about Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland? Is this clearly equally manipulative woman an honest and decent citizen or is she a jailbird who has spent time in the clink?
Did the ‘Montecito Meddler’ meet Prince Andrew or Prince Harry first? Rumours abound that she could have spent time and holidayed with the former as long ago as 2001 and that her claim to have no prior knowledge of the royal family until 2016 is just utter baloney.
Burgh Island in South Devon, where Agatha Christie wrote several novels and The Beatles stayed also, goes on sale for the staggering sum of £15 million
Described as “the best hotel west of The Ritz” by its current owner Giles Fuchs, a favourite South Devon bolthole of Agatha Christie has just come up for sale for £15 million. It was here that the ‘Queen of Crime’ had her own writer’s retreat and where also that she was inspired to pen both And Then There Were None and Evil Under The Sun.
Burgh Island is situated just 820-feet from the mainland and is approachable by foot at low tide and accessible by a sea tractor at high tide; it also has a helipad for those wishing to make a grand entrance. Though 3 hours from London Paddington by train, those that have visited in the past – amongst them the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Sir Winston Churchill and J. M. W. Turner even – supposedly returned again and again captivated, like Christie, by its seclusion and beauty.
The 21-acre island – which has gone through several name changes itself and was once known as St Michael’s Island – was the inspiration for Christie’s fictional ‘Soldier Island’ in a novel titled Ten Little Niggers when it was first published in 1939. The 272-page book was subsequently retitled Ten Little Indians and then And Then There Were None because of concerns about offending – even prior to the arrival of ‘wokery’ and ‘cancel culture’ – the American market.
The strategy worked as to this day, the novel became both the best-selling crime and the best-selling mystery novel of all-time. Critics enthuse of what is a brilliantly warped yet rationally believable psychological thriller that follows the story of eight people invited to an isolated private island to meet their ultimate demise alongside their two caretaker hosts at a house party from hell. Unsurprisingly, since Christie produced a version for the stage in 1943, there have been more adaptations for that medium as well as for film, radio and television adaptations than of any of her other works.
A clear work of genius in both plot and the financial returns it generated for its author, And Then There Were None was actually structured around an 1869 minstrel song titled Ten Little Niggers by the British songwriter Frank Green. The rhyme – as published for these politically correct times where even future editions of Roald Dahl’s book will no longer feature the adjective ‘fat’ – reads:
Ten little Soldier Boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Soldier Boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Soldier Boys travelling in Devon; One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Soldier Boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.
Six little Soldier Boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.
Five little Soldier Boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four.
Four little Soldier Boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Soldier Boy left all alone; He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.
Whilst today’s visitors to the “comprehensively refurbished,” Grade II listed, 25-bedroom Burgh Island Hotel certainly are unlikely to face the unhappy endings of Christie’s ten unfortunates, they are able to enjoy “fine dining” at its two restaurants, and cocktails in its Palm Court bar. One can quite easily imagine Hercule Poirot sleuthing in or at the island’s 14th century pub, The Pilchard Inn. In addition, there is what is called the ‘Mermaid Pool’ – a naturally enclosed body of seawater where guests can swim or if, in the unlikely event they’d take a break from Dubai, perhaps ‘Wagatha Christie’ Coleen Rooney could witness Rebekah Vardy ‘Davy Jones-ing’ her mobile telephone for a second time even.
Of this “iconic landmark” – which a company ultimately controlled by Mr Fuchs paid around £5 million for in 2018 – selling agents Knight Frank enthused in their marketing material:
“The private island setting is virtually unique in the UK and the hotel, which has been fully restored, is one of the finest examples of working Art Deco architecture in Europe.”
“Burgh Island is a natural micro-environment, with wildlife to observe and cliff walks around the circumference. The sandy tidal beach on the eastern (mainland-facing) side is washed by the tide twice daily and so is always clean.”
Whilst the realty firm lauds total sales of in excess of £6 million for the year ending 2022, Agatha Christie actually best surmises why Mr Fuchs is seek to sell: “The best of an island is once you get there – you can’t go any farther… You’ve come to the end of things.” This week PlymouthLive revealed his company, Office Space in Town Limited (OSiT), “has debts of £130 million and is paying nearly £7 million in interests on its loans each year… [It] has borrowed huge sums and is relying on London property prices to remain stable in order to avoid breaching covenant terms which would mean loans having to be immediately repaid and potentially leading to the business going bust.”
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.
Pictured Top – The island, hotel and The Pilchard Inn (top left); David Suchet as Poirot filmed ‘Evil Under The Sun’ there in 2001 (bottom left) and the island’s most famous visitor, Dame Agatha Christie DBE (right).
The island is being marketed by Knight Frank at a staggering price of £15 million after being sold last in 2018 for £5 million and prior for £2 million in 2001. The hotel includes 25 en-suite guest bedrooms and suites as well as the Ballroom Restaurant (64 covers), the Nettlefold Restaurant (72 covers), the Palm Court bar and lounge (42 covers) and The Pilchard Inn (35 internal and 114 external covers). There is also a billiards room, sauna and treatment room, a staff house with 9 bedrooms, a car park on the mainland with 18 spaces and a helipad. The property is offered on a freehold basis.Dame Agatha Christie DBE (1890 – 1976) remains to this day the world’s best-selling crime author. She penned 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, as well as the world’s longest-running play, ‘The Mousetrap.’ Over a billion copies of her works in the English language and a billion in translation have been sold; most notable are ‘Murder on the Orient Express,’ ‘Death on the Nile,’ ‘The Murder at the Vicarage’ and ‘The A. B. C. Murders.’‘And Then There Were None’ began life as ‘Ten Little Niggers’ and via being ‘Ten Little Indians’ gained its present title to suit the American market. Christie claimed it was the most difficult of her books to write, but it is also one of her most popular – over 100 million copies have been sold and the work stands as the sixth best-selling title (any language, including reference works) of all-time.‘Evil Under The Sun’ (1931) – which features an investigation into the murder of a flirtatious but not liked woman who is murdered whilst on holiday in Devon –remains one of Christie’s most popular works. It has been adapted multiple times and became a feature film in 1982 with Peter Ustinov as Poirot. In 2001, David Suchet played the detective in a version with alterations including the addition of the characters of Hastings, Japp and Miss Lemon – none of whom appear in the original novel. A PC game version of the story has even been made and in 1999, John Moffat played Poirot for a BBC Radio 4 adaptation. Here, the cast are seen getting into Burgh Island’s famous sea-tractor during filming.Roguish antiques dealer Lovejoy (Ian McShane) and his eccentric sidekick Tinker (Dudley Sutton) brought a new era of drama to Burgh Island when they filmed an episode there titled ‘Somewhere – Over the Rainbow?’ It was first shown in October 1994 and featured them going there to save Tinker’s financially strapped sister and her wheelchair-bound husband (presented as owners of the hotel) from losing it to a greedy property developer. The key to the story is finding a treasure trove hidden there by a notorious smuggler centuries earlier.Self-made multi-millionaire Giles Fuchs is the current owner of Burgh Island. He began his career as an estate agent, claims to have invested more than £1 million renovating the hotel to turn into something that looks “pretty spectacular.” He doubled the number of staff on site, brought in Mark Mosimann, son of King Charles III’s favourite chef, Anton Mosimann, and also bought accommodation on the mainland for some of the hotel’s workers to live in. In July 2020, he described the hotel as “like a house party” and the island as “beautiful” in comments to ‘Great British Life’ magazine.
The ‘Famous Face’ Guest List – Burgh Island, Bigbury-on-Sea, South Devon, TQ7 4BG, United Kingdom (Formerly Known As St Michael’s Island, Borough Island And Bur Island)
Dancer and singer Josephine Baker.
Musicians The Beatles – The band stayed there before playing a concert in nearby Plymouth.
World speed record holder Malcolm Campbell.
Agatha Christie – The prolific author is described as having made the island “her second home” and wrote And Then There Were None (1939) and Evil Under The Sun (1941) there. A beach hut was built for her to use as a “writer’s retreat.”
Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill – The politician supposedly met with President Dwight Eisenhower there prior to D-Day.
Flamboyant actor, playwright and singer Noël Coward – He supposedly booked in for three days, but stayed for three weeks and clearly very much enjoyed A Room With A View.
Shipping heiress, socialite and muse Nancy Cunard.
Odeon cinema chain founder Oscar Deutsche – The businessman travelled to the island with his wife and companion, World War One fighter ace Sol Joseph, in the latter’s Ford V8 Pilot just before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Actor and singer-songwriter George Formby – He is said to have been viewed as “the cheeky northern chappie who proudly picknicked on Bigbury Beach” during his visit who “guests didn’t know what to make of.”
Aviator Amy Johnson.
Actress Gertrude Lawrence.
Designer of the Spitfire R. J. Mitchell.
Last Viceroy of India Lord Mountbatten of Burma.
Artist J. M. W. Turner – The painter was “cast ashore during rough weather and ‘with a pencil, clambered nearly to the summit of the island’ to sketch its wilderness.”
Renegade royals The Duke and Duchess of Windsor – Said to have travelled to the islands on “frequent occasions” with their aide-de-camp Major Edward ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe.
In 1926, Christie disappeared from her home in Berkshire for 11 days. Mayhem and a manhunt worthy of her murder mystery books followed. Surprisingly, she didn’t choose to head to Burgh Island, but maybe that would have made her too easy to find given her love of the place. The reason for her decision to ‘vanish’ remains hotly contested today and this indeed will likely forever remain in the realms of the debate over who Jack the Ripper was – a case forever unsolved.
The Dates, Developments & Numbers – Burgh Island’s History
May 2023 – Placed for sale for £15 million ($18.8 million, €17.2 million or درهم69 million) through agents Matthew Smith and Henry Jackson of Knight Frank.
