Tag: Berry

Brilliantly Bonkers Bone Idyll Gin – Old Masters With A Modern Twist
Matthew Steeples samples Bone Idyll gin and finds the concept of this “community funded” south-west London distillery brilliantly bonkers; here are “period fantasy” gins made with passion and panache

Alex and Sam Berry, the couple behind Bone Idyll, produce small batch spirits – including not only gin but also vodka, rum and bottled cocktails – at a distillery that also doubles as a bar and ‘gin school’ at Kingston on the River Thames.

The Berrys started this particular business after persuading 50 locals to invest after their restaurants and bars were forced to close during the 2020 coronavirus lockdowns. They raised £500,000 in investment in just three weeks from their local community in spite of seeking just £300,000; clear indication that many believe there to be not only drinking potential but also profit potential in their spirits.

Seizing upon the stratospheric growth in the gin market in recent years very much like the previously featured in The Steeple Times Terlingham and Goodwood gins, the bartender-turned-business-people Berrys clearly understood that the public want gin that actually tastes like gin. They have also captured that the ever more sophisticated yet ever more price cautious British consumer will now also only pay premium prices for products with personality and panache.

Speaking to TechRound in August about the spirits brand she and her husband developed with “character and hustle,” Alex Berry observed:

“We only opened in June, but Bone Idyll is very much based on what we’ve seen happen in the industry in recent times. We felt some parts of the industry were getting a bit stale and it was time for something different, something fun.”

“Similarly, customers have enjoyed the gin boom but now they’re now looking for the next big thing. Our products may be traditionally produced but in every one we’ve injected some personality, from a tweak to the taste to the vintage characters on our bottles.”

Bone Idyll’s stable of three gins numbers a 40% ABV London Dry, a 40% ‘blushing’ pink gin and a 45% ABV gin aged for three months in whisky barrels. Their packaging, which has been described by Sam Berry as “period fantasy drama but done in a modern way,” is certainly stand-out, yet the gins themselves will appeal as much to gin purists as those seeking something a bit more renegade.

Having not sampled the distillery’s London Dry, I cannot comment on that particular offering, but I can say that the pink peppercorn and raspberry found in Bone Idyll’s ‘Blushing Pink’ most definitely will make it to the liking of those who normally add Angostura Bitters to their gin. It’d most likely, therefore, please the late Queen Mother, though the lady featured on the bottle is without doubt a bit more Lady Gaga in her get-up.

Turning to the barrel-aged, here is a spirit that is woody and smoky and thus would appeal to the Hunter S. Thompson school of drinker. If you are perhaps looking to find an alternative to the overly-hyped whisky based Old Fashioned, this could be your next tipple. Here is an ‘Old Master,’ but with a ring in the nose and a punchy kick to the taste.

The Bone Idyll Distillery & Bar is located at Water Lane, Kingston, KT1 1AE.

To purchase bottles, click here:
- 70cl bottle, London Bone Dry Gin (40% ABV) – £32.
- 70cl bottle, Blushing Pink Gin (40% ABV) – £35.
- 70cl bottle Barrel-Aged Gin (45% ABV) – £40.
To learn more and to book to attend the Bone Idyll ‘gin school’ – held generally on Fridays and Saturdays at 3pm – at a cost of £125 per person, click here. The price includes a 2.5-hour gin making session, 3 double gin and tonics, gin tasters, bar snacks and a 70cl bottle of your own gin to takeaway.

Alex and Sam Berry – the creative couple behind three gins that merge “vintage characters” with a bit of fun, but not at the cost of alienating traditional gin purists.

Mr and Mrs Berry and their team all embrace a spirit that they term: “Impatience is a virtue.”

The bar and distillery where the gins are made and the gin school is held is described as having the feel of being “like a kitchen at a house party, somewhere communal to meet new people.”

If you’re looking to gift someone with enthusiasm for booze in general and gin in particular an experience this Christmas, a booking of a place at Bone Idyll’s ‘gin school’ in Water Lane, Kingston could be your solution.

Bone Idyll’s gins – unlike some of those that veer towards being actually flavoured vodkas – take juniper, the spirit’s key botanical, as their clear base.

Here are gins that will get noticed in any spirits cabinet.
December 11, 2022
Mucky Madam’s Mark Twain Moment

As she faces sentencing for sex trafficking, morally bankrupt mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell turns to the words of morally superior Mark Twain; all they really have in common is mutual experience of financial bankruptcy

As deranged and delusional as only a woman who “makes monster moves” and “growls” in front of prison guards most certainly has to be – qualities apparently moulded into her by her equally deranged and delusional crook father – it must be said that when she gave a TED talk in 2014, the since convicted mucky madam sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell did exhibit obvious intellectual intelligence.

