The Steeple Times

Tag: BBC

  • Fame & The Beeb

    Fame & The Beeb

    John Stoddart exhibition of silkscreen prints of his iconic works at Chelsea Arts Club attracts the attention of some BBC heavyweights

     

    On Tuesday, at the Chelsea Arts Club in London, photographer John Stoddart illustrated his versatility as an artist in exhibiting silkscreen prints created from his works.

     

    Present at the preview were a whole array of characters – amongst them both former host of BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs Sue Lawley and political commentator and BBC One’s The Marr Show host Andrew Marr – and as the wine flowed, guests got to admire images of Joan Collins, Mel Gibson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

     Fame & The Beeb – Famous! by Stoddart exhibition at Chelsea Arts Club – John Stoddart exhibition of silkscreen prints of his iconic works at Chelsea Arts Club attracts the attention of some BBC heavyweights.Fame & The Beeb – Famous! by Stoddart exhibition at Chelsea Arts Club – John Stoddart exhibition of silkscreen prints of his iconic works at Chelsea Arts Club attracts the attention of some BBC heavyweights.

     

    Of the exhibition, Claire Rubinstein, herself formerly of the BBC also, remarked: “I love the vibrancy and colour of these images. John has injected some joie de vivre into the faces and I am especially taken with the one of Hugh Grant. Doesn’t he look camp?”

     

    The works – which are limited to editions of ten and titled ‘Famous! by Stoddart’ – are priced at £300 ($388, €334 or درهم1,425) per print or £2,000 ($2,587, €2,226 or درهم9,500) for a boxed set of all ten prints.

     

    The exhibition will remain on show for the next two weeks and those interested in purchasing prints are invited to telephone the Chelsea Arts Club.

     

    Chelsea Arts Club, 143 Old Church Street, London, SW3 6EB. Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7376 3311.

     

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  • The Affair That Never Was

    The Affair That Never Was

    As the Mail Online makes yet another balls-up, The Steeple Times suggests that Lord Rothermere hire a decent copy checker

     

    As was the case with the amazing yet surprisingly true story of The Man Who Never Was and his affair with the woman who ultimately became the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s Bond character Miss Moneypenny, last night the Mail Online created a similarly ridiculous work of fiction by mistakenly changing a few letters in one of their main news items.

     

    In the first edition of a header for an article about a star who’d taken to the dating app Bumble to “seek someone who isn’t uptight,” the paper falsely suggested that the somewhat drippy adventurer turned television presenter Ben Fogle was divorcing a woman (a singer and ‘Hottest Female 2009’ named Una Healey) who isn’t even his wife and having an affair with another (an until now unknown PR woman named Becky Milne) he’s unlikely never met also. Instead, they meant to reference a somewhat vain rugby player who likes to get his kit off for photoshoots called Ben Foden but somehow got the surnames mixed up.

     

    Though errors happen at all levels, the Daily Mail – a paper that is part of a company with a revenue of nearly £2 billion annually and a vast staff of around 10,000 globally – could surely do better. This was not a story that was run on Page 54 in the graveyard section, but one that they have plastered as headline news and run as story number one online also.

     

    We may well be living in the era of hashtags and fake news and are certainly currently in August’s ‘silly season’, but come on Lord Rothermere – employ yourself a bloody half-decent copy checker.

     

    Pictured top: Rugby player Ben Foden (left) supposedly embarked on a relationship with PR woman Becky Milne (second left) whilst still married to ‘The Saturdays’ singer Una Healy (second from right); television presenter Ben Fogle was mistakenly brought into the mix by a rather ineffectual ‘Mail Online’ copy checker.

     