Commenting of the sale, Giles Fuchs told Plymouth Live: “Ownership of the Burgh Island Hotel has provided me with a wonderful journey and given me the true privilege of restoring and enhancing one of the most treasured tourist assets in the UK over the past few years. What we have achieved is an immense source of pride for all of us who have been involved and, in our work, we have always tried to ensure that the hotel’s 1920s spirit remains just as vibrant in the 2020s.”
Speaking to The Caterer, Matthew Smith of Knight Frank added: “It is rare for a hotel of such character and heritage to come to the open market.
“In recent years the buildings have received considerable investment and operates as a thriving business which generated in excess of £6 million ($7.5 million, €6.9 million or درهم27.6 million) turnover in its most recent financial year.”
“This is a unique opportunity to acquire a truly iconic hotel that benefits from a number of value-add opportunities to further develop the trading performance, and will no doubt appeal to a global investor audience.”
February 2023 – Plymouth Live reported on rumours about the hotel being for sale for £9 million ($11.3 million, €10.3 million or درهم41.4 million) after an advertisement appeared on Knight Frank’s website for a “mystery property” matching the description of it. Responding at the time, Henry Jackson of Knight Frank stated: “Burgh Island is not on the market. I don’t know where these rumours come from. At the time, the PR firm representing the hotel, Sapience Communications, added: “We have nothing additional to add.”
December 2022 – Planning permission granted for 12 additional guest bedrooms and suites and 13 staff bedrooms by South Hams District Council. Approval was also granted for extension of two of the restaurants and a spa facility.
This redevelopment, BBC News recently reported, will cost £7 million to £10 million ($8.8 million to $12.5 million, €8 million to €11.5 million or درهم32.2 million to درهم45.9 million) and of it, Mr Fuchs observed:
“I’m not the man for that job because once you start that, you need to do the whole thing. It’s also a substantial amount of cash and I don’t want to find [it], thanks very much.”
“We’ve got a big business in London and I could divert funds but the hotel was always about a love story; it was saving something that had been around for years that our family fell in love with.
“To divert more funds doesn’t make any sense to us. We want to buy more buildings in London.”
“She’s a demanding mistress and I ended up getting more and more involved at the expense of my life and other businesses, [but] I’m really pleased we’ve turned it around.”
Autumn 2021 – Burgh Island Limited accounts valued the business at £9.5 million ($11.9 million, €10.9 million or درهم43.7 million). At the time, profits of £296,000 ($370,000, €339,000 or درهم1.4 million) were listed down from £336,000 ($420,000, €385,000 or درهم1.5 million) in 2020.
The company was reported as employing 63 people with a wage bill of £1.6 million ($2 million, €1.8 million or درهم7.4 million). It paid dividends of £2 million ($2.5 million, €2.3 million or درهم9.2 million).
Mid 2018 – Sold by then owners Deborah Clark and Tony Orchard to Office Space in Town Ltd (OSiT), a company ultimately controlled by a London based businessman named Giles Fuchs and his sister Nichola, for a sum of £5 million ($6.3 million, €X million or درهم23 million).
January 2018 – Valued by estate agents Savills at £8.64 million ($10.81 million, €9.90 million or درهم39.69 million).
2012 – Singer-songwriter Ben Howard named his EP after the island.
2003 – The then owners closed the public footpaths on the island; this move was reversed in 2006 other than the routes closest to the hotel.
2002 – Used as a location for the television adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under The Sun.
2001 – Sold for £2 million ($2.5 million, €2.3 million or درهم9.2 million).
2001 – Used as the location of a television adaptation of Evil Under The Sun starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.
2001 and 2008 – Used as the location for ITV’s GMTV show Inch-loss Island.
1994 – Used as the location for an episode of the BBC series Lovejoy titled ‘Somewhere – Over the Rainbow?’
1987 – Used as a location in the BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple: Nemesis.
1986 – Sold to a couple named Tony and Beatrice Porter, who “faithfully restored it to its former Art Deco glory.”
1965 – Used as a location for the film Catch Me If You Can.
1950s – Renovated, but instead of being used as a hotel became self-catering accommodation.
1939 – 1945 – Used by the RAF as a recovery centre for wounded RAF personnel. During this period, the top two floors of the main building suffered damaged after a direct hit by a bomb.
1927 – Sold to the filmmaker Archibald Nettlefold. He constructed a more substantial 25-room hotel in the Art Deco style in 1929 and after it became popular in the 1930s, added improvements and extensions in 1932 including ‘The Captain’s Cabin’ – it had been taken from HMS Ganges, a warship built in 1821.
1890s – Purchased by the music hall star George H. Chirgwin. He built a prefabricated wooden house to use for weekend parties.
14th century – The Pilchard Inn, the ‘local’ hostelry, is constructed circa 1336. It is believed to have begun life as guest lodgings for a monastery that possibly stood on the site of the current hotel.
Iron Age to Sub-Roman period – First settlers, tin traders, believed to have arrived.
More Images Of Burgh Island…
The approach to Burgh Island at low tide.Many people approach on foot; there are also a number of footpaths for visitors to enjoy once they get to the island.For guests of the hotel, there is a sea tractor they can travel on. Those that have experienced this wonderful contraption have commented on how much they have enjoyed the journey back and forth to and from the mainland.The gates to the hotel are suitably reflective of the Art Deco style of the property.The building is striking and one can certainly see what attracted the likes of Agatha Christie to it and the island.The Palm Court features a restored circular skylight. It is stunning and this is certainly a place where one can imagine such people as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Nancy Cunard sipping martinis there of an evening whilst looking out to sea.One of two restaurants in the main hotel. The Nettlefold offers menus that are said to reflect the “uniquely wild island location.”The second, The Grand Ballroom, is a fine dining restaurant that is lauded as serving “award-winning food” in a setting that is styled around the “grandeur of a bygone era.”The guest rooms, such as ‘The Christie Room,’ have primarily been named after the famous faces who’ve stayed at the hotel in times past.The current owner has fully refurbished the property and furnished it with in-fitting Art Deco items.One of 25 bedrooms and suites at The Burgh Island Hotel; the majority enjoy superb views out to sea and to the South Devon countryside also.Another bedroom, this one with a private balcony.The Artist’s Studio is situated above The Pilchard Inn. It is a dog friendly room and just a few yards walk from the main Burgh Island Hotel building.Agatha’s Beach House has been described as “one of the sexiest hotel rooms in the UK” and is undoubtedly the ultimate place to stay on Burgh Island. It was built specifically for Agatha Christie in the 1930s and was where she penned both of her Burgh Island novels. It has a sitting room, outdoor hot tub, sun decks right onto the sea and includes a king sized bed, a double sofa bed and two single beds.The building from another angle.The sitting room of Agatha’s Beach House has the benefit of the most wonderful of aspects.It also has a woodburning stove.The Pilchard Inn was supposedly built in the 14th century as a lodging house for visitors to the monastery that is believed to have been on the island at that time. It is one of the oldest pubs in Devon.The bar.A traditional space perfect for drinks by the fire.Many of the rooms and suites at the Burgh Island Hotel, such as the Noël Coward suite, allow guests to experience the drama of the sea beyond.The ‘Mermaid Pool’ is a natural seawater pool in a “rugged” setting.Another view of this extremely unusual place to swim. Burgh Island is partly powered by solar panels.South Hams Council approved plans for additional rooms and additional staff accommodation at the Burgh Island Hotel in December 2022.The 21-acre island is just across the water from Bigbury-on-Sea.From a distance, one can genuinely see what attracted the great and the good to Burgh Island.
Matthew Steeples takes a look at a £36 million Kensington mansion formerly owned by disgraced business tycoons Alan Bond and Lord Black; its former chatelaine was known for stating “I have an extravagance that know no bounds”
Sir Winston Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames once described the buccaneering businessman and media tycoon Lord Black of Crossharbour as “London’s biggest bore unhung” whilst his wife, Lady Black – better known as the author and journalist Barbara Amiel – was suggested to be just a “rich bitch” by Sarah Sands in a “case for the defence” article in the Independent in October 2006.
“Poster boy for the 80s” turned fraudster and jailbird Alan Bond (1938 – 2015) was an English-Australian businessman equally Marmite-like in being liked or loathed and now a Kensington mansion owned for a time by both subsequently disgraced businessmen is once again for sale.
14 Cottesmore Gardens, formerly known as 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens, was purchased by Alan Bond’s Satellite Group for £7 million in the 1980s and sold by administrators of that business to Conrad Black and his wife for the knockdown sum of just £3.5 million in 1992.
Plain old Mr and Mrs Black (as they then were) lavished further millions – some of which came from the company Hollinger International, Inc., which ultimately resulted in their downfall – on the double fronted 19th century mansion and used it for entertaining on a lavish scale. Guests, including the likes of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Joan Collins, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair, were said to flock to the parties they gave there, but in 2005 these gatherings of upto 400 people at a time came to an almighty end.
Forced to sell at a bargain basement price of just £13.1 million on an ask of £17.5 million as the Canadian born billionaire faced jail time in America, Lord and Lady Black’s tenure was over and the residence saw its “arriviste torch” passed to Juan and Adriana Villalonga, a couple described as “a Mexican telecom czar and his beauty-queen wife.” Of what came next, The Globe And Mail’s Paul Waldie pointedly penned in February 2007: “[They] quickly erased many of the features that the Blacks prized.”
Once again for sale as of April 2023, the value of 14 Cottesmore Gardens has again been deemed to have substantially risen. Knight Frank offer the 12,310 square foot, five-storey residence at a punchy price of £36 million and laud it as “imposing” and “presented in good order throughout.” They add that a “pre-planning consultation” has found that further accommodation could be added that would take the internal space to more than 15,000 square feet; business barons with deep pockets only need apply.
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.
Pictured Top – 54-foot wide 14 Cottesmore Gardens is described by selling agents Knight Frank as “offering lateral living so often requested but so hard to find in central London.” They neglect to mention that with its hedges cut back to the minimum, the place actually looks extremely forlorn.