University of Oxford educated and the holder of both a BA and an MA – courtesy, it must be remembered, of her decidedly dodgy daddy bunging a fair wad of wonga to the college both she and her school chum Dame Cressida Dick attended – Miss Maxwell (AKA ‘Mrs Scott Borgerson’ – if he’s not given up on her and run off with his sexually “saucy” yoga partner) is now gunning for an appeal against her conviction.

As part of a strategy they believe will set this sordid sex trafficker free, the Maxwell family are using their @RealGhislaine Twitter account to peddle yet more piffle about their “beloved sister.” The account has attracted 10,000 followers and some media attention, but most responses to it have without a shadow of a doubt been beyond negative.

Yesterday evening whilst currently facing a long wait until sentencing on the 28^th June, taking a turn further into the bizarre after babbling on about the ‘Bouncing Czech’s’ favourite child – a child he also allegedly abused, if you’d believe a word that morphs out of the mouth of onetime owner of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph Lord Hartwell’s daughter Eleanor Berry – @RealGhislaine went for the “intellectual” angle and tweeted:

“‘When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it happened or not. But I’m getting older, and soon, I’ll remember only the things that never happened.’ Mark Twain.”

In sharing this, the Maxwells may think themselves clever, but they seem to forget that though Mark Twain shared having been bankrupt financially once with them, he most certainly wasn’t also morally bankrupt like their evil, murderer father. Unlike the pension pot plunderer’s kiddies with a still missing £500 million on their collective consciences, Twain paid back his creditors in full and unlike them, history remembers him fondly. History and especially the pensioners cheated out of comfortable retirements will never remember the duplicitous Maxwells in that way.

On the last day of January, obviously irritated at the way in which their seriously sinister sibling was quite deservedly being presented, @RealGhislaine shared another laughable tweet. It read:

“The narrative that says ‘she’s the daughter of a bad man, she’s treated badly, she goes with another bad man’ it’s so simplistic… It’s just intellectually lazy and it’s wrong.”

As crusading author Kirby Sommers highlighted in Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography, Robert Maxwell once remarked: “I have a beautiful daughter and she’s just like me.” As, we have pointed out repeatedly when quoting it: The word “beautiful” should be replaced with “deviant” and it is jolly well time the mendacious Maxwell family faced that unsavoury truth.

To purchase a copy of ‘Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography’ by Kirby Sommers, click here.

Ghislaine Maxwell might like to think of herself as a bit of a brainbox, but forevermore she’ll be remembered for sex trafficking young girls with the croaked paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and for teaching the dimwitted dumb disgrace Lady Victoria Hervey how to give blowjobs.

Ghislaine Maxwell has spoken on TED and at such events as the Westchester Digital Summit. In promotional material for such she was referenced as “a private helicopter pilot, a trained EMT, and a qualified ROV and Deepworker submarine pilot.” They added: “She speaks four languages: English, French, Spanish and Italian,” but neglected to mention that in addition to her American, British and French passports, she bizarrely told lawyers at Boies Schiller & Flexner that she was “a citizen of TerraMar” in April 2016.

The @RealGhislaine ‘Mark Twain Moment’ tweet didn’t exactly go viral. It was liked just 24 times, quoted once and retweeted by 3 other accounts.

Responses to @RealGhislaine’s ‘Mark Twain Moment’:

“F**king what? The whole family is delusional lmfao.”

“This is so disgusting! Your basically say all those women are liars, f**k outs here. This account is pathetic.”

“You wouldn’t know Mark Twain if you ran into him! He wasn’t a sick person such as yourself. #guilty #pedophile.”

“If I raped a bunch of kids (like you), I’d probably wish for that outcome as well.”

The @RealGhislaine ‘Bad Man’ tweet was equally badly received and only liked 28 times and retweeted by 3 other accounts.

The second part of this missive, complete with a link to a toady interview with Ian Maxwell in ‘La Repubblica’ on 31st January 2022, was liked only 18 times.

Responses to @RealGhislaine’s ‘Bad Man Moment’:

“Let’s be honest. For donkey’s years, your sister has had the media on her side with the rich and famous for her own aggrandizement and projects. You are lucky you are given a platform to speak. Most people are not.”

“Whichever way you cut it, you cannot get beyond the fact that your sister had a business with/was in business with Jeffrey Epstein and that she herself or her reps have admitted to his misconduct. She could have done something to stop it. So why didn’t she?”

“When your sister was deposed she could have said something. She didn’t. That was her choice. She could have gone to the FBI herself. She didn’t. These were conscious decisions she made. She does have to bear responsibility of her own decisions to keep quiet.”

“If your sister was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s, she could have told the FBI, she could have called trafficking hotlines. It’’ not as if she was not extremely well connected, including to Clinton, Trump, Gates, Jobs, Rothschild, Kerry… She was better connected than 99.9%.”

