The Steeple Times

Tag: charm

  • Hideous Hervey & Grubby Ghislaine

    Hideous Hervey & Grubby Ghislaine

    Pointless prattler Lady Victoria Hervey yet again cashes in on her connections with the deceased nonce Jeffrey Epstein and his mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell

    Fresh from having spouted a bag of bollocks about coronavirus and admitting she “had no idea what was really going on” with her ex-lover Prince Andrew and a potential lover who thought her “too old” Jeffrey Epstein, contradictory cretin Lady Victoria Hervey is putting herself about on the interview circuit to bang on about Ghislaine Maxwell.

     

    Our Wally of the Week in March 2021 and Moron of the Moment in June 2020 – whose attempt at running a boutique flogging knickers with Jane Blight in 2000 turned into a debt ridden disaster – this week claimed that mucky madam Maxwell “demonstrated” how to give a blowjob to her in the 1990s and told her “dirty jokes” in addition.

     

    Going further and plainly after as much as she could ‘cheque in’ for her tacky tales, the ultimate ‘TwIt Girl’ and dimwitted dope Lady Victoria reminisced also about Ghislaine Maxwell’s ‘little black address book’ and claimed her incarcerated chum was “very pally” and “at ease” with Bill Clinton also.

     

    Described by the by contrast lovely, late Tara Palmer-Tomkinson as “unpleasant” and “a right snob” previously, cash craving Lady Victoria cryptically concluded:

     

    “Ghislaine always struck me as someone full of life and was always jetting around somewhere fabulous. She always had this air of mystery. She never gave away too much but she gave away enough you wanted to find out more.”

     

    What must be remembered is this: Ludicrous lush Lady Victoria Hervey hasn’t actually seen Ghislaine Maxwell in years. Of their last meeting, she previously ridiculously and completely incorrectly remarked: “I don’t think anyone is going to find her. She’s gone far away. She’s a bit like a James Bond character. She’s quite a unique person and I don’t believe anyone is going to find her… I don’t think we will ever see her again, it’s going to be like Robert Maxwell continued; she will continue that family mystery.” Nobody will be hiring her as a clairvoyant anytime soon. Next!

     

    Pictured top: Party princess turned pokey inmate Ghislaine Maxwell (left) and her blowjob educated subject Lady Victoria Hervey munching on an ice cream (right).

     

    Classic clangers from former ‘It Girl’ Lady Victoria Hervey

    • “I am Lady Victoria Hervey – it doesn’t get more British than that.”
    • “Fuck BLM [Black Lives Matter].”
    • “Unless it’s champagne, I can’t handle it.”
    • “I’m an A-list celebrity and this is a C-list party.”
    • “I do have a day job.”
    • “My career always goes much better when I haven’t got a man.”
    • “A baby is easy – you hand them over to a nanny!”
    • “I’m kind of into star signs and I want my baby to have a sign that’s compatible with mine. It’s to plan though… We’ll just have to see… We’ll do the embryos and then I’ll figure out which month I’d like the baby to be born.”
    • “I’m not stupid. I’m not a dumb model.”
    • “[I aim to become] the next Kate Winslet – but with class.”
    • “I have had four past lives, three of them as a man. I was a composer in 17th-century Paris, I made materials in India and in Ancient Greece I was a famous politician. In Ancient Egypt I was keeper of the oils for the Pharaoh’s wife, and I love oils so it all kind of fits.”
    • “I feel I’ve aged 100 years in lockdown. I’ve had Botox, of course.”
    • “What annoys me is when these families have got like 12 children and we’re paying for these kids… They work out that they make more money being on the dole than having a job, they just laze around.”
    • “The real irony of this is that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.”
    • “Travelling is in my blood, and so is liking luxurious things and spending.”
    • “I haven’t given up on men, there are a few of them around, but I keep leaving every city I meet them in.”
    • “Everyone from Europe wants to buy houses in LA.”
    • “I was too old for Jeffrey Epstein… [He seemed] very charming… He was a very well-liked guy.”
    • “I’m not one of those kind of girls, I don’t like going to dinners with ten models invited… I was very young and impressionable, Jeffrey was a very charismatic man.”
    • “I haven’t seen [Ghislaine Maxwell] since September [2018] at a friend’s baby shower… I don’t think anyone is going to find her. She’s gone far away. She’s a bit like a James Bond character. She’s quite a unique person and I don’t believe anyone is going to find her… I don’t think we will ever see her again, it’s going to be like Robert Maxwell continued; she will continue that family mystery.”
    • “I had no idea what was going on [with Jeffrey Epstein]… It’s extraordinary it’s the case, it’s a wild story.”
    • “I suddenly thought, I’m just Victoria Hervey… Horrible.”
    • “I don’t want to make enemies.”