Flamboyant Lord and Lady Black dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette for a party at Kensington Palace in 2000. For a time, the couple employed 17 butlers (if Tom Bower is to be believed) and had two private jets and homes – aside from the 19th Cottesmore Gardens mansion – in New York, Palm Beach and Toronto. “Guests packed into their parties at Cottesmore Gardens,” Bower remarked in his 2006 book the couple, adding: “Amiel was a big spender… Under the control of senior butler Andrew Lightwood, second butler Peter Wilson and a succession of third butlers, Amiel’s life in Kensington had become what her constantly changing staff called ‘bizarre.’ Each recruit was taken by Lightwood on an introductory tour of the house, ending on the roof. ‘Make sure the landing lights are on at all times,’ instructed Lightwood solemnly, ‘because Madame takes off from here on her broomstick looking for cats. She needs the lights to guide her return.’ His face would crack into a smile. ‘Most important, take care that she never sees you. She hates seeing any of us.’ Amiel’s eccentricity demanded that her staff hid whenever she approached, diving into cupboards if necessary, and never entered her quarters when she was present. Every day, all the bed linen was changed and subjected to ‘the penny test.’ A coin was dropped onto the sheets. If it failed to bounce they were not drawn sufficiently tight. Every cushion was arranged to a precise pre-ordained position, and each towel placed exactly as Amiel had predetermined. ‘Andrew!’ she screamed down the telephone on one memorable occasion, ‘the towels are in the wrong place!’ Lightwood, as Amiel knew, was in New York, but he was expected to telephone the staff in the house in London to rectify the error. ‘You f**king pillock!’ she yelled at another member of staff for reading her ‘Daily Mail’ before it was delivered to her.”Barbara Amiel Black (or ‘Lady Black’ as she prefers to be known) in her drawing room at Cottesmore Gardens (pictured). Of her, Sarah Sands on Lord and Lady Black in the ‘Independent’ in October 2006 opined: “Conrad and Barbara in their monstrous, glamorous way, knew how to throw parties. The talk was of geo-politics and hemlines. Nowadays, we scorn their extravagance and doubt the source of their wealth with prune-faced hindsight. Meanwhile, everyone is sucking up to Russians…. Barbara would disingenuously begin her midnight calls to me by saying in her low, breathy voice: ‘I hope I am not disturbing you.’ She would then offer little glimpses of her own home life. I remember her mentioning that Conrad Black was upstairs playing with his fleet of toy gun ships in the bath… I remember her examining an exhibition of doll’s houses at the Chelsea Flower Show and sighing how restful it would be to live in this cosy little home. How she envied people in small houses. The burden of wealth was one of her more dangerous fantasies. At one of her Gatsby-style parties in Kensington, she flinched at the elaborate canapés on offer: ‘Really, all I want is a sausage,’ she said, piteously. Then, she ran a hand down her inconceivably expensive dress and whispered: ‘I hate these parties, I am so shy.’ Later, I was invited to her boudoir, where she lay on cushion surrounded by her women friends. She was Kensington’s Cleopatra, surrounded by maidens such as the designer and Forte daughter Olga Polizzi, the political thinker Tessa Keswick and the writer Miriam Gross.”The very same drawing room at 14 Cottesmore Gardens today. The décor is now somewhat more modern and less ‘classical country house-ified.’ It’s certainly more Soho Farmhouse than Alberto Pinto in style; it is currently a space that the former Meghan Markle would feel more at home than say, perhaps, the likes of Lord and Lady Black’s chum Ghislaine Maxwell and her fellow noxious nonce Ponzi scheming paedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Pinto was responsible, it should be noted, for the designs of most of Epstein’s residences.The front elevation of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens during the era it was owned by Lord and Lady Black.Multiple entries for Lord and Lady Black during the time they owned 14 Cottesmore Gardens appeared in the ‘Little Black Book’ address book often attributed as being that of the friends and associates of Jeffrey Epstein, but that featured more of the contacts of Ghislaine Maxwell in fact. In October 2020, Barbara Amiel took revenge on the pension pot plunderer’s padeophile sex trafficker daughter by featuring her in her “score-settling” memoir ‘Friends & Enemies: A Life in Vogue, Prison, & Park Avenue.” Maxwell had “dumped” Lady Black when Lord Black was being investigated for fraud. She wrote of their last meeting: “We were friends – so putting on my ‘So good to see you’ face, I headed for her. She bolted. Turned that sharp tight little turn when you really want to get away. And that was it.” Of the clear lover of plastic surgery Lady Black, in October 2020, Sarah Sands remarked in ‘The Mail on Sunday’: “She had a bohemian, almost masculine, view of opportunistic sex. She describes, for instance, accompanying an early love in his white Triumph sports car ‘in which once or twice I had performed fellatio to the fascination of passing truck drivers, all for fun.’”After getting out of the clink in 2012, Lord and Lady Black decided to go back on the ‘razzle-dazzle’ and posed for photographers before heading back to London to party with friends. In May 2019, the rambunctious peer arrogantly announced he’d be returning to the House of Lords after President Donald Trump pardoned and praised him. Commenting, of this pardon, Lord Black declared: “I’m not bitter… Officially in the United States, I’ve never been charged and I won in the end. It was a war and there are casualties in wars. I lost the time, I lost a lot of money, but as you can see my standards of living isn’t bad… The truth is, these, last 15 years, I haven’t been as interested in British politics as I was before – in the Thatcher years. It could be quite interesting again, in fact it is as of right now – it’s very interesting… It’s my good fortune that at a time when it is feasible, it happens – by happy coincidence – that it is a time of great fermentation in British public affairs.” Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem to have turned up on occasions since.The previous owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens, Alan Bond (1938 – 2015), will forever be remembered as “Australia’s most notorious corporate criminal.” Born in Hammersmith, London, Bond’s first crime occurred when he was charged with theft aged 14 in Fremantle in Australia and whilst he is remembered for bankrolling the successful challenge for the 1983 America’s Cup, it is for causing the then biggest corporate collapse in Australian history that he will be go down in history. Former Miss Mexico Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros (at the time Adriana Villalonga) bought the house in 2005. She divorced the Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga in 2009 and married the French businessman Emmanuel Schreder in Ibiza in June 2013. In August 2014, the magazine ‘Quién’ featured the model and television presenter on its cover and at that time she described her new husband as “the love of my life.”Madrid born Juan Villalonga became the joint owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens with his then wife Adriana Abascal – the couple were married between 2000 and 2009 – in 2005. He is listed on Companies House as being a director of the now dissolved Medikidz Foundation at the address between August 2009 and November 2013. Married since 2011 to a photographer named Vanessa Von Zitewitz, Mr Villalonga was a partner at McKinsey & Company in the 1980s, CEO for Credit Suisse First Boston and Bankers Trust in Spain in the early 1990s and CEO of Telefónica from 1996 to 2000. He was named as one of the best performing chief executive officers in the world by ‘Harvard Business Review’ in 2010 and is also linked to addresses in Monaco.
The Names & Numbers – 14 Cottesmore Gardens (formerly known as ’12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens’), Kensington, London, W8 5PR, United Kingdom
April 2023 – Offered for sale for £36 million ($44.4 million, €40.9 million or درهم163.2 million) through Knight Frank. Valued on Homipi at an upper sum of £28.558 million ($35.250 million, €32.440 million or درهم129.456 million).
2009 – Mr and Mrs Villalonga divorce and subsequently Adriana Abascal married Emmanuel Schreder, a French businessman, in Ibiza in June 2013.
2005 – Sold by Lord and Lady Black for £13.1 million ($16.2 million, €14.9 million or درهم59.4 million) to Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga Navarro and Mexican model, Miss Mexico winner and television presenter Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros Villalonga.
October 2004 – Placed for sale for £17.5 million ($21.6 million, €19.9 million or درهم79.3 million) according to NZ Herald.
January 2004 – Valued at £14 million ($17.3 million, €15.9 million or درهم63.5 million) according to The Globe And Mail. At the time, the “mansion” in “the upscale Kensington neighbourhood” was described as having “10 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a swimming pool.”
Featured also in The Guardian in an article by Chris Tryhorn. Quoting Lord Black, he shared: “At a certain price, anything is for sale. [It has] been shown to people in the not-too-distant-past.”
Going further, Tryhorn added: “Artwork from the 18th and 19th centuries lines the walls, and there is plenty of storage space for the extensive wardrobe and shoe collection of Lord Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel, who famously declared once that her ‘extravagence knows no bounds.’ … It was originally two homes and one of the two original front doors is now a ‘deliveries’ entrance. He has used it in the past to host dinners with butler and maid service that was part-paid by Hollinger.”
Also in 2004, in a profile in The Spectator, Peter Oborne wrote:
“Every year the Blacks threw two parties, one at Christmas and one summer event, at their double-fronted 11-bedroom mansion in Cottesmore Gardens. Everybody who mattered at the time went: Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, royalty, the playwright Tom Stoppard.”
“Some of these, injudiciously as it turned out, agreed to join the main Hollinger board. The luckier ones – Peter Carrington, Robert Salisbury – got away with being made directors of TheTelegraph. As the Tories faded out, Labour ministers started to arrive, the indefatigable Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett and other ministers eager to ingratiate themselves with the Tory press. Prince and Princess Michael of Kent were assiduous in attendance. In London, the Nineties belonged to the Blacks. They were London’s most glamorous power couple.”
“There had been a time when both Blacks had kept their feet on the ground. This ceased to be the case. One evening Barbara Black rang Charles Moore panic-stricken from her Kensington home. There had been a last-minute drop-out from one of the famous Black dinner parties. ‘I’m short of a woman,’ she told Moore. Moore surveyed the newsroom. His gaze alighted on the journalist Eleanor Mills, by chance the stepdaughter of the Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell.”