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    The Affair That Never Was – Ben Fogle, Ben Foden and the Daily Mail – As the Mail Online makes yet another balls-up, The Steeple Times suggests that Lord Rothermere hire a decent copy checker – Rugby player Ben Foden supposedly embarked on a relationship with PR woman Becky Milne whilst still married to ‘The Saturday’s’ singer Una Healy; television presenter Ben Fogle was mistakenly brought into the mix by a rather ineffectual ‘Mail Online’ copychecker – The story of The Man Who Never Was was inspired by an incident involving Dame Paddy Ridsdale, Ian Fleming’s secretary and later the inspiration for the Bond character Miss Moneypeny, during the Second World War
    The Daily Mail’s first header to the story began “Ben Fogle” (left) whilst later they were forced to amend it to the correct name: “Ben Foden”; surprisingly this mistake was made in a story that they ran as their number one headline on the Mail Online.
    The Affair That Never Was – Ben Fogle, Ben Foden and the Daily Mail – As the Mail Online makes yet another balls-up, The Steeple Times suggests that Lord Rothermere hire a decent copy checker – Rugby player Ben Foden supposedly embarked on a relationship with PR woman Becky Milne whilst still married to ‘The Saturday’s’ singer Una Healy; television presenter Ben Fogle was mistakenly brought into the mix by a rather ineffectual ‘Mail Online’ copychecker – The story of The Man Who Never Was was inspired by an incident involving Dame Paddy Ridsdale, Ian Fleming’s secretary and later the inspiration for the Bond character Miss Moneypeny, during the Second World War
    The acclaimed 1956 film ‘The Man Who Never Was’ was based on the true story of a British attempt to trick the Germans into weakening Sicily’s defenses before their 1943 attack there, using a dead man with faked papers. The late Dame Paddy Ridsdale, at one time Ian Fleming’s secretary and the inspiration for the Bond character Miss Moneypenny, formed part of the plot and pretended to be having an affair with the aforementioned dead man in order to aid the deception.

  • Falling Off The Cliff

    Falling Off The Cliff

    Matthew Steeples suggests the BBC’s decision not to appeal the Cliff Richard privacy ruling is very worrying for press freedom

     

    News that the BBC have decided not to challenge the Cliff Richard privacy ruling is not surprising but it also sets a worrying precedent.

     

    In a statement, aside from apologising yet again to the plainly strange Christian crooner, the Corporation thankfully, however, announced they would be taking its case to a higher level and stated:

     

    “The BBC is writing today to ask the Government to consider a review of the law in this important area to protect the right to properly and fairly report criminal investigations, and to name the person under investigation.”

     

    “There is a fundamental principle of press freedom at stake here and one upon which we believe Parliament, as our lawmakers, should decide.”

     

    They are quite right and given this ruling is tantamount to new legislation, this ultimately will go down in history as taking Britain down a very dangerous road.

     

    Pictured top: Convicted paedophile Rolf Harris with Sir Cliff Richard.

     

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  • Wally of the Week – Noel Edmonds

    Wally of the Week – Noel Edmonds

    Matthew Steeples suggests Noel Edmonds’ latest outburst just confirms himself to be a strange, publicity desperate fool

     

    Spiritualist television personality Noel Edmonds is certainly an off-the-scale oddity. He blamed the banking giant HBOS for getting cancer and then claimed he knew of an electric box that could cure the disease; he tried to “comfort” a cat on Jeremy Vine’s radio show in 2016 and he’ll also forever be associated with his financially disastrous ‘Blobby Land’ theme park in Morecambe, Lancashire.

     

    Determined to keep himself in the public eye, Edmonds recently chose to participate in a BBC Two “endurance rally show” programme named Eight Go Rallying: The Road To Saigon. Likely paid handsomely for driving 2,500 miles through Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam in an MGB GT with his wife, the television presenter have since complained that the experience was “a farce” and that he was even “deceived” into attending a wrap party in a brothel.

     

    In an article for The Sunday Times, Edmonds commented:

     

    “We were trapped in the worst kind of reality TV show, in which the reality is that the producers are deceiving the viewers.”

     

    “After months of silence, I assumed they had come to the only sensible conclusion and had decided to drop the series. But no — out of the blue I received an email announcing the dates for broadcast. To compound the insanity, the BBC is using my name and image to promote the series.”

     

    “No, Auntie, you’re misbehaving and I won’t be implicated.”

     

    Seriously Noel, stop drinking the Kool Aid: We all know you are publicity desperate and we all know you planted this story simply to boost your own pathetic ego.

     

    As the comedy character David Brent once quipped:

     

    “You know, like poor Noel Edmonds. People going, What’s he doing going round hospitals at Christmas giving out presents? He’s doing it for himself, isn’t he? He’s not doing it for himself! He’s doing it for them. He’s not doing it at all any more. He can’t get on telly for love nor money. But when he did it, he did it for them.”

     

    In summary Noel: Please. Please just shut up.