“Ghislaine Maxwell traded on being the daughter of Robert Maxwell and girlfriend/associate of Jeffrey Epstein. She didn’t have a problem with being associated with them when it served her purpose. Only now is it a problem…”

“I guess we need to see the sex photos to prove her brother is wrong.”

“What a vomit inducing family.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUzcRORDIg&list=PLrpYYSyHdJhhUgM5HW7vYXL92eDMSWA73

February 8, 2022
Flipping Randy Andy’s Bathtub Bonk Pad
WORLD EXCLUSIVE – Ghislaine Maxwell’s Belgravia bonk pad – where Prince Andrew allegedly shockingly had it off with Virginia Roberts in the bath in 2001 – is relisted for £2.6 million just months after it sold for £1.75 million in April 2021; we share the first ever seen photos of that famous tub and ask: “Does its presence add value?”

Everybody in the world has now seen the infamous snapshot of Prince Andrew with his chubby fingers wrapped around the waist of his alleged victim Virginia Roberts at the Belgravia home of Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001. Nobody has ever discredited that photograph and nobody has proven that the bathtub in the bathroom that adjoined the first floor landing where they were snapped was anything other than a full-sized 5-foot-6-inches long.

Everyone in the world has also seen the floorplan of the first floor of Miss Maxwell’s former London home, but now, today, The Steeple Times can exclusively share an image of that very bathtub in which the lady now known as Virginia Giuffre claims the Duke of York supposedly had sexual relations with her on 10^th March 2001. That still unrenovated home, 44 Kinnerton Street, is now on the market for the sum of £2.6 million – a sum £850,000 higher than it sold for less than a year ago.

Whilst everybody in the world now knows that the now convicted mucky madam daughter of the pension pot plunderer Robert Maxwell faked a photo of herself at an In-N-Out burger joint in August 2019, photographs of the now somewhat tired bathroom in London, SW1 prove it to be a space where two people could easily have cavorted. In sharing them, they show Prince Andrew’s porky pies for exactly what they are. Two people could very easily have fitted into that rotten tub.

Offered by an exotically named firm of real estate hawkers who go by the name of Wellbelove Quested, the 1,573 square foot, three-storey former home of the mucky madam Miss Maxwell is marketed as “charming” and having “plenty of potential.” It is described as “requiring updating,” but unsurprisingly no mention is made as to its tawdry past. A photograph of the very bath where ‘Randy Andy’ allegedly bonked on that fateful night bizarrely features in the marketing material, but somewhat more carefully imagery of the landing area has been left out.

Asked by The Steeple Times for comment, a leading local estate agent – whom wished to remain off the record – remarked:

“Any previous sale at either £1.45 million or £1.75 million seems suspiciously low. At £1,653 per square foot today, it sounds about right in terms of an asking price, although some buyers might be deterred by The Nags Head being so close.”

“As for the activity that may have gone on inside there, I am of the view it adds a bit of interest to the marketing, but neither adds to nor detracts from the value.”

“Equally, now I see these pictures, it looks to me that Prince Andrew, Ghislaine Maxwell and Virginia Roberts were all standing in the doorway of the front bedroom of the first floor that day. It begs the question: ‘Why?’”

Contacted earlier in the day by a reader of The Steeple Times who alerted us to the sale subsequently, Andrew Quested of Wellbelove Quested somewhat lackadaisically opined in response via email:

“My clients made a good purchase. I think you will find a lot of properties have a past resident that is not always good… I do understand your thoughts [about the links to Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein and the Duke of York], but these things pass.”

Occasional contributor to The Steeple Times Jack Hine, however, took a different view. When approached Friday, the Hove, Sussex and Belgravia, London based dealer in vintage memorabilia stated:

“That bath, whatever it’s murky heritage, has royal pedigree and it’s got a grimy, unrestored appearance. ‘Where there’s muck, there’s bloody brass,’ I say.”

“There’s always going to be ghouls out there with a desire for such, so I advise whoever buys 44 Kinnerton Street to most certainly not to put what could become one of the most costly bathtubs in history ever in the skip.”

“Prince Andrew’s antics in this tub may well cost him well north of £10 million and I’d suggest that the new owner of this house will get tens of thousands for that tawdry tub. I’d definitely put in a bid.”

This photograph of the first floor bathroom at 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia proves one thing – those that said that the tub is too small for two are nothing but loopy liars.

When asked about what occured on the night of 10th March 2001 in the first floor bathroom at her Kinnerton Street mews house, Ghislaine Maxwell responded: “[Virginia Roberts] then characterized [sic] things took place in my bathroom in the bathtub itself. The tub is too small for any kind of activity whatsoever.” The picture of that very same tub used in marketing material by Wellbelove Quested proves exactly to the contrary.