“An hour later, hastily groomed, made-up and brushed, Mills was sipping pre-dinner drinks in Cottesmore Gardens. Then disaster struck. A male guest, Max Fisher, dropped out. Mills was approached by Conrad Black. ‘Finish your drink and skedaddle,’ he told her. Barbara Black then told her to go to the kitchen and out through the servants’ door, where the driver would pick her up and take her home.”
2001 – Conrad Black is elevated to a life peerage in the United Kingdom at the suggestion of Tony Blair. He sat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords until 2007 as The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG, but took a “leave of absence” between 2012 and 2019.
28th May 1996 – The Royal Borough of Kensington And Chelsea ordered that 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens “shall be known and described” simply instead as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
Mid 1990s – The Blacks set about renovating 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens with the help of J. E. Evans Associates. Of the work in October 2006, The Sunday Times shared a segment of Tom Bower’s 2006 hatchet job Conrad and Lady Black that read: “Amiel vowed to create a palace that would attract celebrity worshipers of a power couple. Part of the first floor was to be removed to create a huge ground floor reception area.”
1992 – 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens sold by the administrators of the affairs of Alan Bond through estate agents Savills to media tycoon Conrad Black and his Watford born journalist wife Barbara Amiel Black for “well under the asking price” for a sum of £3.5 million ($4.3 million, €4 million or درهم15.9 million).
Mr Bond had been granted mortgages valued at £16.2 million ($20 million, €18.4 million or درهم73.5 million) on the property by Bell Satellite Services on the property along with two others at 4 and 16 Belgrave Mews in London, SW1 previously according to a report published by Financial Review in March 1990.
1991 – Rented to an American businessman for £6,000 per week ($7,400, €6,800 or درهم27,200 per week).
1990 – Placed in the hands of administrators of Mr Bond’s and placed for sale through Savills for a bargain basement sum of £3.8 million ($4.7 million, €4.3 million or درهم17.2 million) according to Financial Review.
1980s – Sold to Alan Bond’s Bell Satellite Group for £7 million ($8.6 million, €8 million or درهم31.7 million).
Circa 1905 – Walter Tapper is said to have “designed a library with handsome Arts and Crafts plasterwork (now removed) at the rear of the building.”
1869 – In their current marketing blurb, Knight Frank suggest: “There has been a house on the site of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens since at least 1869. The current house has been altered, extended and most notably joined over the subsequent century and a half. With the local planning department strongly opposed to further amalgamation of homes, opportunities to acquire a house of this width will be rarer still in the future.”
1850s to 1860s – Built “under the direction of David Howell, of Serjeants Inn, Fleet Street.” Mr Howell was described in 1853 as an “articled clerk to a solicitor, lately carrying on business as a solicitor.” The architecture was lauded as: “Designed in a bold classical manner, with rather fleshy consoles and modillions… and bands of Vitruvian scroll between the bases of the ground-floor windows.”
More photographs of the £36 million mansion…
An entrance hall where power and privilege have most certainly mingled previously.The 54-foot wide drawing is lauded by selling realtors Knight Frank as “arguably the best room in the house” and “double aspect.” They add: “[It has] six windows overlooking the street and additional views over the private garden to the rear.”The columns where Barbara Amiel Black once posed for photographs remain, but the subsequent owners eliminated much of the 1990s ‘brash’ that had been installed by a Watford born woman whose excess clearly offended so many.This dining room, where Conrad Black hosted presidents and prime ministers, is now somewhat diminished. The table for eight looks completely out of place and a future owner would do well to install something a little grander.A double height entertaining space was installed at the insistence of the loftier-than-lofty Lady Black in the 1990s and it remains today. However, it is now currently being used for more casual affairs such as Netflix viewing rather than being the scene of something that you’d more likely find in the ‘House of Cards’ in fact.A new owner might reinstate the grandeur of the past; sadly, however, this seems unlikely and the purchaser is more likely to be a footballer or Internet tycoon than a super-connected business tycoon.This currently very dark and very depressing study would most certainly not appeal to the very clearly very, very bright yet very, very pompous The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG – a man who is said to count Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte as “his military heroes.” Of him in July 1997, Mark Honigsbaum in the ‘Independent’ remarked: “Although Black’s grandfather had briefly been a business partner of Harold Harmsworth, the original Viscount Rothermere, it was from his father, George Montegu Black Jr, that Black learned the art of corporate warfare, the importance of historical perspective and that gambling provides a disappointing rate of return compared to the Dow Jones index… The young Conrad was precocious. At the age of eight he sank his life savings of $60 into a single share of General Motors. He also became obsessed with Napoleon, and would astound his father’s friends by reeling off details of campaigns. Another story has him washing dollar bills and hanging them out to dry on a line outside his father’s home in Toronto. The last is apocryphal – Black says he slipped in the mud and was cleaning his change – but the image of the young capitalist, wise beyond his years, is accurate. His childhood tutor, the historian Laurier LaPierre, once asked Black why he always seemed to have the air of someone waiting for something to happen… A few years ago, for instance, the rumour went round Fleet Street that Black had bought Napoleon’s preserved penis at an auction. Black denied it, but many remain convinced that Bonaparte’s body part sits in Black’s collection of military curios… Black is no philanderer and is devoted to his second wife, the former ‘Sunday Times’ columnist Barbara Amiel. They are said to be intellectual soul mates and the parties at their four-storey mansion in Kensington are famous for bringing together a cross-section of the great and good.”One could not imagine the likes of the late great Baroness Thatcher, for example, liking the idea of sitting in this extremely depressing and dark waiting area. A new owner would do well to obliterate a décor scheme that could have only been favoured by a completely colour blind banker.A room currently described as a ‘cinema room’ measures 28’6” by 21’6” and is situated at the rear of the house. One can imagine Conrad Black having sat here for hour upon hour watching historical dramas about Napoleon with the likes of chums such as the acclaimed historian Andrew Roberts, the gambling tycoon John Aspinall and the politician and diarist Alan Clark, but a new owner will be more likely next showing episodes of ‘Succession’ – based on ‘The Telegraph’ tycoon’s rival Rupert Murdoch – than viewing historical works one most definitely suspects.Dining whilst the staff cook would NEVER have been on the agenda in the era that pomposity reigned whilst Lady Black was chatelaine of 14 Cottesmore Gardens.A 2,000 square foot entire floor fit for a tycoon… The master bedroom suite of the house takes up the entirety of the second floor of the building. It incorporates not only the principal bedroom, but also a “his” dressing room and a “her” dressing room as well as a sitting area, a bathroom, a shower room and storage rooms. It has direct lift access and is bigger than the average Brit’s entire house.A dressing room in the house where Barbara Black opened up to ‘Vogue’ and displayed “closets overflowing with dazzling evening gowns, designer handbags and 100 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes. ‘I have an extravagance that knows no bounds,’ she famously declared. Unfortunately for Lady Black, the article was closely perused at investment company Tweedy, Browne, a Hollinger International shareholder.”This playroom certainly did not exist in the era that Lord and Lady Black owned the property. It would be more likely crammed with books or stuffed with Manolo Blahnik shoes than toys from Toys ‘R Us. A new owner may likely reinstate it as an additional bedroom or office or games room perhaps.The pool room measures 43’9” by 26’9” and is no doubt where Lady Black spent many an hour relaxing.The garden to the rear was where Lord and Lady Black hosted their annual summer party (with guests “spilling” into their drawing room also). In surprisingly Tardis-like fashion, the duo were able to supposedly squeeze in upto 400 guests at such occasions. Amongst those said to have enjoyed hospitality there were Joan Collins and of such, magazine publisher Nicholas Coleridge wrote: “If you get a kick out of milling about with present and former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, minor royals, dukes, editors, vastly rich Americans, distinguished historians, gossip columnists, playboys and lots of pretty ‘it’ girls, then this was the place to be.”The existing floor plan of the property illustrates the vast scale of the building offered. A buyer, Knight Frank observe, has additional options and “a pre-planning consultation has been carried out with RBKC by leading architects Studio Indigo.” They add: “[It] would completely reconfigure the house adding an additional basement floor and taking the internal space to more than 15,000 square foot. The resulting house would have a 40-foot by 41-foot south-facing rear garden.”A plan of the site as presented in 1996 when 12 and 14 became known just as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
Matthew Steeples suggests Jim Davidson should admit he got it wrong in suggesting returned to jail paedophile Gary Glitter was a “remorseful’ man who “looked ready to start a new life”
This morning, the washed-up wazzock and all-round scumbag that is Jim Davidson OBE was trending on Twitter after an interview with the ‘Mouth of the Sewer’ that is GB News’ Dan Wootton last night.
Whilst Davidson – a foul-mouthed ‘5×3’ (five kids by three of his five wives) – used the interview to bang on about “smug” Gary Lineker and how he “never particularly felt welcome” at the BBC, he neglected to comment on his thoughts on the real trending news, that of the filthy paedophile Gary Glitter being returned to jail after just 38 days in a bail hostel after breaching his licence terms.
Glitter – who was caught and photographed by another bail hostel resident using a smartphone to access the ‘Dark Web’ via something called ‘The Onion’ to attempt to snare further victims – had been visited by Davidson at the Isle of Wight prison where he was then housed by the former supermarket shelf-stacker Davidson in 2019.
Afterwards, in June 2021, Davidson shockingly and rather casually shared of his child abusing ‘chum’:
“I spoke to Paul [Gadd, AKA ‘Gary Glitter’] when I visited The Verne [prison] two years. He’s remorseful and he looked ready to start a new life.”
Instead of remarking on this very, very clear ‘error of judgment,’ speaking to Dan Wootton on GB News yesterday regarding the BBC’s #GaryGate debacle, Davidson raged:
“My political interest was cast upon me way before at Thames Television when I had The Jim Davidson Show and a man called John Howard Davis, who was a BBC producer, turned up and got rid of me and Benny Hill overnight.”
“And then, about a year later, I got a little cassette, a VHS, dropped on my desk by my manager and it [sic] said: ‘The BBC want you.’”
