The Steeple Times asks emerging market investor David Reuben Jr: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
I try to follow the “Golden Rule”. Treat others the way you would prefer that they treat you. Be careful how you are with people on your way up, you just might meet them on the way down.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is probably not for you.
The sale of a $100 million Californian estate with a catch
If you were to spend $100,000,000 on a house, you’d expect something impressive. I imagine you’d want acreage, vast amounts of space and something luxurious. Stunning views and a prime location would be a must but at the bottom of your list, no doubt, would be something that someone purchasing a place for even a $1 would expect – that being that you’d be able to actually move in.
The sale of the home of a circus heir and the revival of Billy Smart’s Circus
Billy Smart, Sr. (1894 – 1966), a travelling showman and father of 10 children (he was himself one of 23), bought a circus in 1946 and quickly became known as an extraordinary entertainer. One of his son’s, Billy Smart, Jr. (1934 – 2005), made his debut at the age of 12 as an assistant ringmaster in Billy Smart’s New World Circus and performed with ponies, horses and eventually elephants. (more…)
The sale of The Duchess of Cambridge’s uncle’s holiday villa, La Maison de Bang Bang
Just as it is reported that the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge is said to be furious about photographers having managed to capture her in a bikini on a beach on the private island of Mustique, another of her previous holiday destinations has come to the market.
Kate Middleton and Prince William aboard Tapeka Point during their 2006 holiday in Ibiza.Carole Middleton’s brother businessman Gary Goldsmith.La Maison de Bang Bang’s sign.
The Duchess, as Kate Middleton, stayed with Prince William at the holiday home of her uncle, Gary Goldsmith’s in Ibiza in 2006. During the break at the exotically named La Maison de Bang Bang, the Prince and Miss Middleton were photographed on a motor launch, Tapeka Point, that was subsequently put up for auction in April 2012 for £120,000.
La Maison de Bang BangAn aerial shot of the property
The 4 double bedroom villa, named according to its official website, after “Ibiza’s famous banging house music”, is just five minutes from the Cala Jondal beach and the “hip” Blue Marlin beach bar. The house stands on a plot of 23,850 square metres and includes a large reception room, 4 dining areas and a fully equipped gym. In addition there is a staff bungalow, swimming pool and tennis court.
The main reception area in the house.One of four dining areas.One of four double en-suite bedrooms.An example of Mr Goldsmith’s humour.Buddhas can be found throughout the villa.And also in the garden.As well as an outdoor swimming pool, there is a full sized tennis court.
In a statement to the Daily Telegraph’s “Mandrake”, Goldsmith, who was subject to a News of the World sting at La Maison de Bang Bang in 2009, commented:
“I’m looking to buy a bigger house in London, given that I have only been there myself once in the last two year… After what seems like a million years of fun, fun, fun, I’m selling Bang Bang, folks”.
Of the house itself, Mr Goldsmith told the Daily Mail’s Richard Kay:
“It’s on for 6.5 million Euro. Despite the Spanish economy, it’s a good time to sell because the Euro is very strong at the moment, plus Ibiza isn’t like mainland Spain. It has a micro-economy all of its own”.
Knight Frank’s particulars for La Maison de Bang Bang were prepared last September and though Mr Goldsmith, who made £275 million selling his recruitment business in 2005, may be a canny businessman, it seems as if he may have to wait some time before someone else decides to put their bucks into the Bang Bang.
For more information on La Maison de Bang Bang, contact Knight Frank on +44 (0) 203 641 5161.
Some say he died in 2009, others, including the Serious Fraud Office, suspect he’s hiding out in the rainforests of Borneo. This bankrupted businessman was best known for drinking red wine from a teapot at breakfast and for his public spats with Egon Ronay, Richard Desmond, Lord Rothschild and Ernest Saunders. He met his wife, Nicola, in a nightclub. When asked what she’d require to move in with him, she asked for £5,000 a month. He organised it that very night and though most of his assets have been seized, she continues to drive a top of the range Mercedes and lives in comparative luxury on the island of Labuan, Malaysia. The investigators are still watching.