The floor plan shared by the likes ‘The Daily Mail’ and ‘The Sun suggested the first floor bathroom at the house to be 7-foot, 4 inches by 7-foot, 2-inches. Floor plans shared by Wellboved Quested suggest that the room is actually 8-foot, 4-inches by 8-foot, 2-inches. There was most definitely plenty of room for two…

Why did they stand on the first floor landing when the only entertaining areas were downstairs? Were they progressing upwards? Was Ghislaine Maxwell leading her friend Prince Andrew and a concubine to a bedroom? Who took the photograph? Many questions remain unanswered, but it’s now clear that the bathtub could easily have fitted two.

A floorplan of 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia. In it, mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell’s home is clearly shown to be a place where ‘public’ entertaining took place on the ground floor, whilst ‘extracurricular’ activities took place on the upper two floors.

These photographs of 44 Kinnerton Street, taken in July 2021, provide proof that the bannisters seen in the March 2001 photographs remain inside said property. The setting in which Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts were captured was indeed most definitely genuine. In the same month, the new owners of the property displayed a poster at 44 Kinnerton Street for a festival that was to be held in East Anglia from 31st July 2021 to 1st August 2021. The event, the EA Festival, was hosted at Hedingham Castle – home to Jason and Demetra Lindsay – in Essex and had a line-up that included model and advocate Arizona Muse, film director Mike Figgis, ‘Countdown’s’ Susie Dent, sex commentator Rowan Pelling and comedian Josh Berry. The same open doorway also showed something else… The very same bannister that was shown in the photograph Prince Andrew, Virginia Robert and Ghislaine Maxwell appeared in.

In November 2020, ‘The Steeple Times’ featured bathtub mats featuring Prince Andrew’s face and the caption “nonce” that were available for sale through Redbubble.com. Priced then at £23.61 ($32.30, €28.29 or درهم118.61), these 61cm by 43cm polyester microfiber items clearly proved very popular as they are no longer on the site. Clearly, there is a market for bathtub memorabilia that references the Queen’s supposed favourite son.

The Names & Numbers – ‘Mucky Madam Ghislaine Maxwell’s Bathtub Bonk Pad’ – 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia, London, SW1X 8ES, United Kingdom
- 14^th January 2022 – Property website TheMoveMarket.com values the house at £2.11 million ($2.88 million, €2.53 million or درهم59 million), a sum 19% lower than the current asking price for the unrenovated property.
- January 2022 – Estate agents Wellbelove Quested offer the mews house for £2.6 million ($3.6 million, €3.1 million or درهم1 million), an extraordinary increase of 49% on the sale price just 270 days earlier. The house is offered on a lease of 127 years that commenced on 24^th June 2014 and previously on their website Wellbelove Quested had marketed the house for a higher price of £2.75 million ($3.738 million, €3.283 million or درهم13.731 million).
- July 2021 – The Steeple Times reports on repainting work to the outside of the house being underway. An open door reveals the infamous staircase bannister to still be in-situ.
- 19^th April 2021 – Records confirm the house to have been sold for £1.75 million ($2.39 million, €2.09 million or درهم79 million).
- March 2021 – Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer offered cash from the “pending sale of her £1.45 million ($2 million, €1.74 million or درهم28 million)” home as part of a package when they sought bail for the mucky madam for a third time, the Daily Mail reported. This sum was 44% lower than the September 2020 asking price and 400% higher than the January 1997 purchase price.
- March 2021 – A Knightsbridge estate agent told The Steeple Times: “Knowing the street as I do, 44 is one of the smaller houses which I assume it to be a little over 1,000 square foot in size. Depending on the condition, I estimate the freehold value to be circa £1.8 million to £2 million ($2.5 million to $2.7 million, €2.2 million to €2.4 million or 9درهم million to درهم10 million).”
- December 2020 – Members of the Maxwell family attempted to raise finance on the property but are not successful, The Steeple Times learns from a financier with connections to the Maxwell family and their representatives. They were rejected, were rejected on the basis of the “toxicity” of their familial name.
- September 2020 – Estate agents Aylesford list 44 Kinnerton Street for sale for £2.6 million ($3.6 million, €3.1 million or درهم1 million) on (it was claimed) a freehold basis, a sum 797% than the January 1997 purchase price. They subsequently later reduce the asking price to £2.1 million ($2.9 million, €2.5 million or درهم10.5 million) “according to a leading property expert.”
- August 2019 – According to Insider, a woman with “long hair [who] appeared to be in her 60s” was seen entering the property. She “denied that the socialite owns or lived in the house, claiming instead that the elusive socialite lived elsewhere down the street.”
- 10^th March 2001 – Prince Andrew allegedly had sexual relations with 17-year-old Virginia Roberts in a bathroom in the property. He continues to deny this occurred whilst claiming that a photograph of himself with Miss Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell on the first floor of building is a fake also.
- 22^nd January 1997 – Ghislaine Maxwell paid £290,000 ($396,000, €347,000 or درهم5 million) for the three-storey leasehold mews house. It is situated at the heart of the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Estate.
- 1989 to 1995 – Ghislaine Maxwell is known to have resided at 69 Stanhope Mews East, South Kensington, London, SW7 5QT. Her father bought it for her two years before his mysterious death and she reportedly “groomed and befriended Minor Victim 3 in London, England, between approximately 1994 and 1995… Maxwell introduced Minor Victim 3 to Epstein and during those interactions, Maxwell encouraged Minor Victim 3 to massage Epstein, knowing that Epstein would engage in sex acts with Minor Victim 3. During those massages, Epstein sexually abused Minor Victim 3” at that very property. It was sold for £267,000 ($365,000, €320,000 or درهم3 million) on 15^th March 1995 and then again for £1.75 million ($2.39 million, €2.10 million or درهم8.77 million) on 30^th August 2019.
And finally… Some other images of the ‘Mucky Madam’s’ crib