“I said: ‘What’s that?’ They [sic] said: ‘They want you to do this, it’s some rotten show about snooker, so me and John Virgo went and did that show and I never particularly felt welcome there.”
“I was a smell under peoples’ noses and then one day Bruce Forsyth went sick and I stepped in and did The Generation Game. I replaced him just for a day and I wasn’t particularly good, but it made Bruce get better very quick.”
“When he went to do his new deal, they said: ‘No, we’ve got Jim Davidson’ and I did The Generation Game for seven years. I did The Big Break for twelve seasons and seven seasons of The Generation Game.”
“Now look at the BBC. I’m totally erased; I am the statue that’s thrown into Bristol Docks… They gave me a million quid to go away. I had a contract with a million quid’s worth of wages and they said: ‘We’ll give you a million quid if you go away; please don’t tell anyone,” but I told you ‘Danny Boy’ [Dan Wootton].”
“I was worse [than anything else] because I was a working-class Tory. I was a traitor and I like to mess about and have a laugh and be rude and stuff on the rehearsals and it was all pretty much frowned upon.”
“They’re more concerned in being woke and ticking boxes. You know, ticking boxes; the man said to me: ‘We have to have 8.9% ethnic minorities on every show’ and so if you couldn’t get anybody that wanted to come on Big Break who was of non-white persuasion, you had to go out and kidnap some poor bugger and throw him in.”
“You know, err, it was daft and do you know what I learnt there, and I’ve been in the business forty-seven years… I’m nearly one-hundred… So, you learn a thing or two about the BBC and it’s full of people that don’t know how to make programmes. I had to tick a box and I had to be silly.”
“Now, I wouldn’t have thrown Lineker off like that and having a boss called Tim. Now come on, how scary is a Tim?”
“Now, anyway, you wouldn’t throw someone off; just turn them off. I can understand that it’s taxpayers’ money and I hate the BBC with a passion. It’s a toss-up between them and the NHS who I hate the most, but I, you know, I wouldn’t have got rid of him because now Tim’s shown himself as lily livered.”
“[Lineker] can now say what he wants, can’t he? He’s won and he’s going to be even smugger. Smug, smugger.”
“It’s upto Tim and all those silly people [what the BBC does next] and now they want to get rid of the chairman ‘cos he arranged some loan or helped Boris [Johnson]. Now, everyone’s just picking on one another. I think the BBC have lost the public; they’ve lost the dressing room.”
“You know, who do we watch now? GB News, anything but BBC. What does the BBC stand for? ‘Bring Back Corbyn,’ ‘Bring Back Communism.’”
“You know, it is a joke and we have to pay for it whether we like it or not. You know, let’s scrap it and watch GB News all day long.
Responding, this morning on Twitter, I asked:
“As Jim Davidson trends, should he apologise for his June 2021 remark: “I spoke to Paul Gadd [Gary Glitter] when I visited The Verne [prison] two years ago. He’s remorseful and he looked ready to start a new life” given the paedo has been recalled to prison after being caught on Dark Web?”
Other Twitter users took up the mantle and amongst comments were:
“I wonder if Jim Davidson still believes that Gary Glitter is remorseful and ready to start a new life?”
“Remember when Jim Davidson was funny? Me neither.”
“Fun Fact: For years the BBC didn’t give a flying sh*t about their right-wing so-called ‘comedian’ Jim Davidson’s racist/misogynistic stage show when he was hosting their flagship Saturday night show ‘The Generation Game’ #IStandWithGaryLineker.”
All that Glitters is not gold; all that is Jim Davidson is utterly toxic and now it is time for the latter to apologise for getting it well and truly wrong about one of the most evil men ever to set foot on this planet.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGGBmDZbfgE
TRAILER – Matthew Steeples will be ‘live’ with Shaun Attwood to discuss his views on Gary Glitter being returned to the clink after breaching his licence terms whilst in a bail hostel on Wednesday 15th March at 6pm GMT. Please do tune in and please do ask away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylQ6N-_gPRQ&t=0s
FULL EPISODE – This will be ‘live’ for the first time at 6pm GMT on Wednesday 15th March 2023. View here.
As Jim Davidson trends, should he apologise for his June 2021 remark: “I spoke to [Gary Glitter] when I visited The Verne [prison] 2 years ago. He’s remorseful and he looked ready to start a new life” given the paedo has been recalled to prison after being caught on Dark Web?
This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “As Jim Davidson trends, should he apologise for his June 2021 remark: “I spoke to [Gary Glitter] when I visited The Verne [prison] 2 years ago. He’s remorseful and he looked ready to start a new life” given the paedo has been recalled to prison after being caught on Dark Web?” He gave the options: A) “Yes, disgraceful remark”; B) “No, second chances matter”; C) “Cancel Davidson and Glitter” and D) “Couldn’t care less.” By 11:30am on Wednesday 15th March 2023, the majority of respondents favoured the idea of the cancellation of this noxious pair of grifters.GB News is about the only channel that will now accept the weird warblings of these two utter berks. A pair of toerags forever linked by a hashtag.Twitter users have rightly mocked the ‘entertainer’ over his decision to visit a disgraced ‘singer’ who abused children as young as 10 years old in prison. What on earth was it about the paedophile-nonce-monster Gary Glitter that attracted Jim Davidson to visit him in prison? An answer is required. The public should be told.Those that think Gary Lineker was WRONG to tweet about politics whilst working for the BBC should be reminded that both Jim Davidson and the late paedophile Sir Jimmy Savile openly campaigned for the Conservative Party and that both men also worked for the BBC. It is pure hypocrisy to call out Mr Lineker on this basis.
'What does the BBC stand for? Bring back Corbyn, bring back communism…and we have to pay for it whether we like it or not. Let's scrap it, let's watch GB News all day long.'
It is very clear that Dan Wootton has no nous when it comes to questioning Jim Davidson. Mr Wootton is clearly not a journalist prone to drilling into real stories; he just PR peddles for his chums.
Deserved “Public Hate Figure” Jim Davidson OBE’s Worst Moments…
On Great Yarmouth:
“Full of fat children of all colours.”
On London and the UK:
“I am never coming to London again… I may as well go to Dubai and be an ethnic minority there than wait five years till I become one here.”
On former UKIP leader Nigel Farage:
“The Jim Davidson of the political world.”
On beating up one of his four ex-wives:
“We’re like a couple of boxers. On the first occasion, I poked her in the eye by accident. I actually went for the mouth… The second time I gave her a shiner. I threw a bunch of keys which whacked her in the eye. Just for a giggle she kept blackening it up to make it look worse.”
“I took the wife out last night; one punch!”
On supposedly giving up on making jokes about black people:
“I can’t do impressions of Frank Bruno or Ian Wright? That’s racist, is it? But I can do Sven-Göran Eriksson?”
“I’m not going to get on my knee, and I’m not going to go ever black person I see, ‘hail you.’ I’m not going to apologise for the past; the past was the past.”
On Black Lives Matter protestors:
“Pondlife… F**king stupid.”
Of his thoughts about his chum Boris Johnson:
“Don’t listen with mother.”
On Piers Morgan (after he was paid to appear on his Life Stories programme):
“You don’t deserve to listen to anyone’s life story because you don’t f**king listen.”
On the BBC and the NHS:
“I was a smell under peoples’ noses… I’m totally erased; I am the statue that’s thrown into Bristol Docks… They gave me a million quid to go away.”
“I hate the BBC with a passion. It’s a toss-up between them and the NHS who I hate the most.”
Proving himself the ultimate ‘Brain of Britain’:
“People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die.”
After being declared bankrupt:
“My problem is money.”
On himself:
“I could cure Aids and give £1 billion to womens’ groups and people would still think I was a racist, sexist twat”.
As the modest ‘An Irish Goodbye’ actor James Martin wins an Oscar, we join those celebrating his truly deserved success and his becoming the first star with Down’s Syndrome to win at the Academy Awards
Many readers of The Steeple Times are big fans of the North Yorkshire born television chef James Martin and one of our readers, Gary Hazell, is involved in distributing his eponymous gin. 50-year-old farmer’s son Mr Martin brings joy to many every Saturday on ITV1 and his “silky smooth, flavor rich gin” most definitely goes down a treat; his passion for cars both classic and modern is also clear and he is most certainly just the kind of role model the nation needs.
After winning a BAFTA in February for his role in the short film An Irish Goodbye and last night – on the very day of his 31st birthday – adding to that with an Oscar at the 95th Academy Awards, another James Martin is now also making waves. Here, indeed, is a Northern Irishman most definitely headed to becoming one of the best-loved and most deserved luminaries of 2023.
This particular James Martin is a rising star actor whose career began when he was a guest on his father Ivan Martin’s U105 radio show on Father’s Day and Christmas Day in his youth.
Of this in December 2014, the radio presenter remarked of his son: “I never look at my son James and think: ‘There’s James and he has Down’s Syndrome.’ I just think: ‘There’s James.’ It has always been that way… James is a remarkable young man and I admire him so much. He has never let his disability hold him back. He is an ambassador for Mencap and he has spoken at the European Parliament and to the Assembly at Stormont.”
Responding about his father in the same interview for the Belfast Telegraph, the undoubted star of last night’s ceremony in Los Angeles added: “My dad and I are very close… We have great craic and a lot of banter… Dad is also supportive of my acting… I love to act and want to be a good actor.”
The 23:29-minute film was the second collaboration between co-directors Tom Berkeley and Ross White. It was released on 4th March 2022 and of his son’s success winning an Oscar for it, Ivan Martin today told BBC Radio Ulster: “All I ever wanted was for James was that he’d be happy and, I tell you what, he’s happy now… It’s been a journey. You get to the Oscars and everybody keeps saying the prize is getting there, but, truth to tell, you want to win and I had my doubts about it because one of the opposition films was a Disney film and they had it in the last week… They had really been ramping up the promotion for it, but, calm heads win the end… A film we can all be proud of… It’s just crazy. There were a few tears shed, but what an achievement. Just delighted.”