Sarah Tucker shares her experiences on a panel discussing the outcomes of Leveson
Journalist and author Sarah Tucker was one of the panelists at a talk at the Richmond Literary Festival on Thursday evening. By chance, since it coincided with the publication of the Leveson Report, the panel’s discussion naturally focused on that. Here Tucker share her thought in an article first published on her own blog:
Will the outcome of Leveson change the media?
I was in excellent company last night as part of a panel at the Richmond Literary Festival that felt almost weirdly timed to coincide with the day of the Leveson announcement.
I appeared on a panel with Sir Trevor MacDonald (who needs no introduction, but got one any way), the editor of the Sheengate Titles, Richard Nye; Claire Fox, the director of the wonderfully named Institute of Ideas (which I thought sounded like something out of Hogwarts) and Matthew Syed, illustrious columnist, Times writer and former Commonwealth table tennis champion (I wanted to ask him about table tennis but felt it oddly irrelevant in context of the debate). We discussed if the media were ‘friend or foe’ (though it wasn’t specified ‘to whom’) this of course had been perfectly timed to coincide with the Leveson findings. It was pure fluke but that’s timing for you.
Sir Trevor felt Leveson would change nothing. Everything, he suggested, would be bogged down in committees and sub committees and nothing would be done. Ever. Fox and Syed felt if statute was put in place, it would potentially be very dangerous especially if you had the likes of Blair or Thatcher in charge again or some lesser megalomaniac.
As for my view, I think the politicians are playing a game. They are losers all of them, we are the biggest ones (the punter, the voter, the onlooker), but to think they could come out and out say one way or another would be a nonsense and would take a great deal of courage, which they don’t have.
When I look at politicians now I think of them as actors upon a stage, not meaning anything they are saying, not even understanding most of it, just reciting it. I don’t feel contempt because it takes courage to get up on that stage. And Sir Trevor noted that many journalists and reporters now treat politicians with barely restrained contempt when they interview them. As he noted, at least politicians enter the process to do something of good for their community (although I think some do enter it for ego), something you can never say about those who work in the city.
Sir Trevor McDonald OBE
And who will be in this ‘organisation’ that will monitor the press? Who on earth, on this earth, is so honourable, so without fault, so incorruptible to be considered for this position? A politician? No. A banker? You’re joking. A policeman. Perhaps.
I think you need a ‘common man’, or woman who has a sense, a common sense and an ability to see through the emperor with no clothes phenomenon of what is bullshit and what isn’t, what is in the public interest and what isn’t. It isn’t someone who has risen to the top. If this year has proved anything the shit rises to the top more regularly than the cream does. Although I must say I do like Eddie George. I think his contempt for the city mirrors that of my own, but then he deals with them on a daily basis so that’s understandable.
In many ways the media has been it’s own worst enemy. Editors allowing for lazy journalism – the recent article about Canada in The Telegraph being an example. I met the head of PR for Canada in the UK for lunch this week and she despaired that they usual cliché about Canadians came up without anything relevant or up to date on a country that had a government which managed to manage their bankers – something our politicians have not. As she commented: “It’s harmless but it’s pathetic.”
Then there’s the phone hacking which hacked into ‘common man’ rather than celebrity, who I am afraid I have absolutely no sympathy with. That includes the royals, both the young and old. They are sold to us as though we know them. We don’t have a clue who they are. We just think we do.
Editors encourage journalists to get stories, to hit the negative angles because they are told ‘it makes better news’ and people are more interested in bad news than good. I think it’s been proven somewhere, with stats or something, but then so have a lot of other things which also turn out to be rubbish. And all media are businesses so their bottom line is more important than anything else. Associated Papers are making money, The Times is running on a subsidy, the rest of the papers I think are losing money. The BBC may have been dented but they are respected around the world and like the NHS should not be tampered with. They should not be interested in profit and should aim in their production values at all times and at all cost. Every panelist agreed on that point.
The weave between the institutions of the police, the law, the church, the city, the media, the royals, the politicians has become so entwined. This is like a lover’s tiff that will pass over because the end game is more important. There is too much money, too much power and far far too much ego invested in these institutions for morality and integrity to get in the way of profit.
This has been a year of revelation but not revolution. And if it were it would be the wrong heads that would roll.