The ground floor sitting room has a somewhat sadistic quality about it. Rather like a doctor or dentist’s waiting room in its styling, here is a room where the mucky madam no doubt just prepped her victims for their prey upstairs. How many chairs does one need for such a purpose?

This place is anything but homely. It is, in fact, scary.

A kitchen that wasn’t for a coffee and a chat; a kitchen where saintly types like Delia Smith and Mary Berry most definitely don’t belong. Ghislaine Maxwell is personified as a woman as clinical to her core.

The mucky mistresses’ master bedroom. God only f$%king knows went on in this creepy crib.

Another supposedly innocent looking room that was likely a torture chamber.

The bedroom Andrew, Ghislaine and Virginia posed next to. It is currently set up as an extra sitting room rather conveniently, but doesn’t look like a place anyone has bothered or would even to sit.

The house even has a roof terrace. It looks f$%ing rotten, just like its former owner, mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of murdering pension pot plunderer Robert Maxwell.

And finally, back to that bloody bathroom… It even has double shower. It’s hardly small, is it? It’s perfectly feasible that Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts could have very easily fitted in there also.
January 15, 2022
Cooking With Ghislaine

Ghislaine Maxwell’s supporters seek to share “family cooking recipes” just as her lawyers compare her incarceration to scenes from ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ … Liver with fava beans and Chianti anyone?

Alleged mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell – if she ever even had it in the first place – has clearly lost the plot given last night her official Twitter account asked its followers to share “family recipes” fit for the “fall” season. What on earth is her agenda? Does she perhaps want to morph from a wicked wastrel into a wholesome, younger version of Mary Berry perchance?

Posting late Wednesday, the @RealGhislaine account – which is controlled ultimately by her family and PR peddlers (which includes the likes of Brian Basham) – bizarrely tweeted:

Have a great family recipe that reminds you of Fall? Why not share that recipe with a friend or neighbor and spread some good? #SAK

Elsewhere, early this morning crusading author of Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography Kirby Sommers followed up by sharing news of Maxwell’s latest and sixth attempt to be allowed out on bail prior to her 29^th November trial. Sommers remarked:

On Wednesday, November 3^rd, Bobbi Sternhein on behalf of Ghislaine Maxwell submitted the 6^th request to the court that she be allowed bail.

Sternheim claims that Maxwell’s incarceration rivals scenes of Dr. Hannibal Lecter as portrayed in the movie, ‘Silence of the Lambs.’

Sternheim’s letter itself – if not connected to a legal case involving minors and victims of sex trafficking by a powerful international paedophile ring – would make it into a comedy script. One paragraph of the rambling missive reads:

I write to once again ask the Court to release Ghislaine Maxwell prior to trial on the conditions set forth in her previous bail applications. My weekly in-person legal visits with Ms. Maxwell are conducted under the most humiliating circumstances that I have ever experienced in many decades of federal criminal practice. As disturbing and invasive as they are for no justifiable reason, I get to leave; Ms. Maxwell does not. The surveillance rivals scenes of Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s incarceration as portrayed in the movie, “Silence of the Lambs,” despite the absence of the cage and plastic face guard.

Given deviant devourer Miss Maxwell’s clear interest in cooking and The Silence of the Lambs, perhaps the Manhattan Detention Center ought to supply her with some liver and fava beans to lift her clearly rotten spirits; the Chianti, however, will clearly have to wait. Alternatively, if this is a bid for a space in the mental asylum to avoid trial, ‘Mucky Maxwell’ isn’t going about it in a very clever way.