Subsequently James Martin appeared in the BBC’s Ups and Downs and starred opposite Anna Friel in ITV’s Marcella and last night he was well and truly celebrated. Speaking ahead of An Irish Goodbye being named the Best Live Action Short, Martin shared:
“The timing of it has been just perfect. You know, you can’t plan somebody’s birthday to be on the Oscars. So, it’s a big day, [but] I just want to enjoy it really, just enjoy the experience.”
“I was just in the airport going down the escalator and [I heard some say:] ‘Well done An Irish Goodbye.’ ‘I’m just thinking to myself: My God this is amazing.’”
“I always say to people, never judge a book by its cover. Not just getting a BAFTA, but going to LA is a big deal… It’s just nice to be included.”
Later, after his win and having had the 3,000 audience sing Happy Birthday to him, the modest-to-his-core actor told BBC News: “We’re just so proud to be representing Northern Ireland. To be on that stage in front of all of our cinematic heroes – it was a special moment.”
An Irish Goodbye – which was written and directed by Tom Berkeley and Ross White and also stars Seamus O’Hara, Paddy Jenkins and Michelle Fairley – has been described as a “black comedy following the reunion of estranged brothers Turlough and Lorcan following the untimely death of their mother.”
“Under the watchful eye of odd-ball parish priest Father O’Shea, the brothers’ pained reunion is worsened by the fact Turlough must now make new care arrangements for Lorcan, who has Down Syndrome.”
“A robust and dedicated farmer, Lorcan’s dream of continuing to work the land he grew up on is thwarted when Turlough decides he’s sending him to live with their aunt on the other side of Ireland.”
“But when the brothers discover an unfulfilled bucket list belonging to their late mother, Lorcan senses an opportunity: he’ll only agree to leave the farm once he and Turlough have themselves completed every single wish on their mother’s list… All one-hundred of them.”
Today, we join all those saluting the actor James Martin and urge readers to join us in raising a glass to his latest award with a snifter or two of the chef of the same name’s London Dry Gin. Cheers!
The full film can be watched on BBC iPlayer by clicking here.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
‘An Irish Goodbye’ is a short film written, produced, and directed in 2022 by Tom Berkeley and Ross White. The film stars James Martin, Seamus O’Hara, Paddy Jenkins and Michelle Fairley and is set on a farm in Northern Ireland.The award-winning actor with his radio presenter father, Ivan.On-stage to collect their award; the team behind the film used their acceptance speech to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the star-of-the-show. Co-director Ross White also stated: “Deary me, thank you so much the Academy for this incredible, incredible honour. Thank you to our fellow nominees, all the nominees for your work, and your work it inspires us so very, very much. Thank you to everybody back home and Northern Ireland who helped us make this film. We wish we had the time to list you all here, but you know who you are.” He then continued: “There’s something very important we’d like to speak about as well. This award is actually the second most important thing about today, because it’s this man’s birthday. He’s out here in Hollywood, wearing a leopard print suit jacket. We’d love to use the rest of our time up here to sing for James.”The actor’s English namesake… ‘The Steeple Times’ reviewed ITV1 ‘Saturday Morning’ presenter James Martin’s London Dry Gin in January this year and lauded it as showcasing “tradition with a twist.” To purchase a bottle, click here and do join us in urging the pair to team up for a joint tellybox appearance; it’d make for great viewing.
Soppy scrag-end Omid Scobie gets slammed for attacking real journalists over coverage of his chums’ ‘Harry & Meghan’ Netflix debut; his fake news rant about Prince Andrew is simply ridiculous
Whatever the tedious traitors that are the Duke and Duchess of Sussex do, one person can always be relied on to come out in support of their awful antics. That person? Their ever-reliable PR peddler, you’ve guessed it, the clubbing mate of not-so-glamorous ‘glamour model’ Jodie Marsh and former Heat columnist, the rabid ranter Omid Scobie.
Taking to Twitter yesterday, soppy scrag-end Scobie attempted to attack real media outlets for their coverage of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan. Clearly as is usually the case with this as always less than amused Oxfordshire born berk, the plastic-not-fantastic ‘co-author of Finding Freedomraged:
“Remember that time when all the papers universally dedicated days of outraged front pages, hysterical coverage and venomous opinion pieces about Prince Andrew? Yeah, me neither.”
“You’re reading the wrong newspapers” curtly corresponded Daily Mail journalist and author of the Wasted – the betrayal of white working class and black Caribbean boys report author Harriet Sergeant whilst another going by the handle ‘TheQueenshandbag’ shared a composite of nine front pages about Prince Andrew. They pointedly accompanied this with an “oh, do you not remember when [the Duke of York] did his TV appearance?”
Continuing, others condemned Scobie’s “selective memory issues” and suggested him to be “not very observant.” Some argued that both Prince Andrew and Prince Harry have been “as bad as one another” and that the actions of both men were “their choices.” One added: “The consequence was, at a time when she should have been mourning her late husband with the support of her family, the ruination of the last months of the Queen’s life.”
Elsewhere on on the socials yesterday, another of the rare few still supporting ‘Ginge & Cringe’ decided to throw one of his ever-famous tantrums and announced he’d be “no longer using Twitter.” Citing “misinformation is now being used to divide our world” as being behind his reasoning, the mendacious menace formerly known as Meghan Markle’s supplier of private-jets-on-tap, Sir Elton John, claimed the social media medium’s “recent change in policy” will “allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.” His moaning since 2016 about lacking a title hubby, David Furnish, no doubt personally directed this especially moronic missive. Pip pip Rocket Man!
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
Scobie’s tweet did not go down well and the majority of the reaction to it was mockery of his continual arselicking of a couple who’ve never actually even been known to have bothered to pose for a photo with him. It speaks volumes that in spite of his loyalty and devotion to PR peddling for them, it can’t be long now before the Duchess of Sussex tires of his inability to get her good headlines; will he get thrown under the bus in 2023? The likelihood seems high.In their Netflix debut, ‘Ginge & Cringe’ very clearly disrespected their relatives and the mockery of the Queen especially by the mendacious menace formerly known as Meghan Markle over how she curtsied to her was an outrage. That her dimwitted drip of a husband allowed his wife to speak about his grandmother in this manner reflected very badly upon him as much as it did on her. Of such, television legend Christine Hamilton asked: “What sort of man just sits with a simpering smile while his wife deliberately mocks his own grandmother?”Scobie has shown why he uses Twitter in the past… Everything, just everything, has to be all about him; it’s no wonder he took up with Mrs Me-Me-Me Meghan Markle. Birds of a rotten feather.Yet again today, we remind the public who Omid Scobie really is. It is time for this irrelevant sh*t-stirrer to be cancelled. In 2023, we all look forward, instead, to the return of the legendary YouTube star Sadie Quinlan (AKA ‘Yankee Wally’).
Twitter reacts to Scobie’s latest PR peddling nonsense…
One-time friend of paedophile Rolf Harris gets panned for his ‘rendition’ of ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’; Sir Cliff Richard gets called out as a “dinosaur” singing “boring rubbish” reports Matthew Steeples
“It’s Cliffmas time” cringeworthily croaked The Scotsman’s Fiona Shepherd before giving the latest from “seasonal specialist” Sir Cliff Richard just two out of five stars for his Christmas With Cliff album. She opined: “One doesn’t like to speak ill of a legend but the eternal teenager is now sounding his age.”
During an appearance on the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen last week as part of his PR peddling rounds, an over-Botoxed berk this publication has often branded a “creepy Christian crooner” (the Christian part is included because he continually bangs on about his religious tendencies and not because I have any anti-Christian bias), predictably yet again raged that he doesn’t receive enough airtime. “Pathetic,” he later raged to Newstalk Breakfast of the royalty payments he rakes in and then moaned that younger, fresher talent gets too much attention.
Going further on Saturday Kitchen, the ever boastful 82-year-old shared also that John Lennon had once told him that he was “the best thing ever to happen to British music.” Sadly, as has been the case since the Beatle’s December 1980 assassination, the late Mr Lennon has not been available to confirm or deny Sir Cliff’s ridiculous claim that “before [me] there was nothing worth listening to in British music.”
Online, unsurprisingly, this laughable loon was called out over his latest nonsense. On Twitter, one suggested Sir Cliff looked “disturbed” whilst another added “his rockin’ is ridiculous.” If you do decide to join the 45,000 who’ve watched the ‘official video’ on YouTube, as they used to say on the BBC’s Crimewatch, “don’t have nightmares, do sleep well.”
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
Pictured Top – Sir Cliff literally, as one observer remarked, “killing” the song ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree.’ He “crucified it,” they quite rightly concluded.
Scaring the public seems to be on the agenda for Sir Cliff Richard this Christmas. With a face destroyed by Botox and an overexposure to sunbeds and Bajan beaches, here is a sight that would be enough to have put even the Bernard Matthews off his turkey nosh-up.Scaring the public at is something he’s done regularly and repeatedly before; an example comes in the form of his August 2015 rendition of ‘Faithful One’ at Cilla Black OBE’s funeral. The faces of the priests to the left of him (as he attempted to ‘sing’ in a manner more suited to an appearance on ‘Top Of The Pops’) are telling of their disgust at his discourteous behaviour in a house of worship.