     

    Pictured top: Noel Edmonds hugging his creation ‘Mr Blobby’ at the opening of Crinkley Bottom at Happy Mount Park in Morecambe, Lancashire in 1994.

     

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  • Bozos, Burkas and Farage

    Bozos, Burkas and Farage

    Matthew Steeples suggests Nigel Farage is wrong about Boris Johnson’s latest gaffe about burkas in Britain

     

    On Wednesday morning, on Sky News, Nigel Farage was interviewed about what he thinks about Boris Johnson – a self-serving man who simply loves to stay in the headlines – comparing women in burkas to “bank robbers” and suggesting they “look like letter boxes.”

     

    Farage argued that “Joe Public is not interested” in this story and went as far to suggest: “This is just for the Westminster bubble… Politics is way to PC… You have to accept that sometimes people will be offended.”

     

    Clearly, Farage has misjudged the interest in Johnson’s clearly provocative comments. This may be the ‘Silly Season’ but wherever I go in the UK and whenever I am in a situation where there are burka wearers, people – of all backgrounds – have something to say. Some are of the opinion that we must be respectful of such whilst others are of the mind that the burka is nothing but inappropriate in a modern, Western society.

     

    In such places as Iran and Saudi Arabia, females, foreign and local, are forced to conform to the dress codes of those countries. Many here in Britain consider such “medieval” and “backward” and I, for one (as much as I personally loathe the bozo Johnson), certainly don’t believe anyone should be silenced from sharing their views for or against a ban on the burka in Britain.

     

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  • Cliff The Airhead

    Cliff The Airhead

    Crackpot Christian crooner Cliff Richard’s lawyers allude to him owning air

     

    The libel case brought by Sir Cliff Richard – a self-declared “genuine international celebrity” with an ego the size of China – against the BBC took an unexpected turn yesterday, according to a report on the corporation’s very own website.

     

    In an article published Tuesday, ‘Auntie’ remarked:

     

    “Sir Cliff’s barrister, Justin Rushbrooke QC, asked [Jonathan] Munro [the BBC’s head of newsgathering] if he thought it had been acceptable to fly a helicopter over a private estate to ‘spy’ on the singer’s home.”

     

    “Mr Munro said he would not use the word ‘spy’ and added he thought it was acceptable to film police searching the home of someone under investigation.”

     

    “Mr Rushbrooke said: ‘If that is your genuine belief I suggest to you that you are unfit for your job.’”

     

    Clearly, aside from being supposedly cheated out of winning Eurovision by General Franco, ‘Cliffy’ now plainly is of the belief he was robbed of the airspace above the apartment complex he used to live in. No congratulations required; the man’s an airhead.

     

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  • Brexit and the Beeb

    Brexit and the Beeb

    “Cherry picking” Theresa May ridiculously boasts that people living in the EU will still be able to watch the BBC post-Brexit; she’d do better to stick to galumphing through wheat fields

     

    Perched on a rickety old chair, Theresa May appeared on this morning’s The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One.

     

    Sporting a surprisingly snazzy blue jacket, the hectoring vicar’s daughter announced: “We’re doing a very simple thing… We’re very clear that we do want to be able to continue to trade… But we’re coming out of the Single Market” before bizarrely adding: “Let’s face it, there are lots of people in member states of the EU who like to switch on the BBC, so let’s let them.”

     

    If only the world were that simple: Mrs May would do best to steer clear of matters she doesn’t understand and she’d do even better if she simply stuck to wandering in wheat fields.

     

    #BetterTogether #ExitBrexit

    #BringHerDown #MakeMarchTheEndOfMay

     

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  • Wally of the Week – Brazen bread “grabber” Charlotte Day

    Wally of the Week – Brazen bread “grabber” Charlotte Day

    Healthcare assistant Charlotte Day disgracefully moans about panic buying of bread just as homeless people freeze to death

     

    Last week, a homeless man froze to death in Chelmsford, Essex. A week before, another was found dead on the steps of Westminster Tube station in London.

     

    Meanwhile, yesterday, in Medway, Kent, a moaning Minnie named Charlotte Day contacted the Mail Online to complain about how she’d not been able to nab a loaf of bread in a Tesco Extra store.