To purchase a copy of ‘Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography’ by Kirby Sommers, click here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHoqL7DFevc

Perhaps someone could smuggle Ghislaine Maxwell a bottle of The Cannibal Chianti. It retails at £23.40 per bottle and she could surely get her constantly moaning lawyer Bobbi Sternheim to arrange her some liver and fava beans also to be served in her cell (minus “the cage and plastic face guard”).

In October 2020, international animal rights organisation PETA ludicrously issued a press release demanding that prison authorities give alleged sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell (pictured here at a dinner with Mick Jagger “her vegan meals.” In it, they remarked: “Regardless of how anyone feels about Ms. Maxwell, no one should be forced to eat the corpse of an animal who felt pain and fear and didn’t want to die.” Rightminded people responded by asking: “Haven’t they anything better to campaign about or anyone better to campaign for?”

The ‘Bouncing Czech’s’ daughter, in her past life as a socialite and sidekick of the now croaked paedophile ‘financier’ Jeffrey Epstein, was used to dining at ritzy functions with the likes of Keith Lieberthal, Julianna Margulies and Josh Lucas.

In August 2019, the supposedly sophisticated vegan alleged mucky madam was spotted munching on a burger at an In-N-Out Burger fast food ‘restaurant’ in Los Angeles. Later, the image was exposed as a fake due to the fact it featured advertising in the background that had never actually appeared in that location and thus provided yet more indication of how truly deviant Robert Maxwell’s deviant daughter truly is.

November 4, 2021
Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples

‘The Steeple Times’s’ Matthew Steeples to answer questions live during 2-hour YouTube premiere of his ‘Maxwell, McCann & Menendez’ interview with Shaun Attwood on Saturday 8^th May

Filmed late last month, a 2 hour, 15-minute interview between Shaun Attwood of Shaun Attwood’s True Crime Channel and Matthew Steeples of The Steeple Times will premiere on YouTube tomorrow, Saturday 8^th May 2021 at 10am.

Aside from discussing primarily Ghislaine Maxwell’s incarceration and forthcoming trial and recent developments in the case of the 2001 murder of Stuart Lubbock at the Roydon, Essex bungalow belonging to the since deservedly disgraced ‘entertainer’ Michael Barrymore, Steeples and Attwood delve into the conviction of Jeremy Bamber, the 2007 ‘disappearance’ of Madeleine McCann and the ongoing imprisonment of the parental abuse victim Menendez brothers in California.

Touching also on other topics including the paedophile Rolf Harris and the potentially unsafe conviction of Mark Alexander, a man campaigning with the support of Terry Waite CBE to clear his name in connection with the 2010 murder of his decidedly deviant father in Buckinghamshire, Steeples comments of the interview:

“I have followed Shaun Attwood’s honest to its core YouTube channel – which most deservedly already has 669,000 subscribers – for some time. For me, what piqued my interest was when Attwood got someone to answer the door at Ghislaine Maxwell’s Kinnerton Street mews house in September 2019 and in doing so proved that the setting of that infamous photograph with Prince Andrew with his ‘chubby fingers’ around Virginia Roberts remained still in-situ.”

“Attwood’s interviews with abuse victims such as The Lost Boys actor Corey Feldman and crusading author Kirby Sommers have repeatedly allowed viewers to be presented with previously unheard narratives about truly shocking cases. His attention to detail and dedication to presenting facts rather than gossip is impressive and his own experiences in the justice system clearly have clearly guided his ability to understand what lies beyond what is fed to the public by the mainstream media.”

“It was thus an honour and a pleasure to be interviewed by a man whose own past plainly has resulted in a quest for a juster justice system and I hope viewers will gain some insights into angles about cases that remain very much of the moment when watching tomorrow.”

“I will be present in the ‘live chat’ on the YouTube channel on Saturday 8^th May 2021 between 10am and 12:15pm and look forward to exploring the thoughts of viewers regarding the cases that Shaun Attwood and I discussed.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTl_J-McDJk&list=PLPT_cCpNMvT50d_7cJ55ciKoZEY8q_YPt&index=4
Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – The full podcast will be available to view tomorrow, Saturday 8^th May 2021, via YouTube from 10am. A live Q&A with Matthew Steeples will be available during from 10am to 12:15pm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSqCX44DGWk
Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – A trailer for the forthcoming show can be viewed online before then.

Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “As Terry Lubbock faces certain death from terminal cancer, it is right that finally Essex Police are making progress in the investigation into his son’s rape and murder on 10th March 2001,” observes Matthew Steeples. Pictured: Michael Barrymore rolling around on the floor drunk with convicted racist bigot Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben (left) and Terry Lubbock bed-bound next to a picture of his late son, Stuart, as he begs the others present at Barrymore’s pool party to finally tell the truth about what happened that fateful night.

Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “Ghislaine Maxwell (pictured left on a throne in Buckingham Palace), if she had half a brain, would now seek a plea bargain,” argues Matthew Steeples. “Instead, because she’s so arrogant, this mendacious minx and all-round mucky madam will likely continue to keep quiet about what really went on with her, her ‘bestie’ Prince Andrew and his ‘Lolita Express club coat’ wearing chum, the now deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.”

Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “I believe it is correct that the victims of parental abuse Erik and Lyle Menendez were finally able to be brought together again after 22 years of incarceration without a sight of one another in February 2018,” shares Matthew Steeples. “I also believe that the fine work of crusading individuals including the journalist Robert Rand (pictured left with Lyle Menendez) and the juror in one of the cases, Hazel Thornton, will help them on a path to what they deserve given the truth of what they endured at the hands of their plainly wicked parents: Freedom.”

Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “I will forever continue to question why the case of ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann has been allocated nigh on £13 million in public money,” comments Matthew Steeples. “Why don’t the families of other missing people, such as Martin Allen, Luke Durbin and Ben Needham get that level of state-funded assistance also?” Pictured: Kate McCann with then Home Secretary Theresa May MP at a party in Downing Street, London hosted by the latter for associates of the former in July 2016.

Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “Rolf Harris (pictured right) may have served his time,” shares Matthew Steeples, “but the legacy of him and the links of this clearly evil ex-public figure to other high profile sexual abusers such as the ex-TV anchor Stuart Hall (pictured left with Prince Edward dressed as a ‘Joker’) deserves to continue to be highlighted.”

Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “Doubts about so much of the evidence submitted by Essex Police in the case of Jeremy Bamber make me believe that his conviction for the murders at White House Farm deserves at the very least reinvestigation,” shares Matthew Steeples. Speaking of his “fresh hope” for a referral to the Court of Appeal in March 2021, Bamber himself stated: “The lack of disclosure by Essex Police has been at the heart of my case from the outset, and is still a feature today in an attempt by the Essex Police to maintain my wrongful conviction. I feel confident however that the CCRC will do their utmost to achieve disclosure of vital material in order to obtain my justice.”

Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “‘Could Mark Alexander have actually been wrongly convicted of the murder of his father Samuel Alexander?’ is a question I think deserves exploring,” shares Matthew Steeples. Speaking of the case, greatly respected humanitarian Terry Waite CBE commented: “I am disturbed by the conviction of Mark as I find it difficult to believe that a complete forensic examination was conducted before the jury found him guilty by a majority verdict. It was pointed out by the judge in his summing-up that the evidence was circumstantial, but even so he was convicted and sentenced. A forensic investigation of the site was conducted by a chartered engineer and chartered geologist in 2017. This examination ought to have been conducted before the trial, but for reasons unknown to me it was not. Given that the site had been excavated by the police when searching for the body and afterwards refilled it was not possible for the expert to be totally certain about the dates when the different levels of concrete were laid. However, his conclusions, which are fully recorded in his report, suggest that the top level of concrete could not have been laid by Mark Alexander as he was not in that location at that time and can prove this. The report raises in my mind a reasonable doubt as to the safety of this conviction.”

May 7, 2021
Roy Rocket (AKA ‘The King of Brighton’ and the ‘Brighton Legend’, 2010 – 2021)

“Roy’s the boy” raged commentator Simon Holt as this legendary French born co-holder of the most number of wins at Brighton romped home after achieving nine 1^st places along with two 2^nd and six 3^rd places at the course also.

With 1,300 followers on Twitter, grey gelding Roy Rocket was universally loved and to support him an octogenarian named Iris would “as he went to post… produce from one of her many voluminous handbags a flask of gin and tonic and insist that trainer John Berry took a swig for luck. It sometimes worked.”

In May 2018, racing history was made when transgender jockey Victoria Smith – formerly known as Vince – rode Roy Rocket in a one-mile charity race as a woman at Warwick and became the first person to have competed in both male and female categories.

Of Roy Rocket, in July 2018, John Berry told the Racing Post: “He’s the most incredible horse… If I took him to a place he wasn’t used to going, we probably wouldn’t get there… He’d hate going somewhere different to where he normally goes and he hates not having a whole horse box to himself… He knows the yard so well, you could open up the French windows and bring him in the house… You can give him so much freedom without him being a danger… He loves carrots, his whole life’s a treat. The way the whole yard is run is pretty much around suiting him.”

A winner of the ROA Award for Flat Special Achievements also, Roy Rocket is eulogised by John Berry Racing as having “[given] some of the best days of racing of our lives.” This great favourite of punters everywhere will be forever missed.

Victoria Smith on Roy Rocket.