The shocking moment this one-time friend of the paedophiles Rolf Harris and Sir Jimmy Savile wrecked a funeral was captured in video and will horrify anyone who ever watches it.In the past, Harry Rodger Webb, as he was born, has spared no chance to get his top off. Clearly believing himself to be a sex symbol, the ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ and ‘Saviour’s Day’ singer finally, to the relief of the public, decided to spare the world from any more sights of his Botoxed body in 2021 and we hope he will keep it that way.In November 2016, “Peter Pan of Pop” Sir Cliff Richard revealed that he “cried on his kitchen floor” and announced: “I was weeping, it was just like a deep well. And I got a message from someone that said no hole is deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” In the same year, of his calendar sales, he pompously prattled: “Mine leaves David Beckham standing” and makes Kylie Minogue’s look “meagre.” Sir Cliff’s associations with the wines he produces have not always proved fruitful either. In 2006, appearing on Gordon Ramsay’s ‘The F-Word,’ the then 75-year old had a meltdown during a blind tasting. After sipping one unnamed offering, the crackpot Christian crooner announced: “That’s rubbish. I wouldn’t pay for that. It’s tainted, it’s insipid, it tastes like vinaigrette. I’d never buy that.” Ramsay, then 49, responded by remarking: “Cliff, that’s your wine.” The singer is said to have answered: “Young man, go f**k yourself.”Sir Cliff Richard with the late paedophile Sir Jimmy Savile.Sir Cliff Richard with the late paedophile Lord Boothby.Sir Cliff Richard OBE with his ‘friend,’ the convicted, sadly still living paedophile Rolf Harris.Sir Cliff Richard with his “long-term companion,” a former Roman Catholic priest named John McElynn. In his 2009 autobiography, the ‘singer’ remarked: “It has been so rare for me to find friends I know like me for myself, I am not always the best judge of character.” Going further, the goody-two-shoes added: “I’ve never wanted to trash a hotel room. My band always used to say, Cliff never trashes a hotel room. When he goes in, he usually cleans up, hoovers, checks the curtains are straight. I can’t imagine anything more childish than trashing things, which is what a lot of rockers did.”
One of Sir Cliff Richard’s worst attempts at making ‘music’ – which one critic slammed more accurately as “nauseous noise” – came in the form of ‘Rise Up’ four years ago. It was universally panned and in response the “star” complained that radio stations were being “unfair” in not giving him airtime. He’s not given up repeating that rant ever since.
A 16th century word – ‘quafftide’ – announcing that “it’s time for a drink” is something that should be added to the vocabulary of every single household in the land
Though puritans and bores object to those that like a tipple, the wonderfully wise sage that is Susie Dent – AKA ‘That Woman in Dictionary Corner’ – did it again yesterday when she shared a “one-word announcement that [means] it’s time for a drink” on her Twitter account.
That word was “quafftide” and we urge you all say “cheers to that” and to add it to your daily vocabulary. After all, it’s always quafftide wherever and whenever you jolly well want it to be.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
The gin swigging Lillian Bellamy – the character played by the delightfully sunny Sunny Ormonde in the long-running BBC Radio 4 drama series ‘The Archers’ – brings joy wherever she goes and is a reminder than gin doesn’t actually make anyone depressed. If you want joy, pour yourself a stiff G&T and yell out: “It’s quafftide.”Television presenter Adrian Chiles is right to have lamented the overuse of the tedious “drink responsibly” mantra forced upon us. He quite rightly responded by embracing “quafftide” and by having another measure.Iris Apfel is 101-years-old and she hasn’t yet stopped drinking. We say: “Cheers to her and cheers to that.”
Great Drinking Phrases
“If you can’t have one at eleven, have eleven at one.”
“Down the hatch, round the gums, look out Tommy, here it comes.”
“Time is only for the middle classes.”
“It must be 6pm somewhere in the world.”
“They say: ‘No wine before nine,’ but they don’t specify am or pm.”
“Any day, anytime, anywhere.”
Wise Drinking Advice
“If you’ve had enough, pour yourself a G&T, you have my permission.”
BBC Radio 4 ‘Woman’s Hour’ presenter Anita Rani on home-schooling parents during the January 2021 lockdown.
“[Alcohol is] the only drug you do not have to apologise for taking… [I] associate drinking with friendship and good times… The advice to ‘drink responsibly’ is the world’s most boring phrase.”
BBC presenter Adrian Chiles on drinking during lockdowns.
“Every Friday in lockdown, my neighbour has left a delicious gin and tonic at my front door. Beats tinned tomatoes hands down.”
Madeline Glancy of Prestwich, Lancashire in a letter to ‘The Telegraph’ in May 2020.
Wise Words About Gin
“Let the evening beGIN!”
Anon.
“I don’t know what reception I’m at, but for God’s sake, give me a gin and tonic.”
The well-known gin lover and husband of Margaret Thatcher, Denis Thatcher.
“Life is too short for single gins.”
Anon.
“Red meat and gin.”
America’s answer to Keith Floyd, Julia Child, on the reason for her longevity.
“I love water, especially when it’s frozen and surrounded by gin.”
Anon.
“Myself, I’m a fan of the gin without the tonic. Why on God’s great earth would you want to water down such masterpiece?”
Reader of ‘The Steeple Times’ ‘The Stray Cat.’
“I exercise strong self-control. I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast.”
American actor and comedian W. C. Fields.
“Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater [vice].”
Charles Dickens, ‘Sketches’ (1836).
“When life gives you juniper, make gin!”
Holistic health author Laurie Buchanan.
“Don’t cry over spilt milk, it could’ve been gin.”
Anon.
Night school tutor: “Write a horror story in six words.” Student: “I-have-run-out-of-gin.”
Anon.
“A perfect martini should be made by filling a glass with gin then waving it in the general direction of Italy.”
Noël Coward.
“The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest lived.”
American historian Bernard DeVoto.
“The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.”
Winston Churchill.
“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
Humphrey Bogart as Rick in ‘Casablanca’ (1942).
“Gym? I thought you said: ‘Gin.’”
Anon.
“The only time I ever enjoyed ironing was the day I accidentally got gin in the steam iron.”
Comedian Phyllis Diller.
“Stop saying I’m hard to buy for… You know where the gin aisle is.”
Anon.
“Gin drinkers are sassy, classy and just a little smart assy.”
Anon.
“You’d learn more about the world by lying on the couch and drinking gin out of a bottle than by watching the news.”
American radio personality Garrison Keillor.
“Fortunately, there is gin, the sole glimmer in this darkness. Do you feel the golden, copper-coloured light it kindles in you? I like walking through the city of an evening in the warmth of gin.”
French philosopher and journalist Albert Camus.
“I tried to say no to gin… But it’s 40% stronger than me”
Anon.
“I’ll stick with gin. Champagne is just ginger ale that knows somebody.”
Dr. Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H.
“Things, since you left, have not gone well with me: they have taken me from a place where there was gin to a place where there is no gin.”
British barrister and detective story author Sarah Cockburn (pseudonym Sarah Caudwell).
“According to chemists, gin IS a solution.”
Anon.
“Gin is not A solution. It is always THE solution.”
Reader of ‘The Steeple Times’ Shaun Keaveny.
“Gin and drugs, dear lady, gin and drugs.”
The reply of T. S. Eliot when asked about inspiration.
As ‘MeGain’s’ bestie Omid Scobie claims Sadie Quinlan (AKA ‘Yankee Wally’) is “on a watch list” with the “good folk at South Wales Police and Scotland Yard” and the “Fixated Threat Assessment Centre” also, the popular YouTuber reports him to the police herself
Whilst the Duchess of Sussex was quite rightly forced to apologise to the Appeal Court in London for making a misleading statement – which the BBC described as her (rather conveniently) having “forgotten events” – in December, it seems her number one PR peddler, the wretch that is Omid Scobie has turned his attention to the popular ‘Yankee Wally’ YouTuber Sadie Quinlan and isn’t allowing her to forget her own past.
Yesterday, in an 11:09-minute YouTube upload that has been watched over 17,700 times and ‘liked’ by 3,500 already, Quinlan shared a tweet from Scobie that described her as a “racist” and “deranged criminal.” He went further and claimed: “Don’t even waste a second on what that deranged, racist criminal thinks. Leave it to the good folk at South Wales Police and Scotland Yard, whose Fixated Threat Assessment Centre have [Sadie Quinlan] on a watch list.”
Understandably upset by the harsh words of this so-called “royal editor” for Harpers Bazaar and self-proclaimed New York Times “bestselling author,” Quinlan – who made clear she had no prior knowledge of how Scobie could know of such a listing – decided to respond by herself calling the Metropolitan Police.
She remarked: “The last thing you need Omid Scobie is somebody calling you ‘deranged’” and added: “I am not a criminal. I shall take this absolutely all the way I can. When that lovely police officer rings me back next week from the Fixated Threat department, I am going to take it to the highest level.”
Of two others she believes have connections to such matters, Quinlan added: “Let’s have the bloody lot. I’m watching you and I’m going to make charges against you if I can… I’m coming for you… I am absolutely tamping [Welsh adjective meaning ‘extremely angry’] mad.”
The lesson to mouse-not-a-man Omid Scobie and his associates here should be laid clear: If you give it out, expect it back – especially when you take on the force to be reckoned with that is ‘Yankee Wally.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvOmZpLg0wY
The tweet by Omid Scobie, posted on Twitter on 19th February 2022 at 7:11pm, in which he described Sadie Quinlan as a “deranged, racist criminal.”In August 2020, the ‘Daily Mail’ shared that plastic-not-fantastic Omid previously worked at gossip magazine ‘Heat’ and partied with the ‘glamour model’ Jodie Marsh. They mentioned how somebody had “airbrushed” Meghan Markle’s “entry on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia… to include more flattering details days before her romance with Prince Harry became public” and illustrated the ‘Finding Freedom’ author’s “drastic transformation” in two very different photographs. Mr Scobie is someone who most definitely would like his past forgotten, but curiously he doesn’t want to allow Sadie Quinlan to have hers forgotten.Illustrating himself to be anything but a real journalist, “influencer” Scobie told the ‘Women in Leadership Publication’: “A casual follower be forgiven for thinking that royal news is just fizzy commentary on the pomp and soap opera of The Firm” in their spring 2021 edition. He self-importantly added: “Reaching millions on Twitter has also enabled my own views and advocacy to travel further” and concluded: “I want to do everything I can to ensure that individuals from every background can get a seat at the table.” Here is someone far from a journalist; here, in fact, is someone who should just be called out as the Duchess of Sussex’s PR peddler.An analysis of Omid Scobie’s Twitter feed clearly shows that a large proportion of his followers are a bit like himself: FAKE.The Duchess of Sussex – pictured giving the clearly far more dignified by far Duchess of Cambridge a right old glare – likes to stir the pot. One of her chief pot stirrers is most definitely Omid Scobie – a poison pen pest described by Nikolay Kalinin in ‘The Steeple Times’ in July 2021 as “a washed-up, childish clot” and someone with “no legitimacy in the media industry.”