     

    24-year-old healthcare assistant Ms Day – no doubt paid for her pathetic non-story by the newspaper – claimed “customers were barging past each other” and ridiculously bleated:

     

    “Shoppers were walking around with a panicked look on their faces. Some people had six or seven loaves in their basket.”

     

    “People were pushing around, they weren’t being polite about it. I went to grab the last loaf and someone who already had six in their trolley took it, the shelves were empty. I couldn’t believe how busy it was.”

     

    That this woman was prepared to go to the press about a bit of bread is bad enough, but that people are expiring their last breaths on the pavements of one of the richest countries in the world is utterly outrageous. Shame on Charlotte Day and shame on all of us.

     

    Support the housing and homelessness charity Shelter by clicking here.

     

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  • McMoneya

    McMoneya

    London has simply become a money park for dodgy money and though ‘McMafia’ reflected elements of that, the truth is far more depressing

     

    Since the 1st January, the nation was engrossed (though many were also totally bored) by the BBC’s eight-part drama series McMafia.

     

    Based on a fictional – though plainly inspired by the likes of the late Boris Berezovsky – Russian mafia family relocated to London, the TV adaptation of this thriller was filmed primarily in Knightsbridge, Mayfair and South Kensington. It showcased what many might consider the extreme wealth of Central London, but, in fact, was presented a little bit amateurishly.

     

    Of the show, Carol Midgley in The Times summed it up well. She remarked: “If this is how miserably the super-rich live, I’d take a semi in Swindon any day” and equally now, if you wander the streets of SW1, SW3, SW7 and W1, you’d not disagree with her.

     

    Recent news that the Fine Art Society is closing in Bond Street after 140 years due to “soaring rents” and “an influx of wealthy international fashion houses” illustrates the effect of the arrival of uncultivated new wealth in that sector, but equally sad is the demise of local restaurants and shops that actually provide things that genuine, full-time residents actually need.

     

    Boarded up in Belgravia this month, after 44 years in operation, the Ebury Wine Bar closed supposedly due to the retirement of its owner, Nigel Windridge. Also gone – aside from the key loss of the much loved La Brasserie in Brompton Cross – are restaurants like Itsu in Walton Street and Racine in Brompton Road. Replaced by shisha bars and other businesses aimed at wealthy Gulfies and oligarchs, the streets of Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea are increasingly becoming utterly devoid of character.

     

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  • Pricey Abuse

    Pricey Abuse

    Matthew Steeples questions Katie Price’s newfound interest in abuse on social media and how it is dealt with

     

    When Katie Price appeared on the BBC’s Daily Politics last week to highlight her campaign to criminalise online trolling, I joined those saluting her.

     

    Having myself been part of the case that ultimately resulted in the racist bigot Viscount St Davids being sent to prison for using Facebook to offer rewards to kill others, I know first-hand the trauma online trolling can cause. It can be as offensive and scary as a heavy breathing phone call or poison pen letter and, as this publication has repeatedly stated before, given the profits made by social media operations, it is time that they accepted that it is their responsibility to regulate their users.

     

    On the programme, Miss Price remarked:

     

    “I’ve had two people arrested. They took it as far they could… But I need to do something… There is nothing in place so I am going to fight to get online abuse made a criminal offence.”

     

    “Anyone is allowed freedom of speech but people know when they’ve crossed the line… People shouldn’t get away… Just because it’s online people don’t seem to take it serious [SIC]… Of course you can say things people won’t agree with.”

     

    “I’ve got five children but they are aware they only pick on Harvey… Basically I’m counting on them [Members of Parliament] to put a good case and take it to the next level. If no one believes in this, they’ve got no heart and no soul.”

     

    In response, on the programme, the former Cabinet Minister Justine Greening told the BBC’s Jo Coburn:

     

    “I really admire Katie Price… The Internet revolution is challenging every aspect of our lives.”

     

    “It’s not a question of limiting what people can say but we should have the same laws for online as well as offline… I hope to see some sensible proposals that will tackle the kind of things that Katie Price and her family have had to suffer…. MPs have had to suffer too. It’s not acceptable.”

     

    Whilst it is easy to agree with Price’s sentiments, it now transpires she might not exactly be innocent herself. Allegations of her partaking in ‘revenge porn’ against her ex-husband Alex Reid have since surfaced and, equally, given that she’s known as a brilliant self-publicist, one is simply left questioning this glamour model’s true motivations.

     

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