Sarah Tucker is an award winning travel journalist, novelist, producer and broadcaster. She has edited, produced and presented her own radio and TV series as well as presenting reports for BBC Holiday Programme and anchored I Want That House on ITV. She is the author of best selling novels The Playground Mafia (short listed for the Good Housekeeping book of the year 2007) The Battle for Big School, The Last Year of Being Single, and The Control Freak Chronicles.
Matthew Steeples responds to the recommendations of Leveson
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” was one of Edmund Burke’s most famous observations.
Today, David Cameron’s former spin doctor Andy Coulson and ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks were in court to face charges of having conspired to pay Ministry of Defence employee Bettina Jordan-Barber around £100,000 for information. How terribly convenient for our Prime Minister that this court appearance coincided with Lord Justice Leveson issuing his report into press standards.
Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Leveson issues his report todayA spokeswoman for Hacked Off (http://hackinginquiry.org) responds to Leveson’s report. Kate McCann stands to her rear.Rebekah Brooks arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court this morning
In the inevitable media firestorm in the run up to today’s report being issued, one question has been missed and that question is: “Did we really need a £4 million inquiry to tell us that there are elements of the press that have done wrong and did we really need a 9-month inquiry to tell us that the Press Complaints Commission was a “toothless poodle”?
Inevitably, the media and politicians have reacted against many of Leveson’s suggestions and “victims” have suggested he should have gone further. The main suggestion made was that there should be a “new independent system of self-regulation underpinned by the law.” It’s hardly a revelation and it’s hardly a solution.
“Bad men and foreigners shouldn’t be allowed to run our press,” commented Conservative MP Sir Peter Tapsell of the report. He added: “[Media] ownership should be confined to British nationals.” This utterly ludicrous suggestion shows how out of touch certain politicians in this country are. We live in a global society in which the Internet allows information to be shared across transnational boundaries and as a result our media has to operate globally.
Sir Peter Tapsell MP
Our own audience is illustrative: 38% of our readers are based in the UK, but 31% are American. We have an ever-growing readership in Russia and China and receive countless comments from individuals in places as far apart as New Zealand and Finland. Though many may loathe him, the person whom Tapsell’s attack was directed at, Rupert Murdoch, is not a force for evil. He’s simply a tycoon who wishes to make money and get on with running his business. He should be left to do such and the media should be left to self-regulate.
Sir Christopher Meyer and Baroness Buscombe, appointed cronies who were put in place to regulate the media in the UK were responsible for the mess created at the PCC. They failed because they were busybodies with political agendas and they failed because they did not go the whole hog when it came to dealing with the bad apples. As a result, public trust disintegrated and the PCC will deservedly be scrapped.
The bad behavior of a small number of people should not destroy the free press as a cornerstone of our free society. Today is an illustration of a case where good men actually should do nothing.
Co-owner of the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills with her husband R. J., Cohen is of surprisingly humble origins. She grew up on a chicken farm in Cleveland, Ohio but moved to LA with her divorced mother aged 13 when she opened a Kosher chicken killing plant on Santa Monica Boulevard. This hardworking lady now instead hosts the likes of Rod Stewart, John Tavolta, Quentin Tarrantino, Mel Gibson, Britney Spears and Ryan Seacrest. On an occasion Matthew McConaughey has even been known to park his Airstream on the front lot to barbeque steak for passersby.
This affable German’s address book spans continents and cultures. A graduate of the Cass Business School and the University of Madrid, Weber’s projects have variously included The Cuckoo Club, Salon Club and Wanted Gallery. Here’s a gent who knows how to combining partying and business and one whose invites are most definitely like gold dust.
A marine residence with a history tied to the Rolls-Royce Spirit of Ecstasy, the Special Operations Executive and Babycham
The House on the Shore on Thorns Beach at Beaulieu in Hampshire is a home that wouldn’t look out of place in the Hamptons or Rhode Island. Dramatically situated next to the Solent waters to the north of the Isle of Wight, this suitably named building wouldn’t have been out of place in the 1980s BBC series Howards’ Way. It could. Indeed, have been an ideal home for Gerald and Polly Urquhart. (more…)