When he’s not bragging about wearing Balenciaga, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior or sharing photos of his dog, Yoshi, on his Instagram account, the ‘Finding Freedom’ author constantly bangs on about how he believes the royal family to have racist elements. His speculation is rarely supported by anything other than unnamed sources that give his suggestions little to no credibility.
Sadie Quinlan (AKA ‘Yankee Wally’ responds to Omid Scobie calling her a “deranged, racist criminal”
“All my content is found on the public domain with just my own views and opinions and I do follow the fair use and the fair dealing guidelines”
“I think this tripped me over the edge… They can get their just deserts. Scobie wrote this in reply to whatever her name is, Amanda @MattaOfFact.”
“I like it Amanda I thought you did a fabulous spiff of me and if gets you a bit of extra money after your ten grand from your gopher Lee and whatever money you manage to scrape from your Patreon. You’ve got every begging bowl on the Internet opening and waiting for the money, haven’t you? So, make a bit of money off me, my pleasure, fill your boots.”
“But anyway, Scobie replied to this and this is what he said: ‘Oh dear. Don’t even waste a second on what that deranged, racist criminal thinks. Leave it to the good folk at South Wales Police and Scotland Yard, whose Fixated Threat Assessment Centre have her on a watch list.’”
“Right, OK, so I thought to myself it’s got to be done. Now, you know what I say and I’ll say it again and I’m an absolute manic about it. Do not waste police time. Don’t do it. If you’ve got a little problem, your neighbour is giving you gyp, banging on a wall, wait until the next day and ring 101. Don’t dial 999. Don’t ring the police unless it’s urgent.”
“Having said that, who am I to judge what is urgent and what’s not, but you’ll find that yours truly will take an awful lot of s**t before I ring the police. Because, well, well this is the way I was taught.”
“I even apologised to the police officer today saying that somebody could be needing them a lot more than me. He said, erm, in his London accent: ‘Well, don’t worry about it Sadie,” erh.”
“Anyway, let me tell you what happened. So I see this and I’m thinking: ‘One step too far, one step too far.’ So, then I go looking online for whatever the Fixated Person’s thing is and I found all this information.”
“So, I’m thinking, I don’t wanna [sic] ring the police. I do not want to ring the police. So, yes, I can give them that [sharing a screenshot of what information is required], I can give that, I can give that, I’ve got a passport, I’ve got a licence, so I will do that, I do that.”
“Right ‘o. OK and then I got the number for Scotland Yard so I thought maybe I’ll ring them and ask them because I couldn’t find a number for the Fixated Threat people and I didn’t, at the time, see where I could fill in a form.”
“So, I’m on the phone waiting now. This is Scotland Yard. I took a screenshot the minute that they answered at 11:43am. You can see the time at the top there [sharing another screenshot], 16:36 so it is not even an hour ago now and then I found a form that you could fill in on that webpage that I just showed you and so I wrote down everything that I could.”
“Meanwhile, 25 minutes on the phone to Scotland Yard. ‘I’ve been told I’m on your list. It’s all over Twitter and also it has been claimed by Omid Scobie, a journalist, that I am on your ‘watch list.’ I am horrified.” I couldn’t put it all in one, so I scrolled.”
“’Please can you confirm this as a matter of urgency, if this is true? And if it is, why? This has upset me beyond words and I am also extremely cross at the insulting nature of Mr Omid Scobie’s claim. I look forward to your reply ASAP.” Then I said: “Regards.”
“Now, while I was in the middle of filling all this form in, though it didn’t take me long, Scotland Yard answered the phone to me, so then I am on the phone to Scotland Yard and, erm, they answered at around about 4:30pm and I was on the phone to them until about quarter to five.”
“And I spoke to an absolutely, and I’m not just saying this, he was so kind to me because I was almost crying. I was beside myself, I have to be honest because, I mean, erm, I’m not trying to get sympathy here, but I can’t bloody walk. How am I going to stalk anybody? And if I can’t walk, do you know how hard it is for me to post a letter? I’ve got to beg the postman, if I catch him when he delivers a letter. I can’t get out to the postbox, so as far as malicious letters and stuff, everything I do is online.”
“So, they answered the phone and I spoke to him and I explained and he said: ‘Well, you’ve hit lucky today, Sadie.’ I said: “Oh, why’s that?’ He said: ‘Well, because I’m covering here on the main switchboard, but my main job is in the Fixated Threat department.’ Ha ha ha… On my life, on my life, that’s his job. Ha ha ha…”
“So, he asks for my name, my date of birth and all the other things, my address and off he went and he came back and he said, and by now I am crying and I said: ‘Look, I’m worried sick about this.’ I said: ‘I’m not a stalker’ and he said: ‘We’re going to ring you back about this, Sadie,’ he said: ‘And who was the person that made this complaint?’”
“I said: ‘I believe it is Omid Scobie, but it could be somebody else. It’s on Twitter.’ He said: ‘Here’s a reference number.’ Here we are. He gave me his number, the policeman’s number and a reference number and there’s the ‘umpty’ [sic] form and that’s where you can get it if you want to fill it in.”
“So, erm, I’ve haven’t rung South Wales Police yet because I think Scotland Yard is all I need because I’ve looked at this Fixated Threat thing and it’s all based in London Metropolitan Police. So, I thought no, I’m not saying that the Welsh are organ grinders. Not the monkey, the organ grinder. Yeah, Metropolitan Police will be the organ grinder and we are the monkeys, I know that.”
“So, I’m waiting now to hear from them, probably next week and, erm, that’s that. So, I’m not letting this go because, what, what I don’t like, I’ll tell you what I don’t like: I’m not a racist, I can make jokes about people with black skin if I want to. Like, Ricky Gervais. If you don’t like it, don’t bloody listen to me.”
“I am not a criminal anymore. I am an ex-criminal. I’ve paid my price to society twenty bloody years ago.”
“Scobie, you, don’t throw stones unless your own house is clean and what’s the other one, er, ‘deranged.’ Now that, now that hurts because when you’ve been to a psychiatrist for the best part of ten years after you’ve been made homeless and God knows what and you are antidepressants and you’re doing OK thank you very much. And I can hold, I can string a sentence together, I can think coherently and there’s been times, and I don’t mind telling you, I wasn’t able to do that.”
“So, when somebody calls me ‘deranged,’ it kind of, it kind of trips a switch and it’s an angry switch because when you’ve worked hard on your mental health, when you’ve worked bloody hard to get your mental health back to normal, the last thing you need Omid Scobie is somebody calling you ‘deranged.’ That is very, very harmful and to call me a ‘racist’ is wrong. I’ve told you: My son-in-law is the same colour as you.”
“I am not a criminal. I shall take this absolutely all the way I can. When that lovely police officer rings me back next week from the Fixated Threat department, I am going to take it to the highest level.”
“And there’s two other people I’m after too. I’ll tell you who they are now. You [sharing a screenshot of the Twitter handle of Unstoppable-Chi, @dumielauxepices], Lorenzo, I know, you. I know it’s you that busted me in the beginning. It’s you that got into the ‘me-we’ group and it’s you that exposed my criminal past for all to see.”
“You hide in the shadows, you little creep. You hide in the shadows and you pop up with some really cruel things. You have been stalking me because you know more about me than what I know myself. I’m watching you, I’ve been watching you for two years, but now been as we’re going to bring it all out in the open, let’s have the bloody lot. I’m watching you and I’m going to make charges against you if I can.”
“And you [sharing a screenshot of the Twitter handle of Gin Perdide, @GPerdide], you little bastard. Who are you? You were watching me. Everytime you talk about me, you put the word ‘criminal,’ ‘convict,’ ‘madam.’ You’ve got a, I don’t even know who you are, but I’ll tell you what, I will get Twitter to find out who you are and anybody else who keeps calling me a ‘criminal’ or a ‘racist’ or ‘deranged.’”
“Those three things are like red rags to a bull and my birth sign is Taurus the bull and my birthday is the same day as the Queen. We are built with the same steel backbone. I’m thirty years younger than her. God bless her and I will come for all of you, but meanwhile, meanwhile, you can just sit there and s**t yourself quietly and I’ll be coming for you.”
“Thanks for listening everybody. I’ll be back later. Honestly, this will wash over me. It’s just right now, I am absolutely tamping [Welsh adjective meaning ‘extremely angry’] mad.”
In her uniquely chirpy ‘Yankee Wally’ style, in the description box, Quinlan added
“Sorry, I forgot to say Cheerio!”
“Now you’ve seen me at my worst…. Or, have you?”
“It’s very hard for me to keep an even keel when someone’s upset me so badly.”
“People that have mental health problems, never ever get them totally ‘fixed.’ They are usually suppressed with antidepressants and antipsychotics. I’m on huge doses of both.”
“But, when Scobie has the audacity to call me ‘deranged’ … It triggered me in a way only other sufferers can understand. “
“Heck, I have not worked with therapy counselling psychiatrists and drugs for 20 years to be diagnosed as DERANGED!”
“#omidscobie said a very very bad thing. and he will learn not to verbally abuse those who are not as strong as him
“And everybody else whose insulted me. You will all be made accountable.”
“I LOVE MY ONLINE FRIENDS DEARLY and I will defend you too.”
“CHEERIO!”
Responses to Omid Scobie’s vexatious tweet about Sadie Quinlan