April 23, 2021
Neighbours from Hell

As Priti Patel is slammed by her neighbours as a ‘snitch,’ the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are voted “the famous couple Brits would least like to live next door to” along with Boris Johnson and Kerry Katona

Priti Patel – a wicked wench whom dislikes “minglin” (could someone teach her to pronounce the missing ‘g’?) – was quite rightly slammed as a snake and a snitch earlier this week for stating she’d report her neighbours if they had gatherings of more than six.

With one of the very people living next door to her stating to the Guardian: “I would live and let live in the first place” and adding: “[The government has] made a pig’s ear of the while job” of the ‘rule of six,’ this ludicrous woman was deservedly told “there are more important things to worry about than dobbing in your neighbour.”

Patel, quite frankly, is a petulant pest nobody in their right mind would want to live in the proximity of, but even more amusingly The Sun reported the Duke and Duchess of Susex have been named “the worst neighbours” possible by Brits in a survey by the charity fundraising site Omaze.

Elsewhere, Business Times reported that “Harry and Markle’s neighbours in Montecito are ‘super annoyed’ about the deluge of paparazzi in their once peaceful town. According to TMZ, photographers and tabloid press reporters circle in helicopters around the neighborhood up to four times a day just to catch the Sussexes in public places.”

Others unsurprisingly hitting the Omaze list were Gemma Collins, Boris Johnson and Kerry Katona, but most surprisingly the woman whose cakes have made the nation chubby Mary Berry was listed amongst those people would actually like to live next door to. What on earth would they want from her? Free cakes?

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September 18, 2020
Magnificent Madeleine

Matthew Steeples suggests the utterly charming Chez Madeleine as the best place for seafood in Saint Tropez, France

To those that aspire to be Mary Berry, Saint Tropez is famous for its Tarte Tropézienne – created in a bakery in the main square in the 1950s by Alexandre Micka, a young Polish baker, and made famous by Brigitte Bardot’s obsession with it subsequently in the 1960s – and to the flash with wads of cash, this is a summer spot that is all about hedonism and high fashion.

If you want Celine, Dior, Hermès, Loro Piana or Louis Vuitton, in Saint Tropez you will find yourself in your idea of heaven and in terms of dining, the coastal town is primarily divided between restaurants that cater to tacky tourists and dining destinations that pander to the cravings of the super, super ultra rich. However, for those desiring something a little more authentic there’s a wonderful little oyster bar hidden behind a small fish market named Chez Madeleine that you simply just couldn’t fail to fall in love with.

Owned and operated by a delightful lady named Garance Fonquerne and her family since December 2019, Chez Madeleine is certainly petite. With just a few bar stools, it’s a quick pitstop for some but, if you linger, you’ll soon discover the charm of this dining destination is based upon its atmosphere and jolly staff.

Garance is thoroughly French, but her father runs a hair salon in London’s Gloucester Road. She was educated partly in South Kensington and as such has an ability to click with her international clientele. Here, indeed, is a hostess exceptionnelle and someone whose dining spot is deservedly buzzy.

Featuring primarily a menu of oysters including the Josephine and the Gillardeau – both famously farmed by the family of the latter name since the 19^th century. As you sit observing these delights being shucked, you’ll soon realise the truth of Andrew Carnegie’s quote on this most delectable of shellfish: “The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell” as you then witness the suave staff of the ‘have yachts’ arrive to collect stunningly presented takeaway baskets of such for their masters to consume on their nearby gin palaces.

Offered here also is king crab, prawns, salmon and caviar and washed down in the sunshine with a bottle of rose, you’ll also realise you’ve found the best thing in life in Chez Madeleine: A simple, yet utterly glorious culinary paradise.

Chez Madeleine, 14 Place aux Herbes, 83 990, Saint Tropez, France. Telephone: +33 (0) 9 52 04 39 47. Instagram: @la.fine.equipe.chez.madeleine

Pictured top: Garance Fonquerne outside Chez Madeleine.

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August 20, 2020
Adair and a Berry

Adair UK to participate in the British Red Cross London Christmas Fair

On Wednesday 27^th and Thursday 28^th November, one of The Steeple Times’ favourite homeware brands, Adair UK, are amongst 70 firms participating in the British Red Cross London Christmas Fair. (more…)

November 26, 2013
Mary Berry CBE

This cookery writer morphed into Britain’s favourite baker as the judge of BBC Two’s The Great British Bake Off and in the process amassed a fortune of some £15 million. Buckinghamshire based and married to a retired antiquarian bookseller, Berry has published more than 70 cookery books since 1970 and began her career working in Bath’s electricity board showroom demonstrating to customers about how to use their electric ovens. She was voted one of the fifty best dressed over 50s by The Guardian in March 2013 and is considered by many “a real national treasure”.

October 12, 2013