     

    Lady Victoria Hervey Jeffrey Epstein
    Most people wouldn’t brag about being linked to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, but Lady Victoria has gone as far as to brag that he rejected her.
    Lady Victoria Hervey Ghislaine Maxwell
    Lady Victoria (or ‘Lady V’ to those who consider this noxious nuisance a mate) has suddenly become an expert on Ghislaine Maxwell. One is simply left wondering how much she’s been paid for what is frankly not so relevant testimony about the mucky madam.
  • Who REALLY is Henry Newman?

    Who REALLY is Henry Newman?

    Whilst only a few newspapers have delved into his political past, we today ask: “Who REALLY is the bestie of Carrie Symonds and alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ Henry Newman?”

    In 2019, ‘Carrie Symonds’ bestie’ and supposed clatterfart Henry Newman described Dominic Cummings as “one of only a few political advisers who understands the importance of, and is truly committed to, reforming the Whitehall machine.” In April 2020, Cummings responded by branding Newman a leaker.

     

    Now, as the media delve into the scandal of Boris Johnson’s hole riddled ship and he seeks to dissipate the disgrace of his decorating debacle, with Cummings’ intervention on Friday, elements of the media have begun to examine exactly who Henry Newman is.

     

    Whilst widely referenced for dancing to ABBA with his longstanding chum Symonds and for being the go-to mouthpiece in support of Brexit during Theresa May’s “Brexit means Brexit” era, Newman should also go down in history for banging on about a need for fortnightly bin collections in Hampstead and Kilburn and for his somewhat bizarre Facebook ramblings.

     

    On his wall on the social media site, former special adviser (SPAD) to Francis Maude and Michael Gove, Newman – a graduate of ritzy institutions including the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the London School of Economics – has shared posts about being drunk. He has remarked that he was once “discreetly charmed by the bourgeoisie” and bragged that he even listened “to the Stones as the economy [collapsed].”

     

    Tellingly also, this one-time “rising star” and “Goveite” also declared he was “drowning in honey, stingless” and, most appropriately, providing illustration of why Daylesford addict ‘Costly Carrie’ counts him as “one of her four favourite people,” once announced: “[I’m] opening an organic box.”

     

    ‘Henry The Bin Boy’ Newman’s words of wisdom on Facebook…

    “Is drunk.”

     

    “Is opening an organic box.”

     

    “Is discreetly charmed by the bourgeoisie.”

     

    “Is drowning in honey, stingless.”

     

    “Once you kill a cow you gotta make a burger.”

     

    “Wondering if he is really a top concern for US immigration.”

     

    “Waiting for Jacqui Smith to resign.”

     

    “Is dancing, dancing, dancing… Is listening to rumba in W. Hartford… Is dancing in the dark… Is missing dancing.”

     

    “Is listening to the Stones while the economy collapses.”

     

    “Is watching his tan fall off.”

     

    “Hates people who don’t know how to use a rowing machine.”

     

    “Is thinking what this country needs is a new taskforce.”

     

    Who REALLY is Henry Newman? Alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ with a liking for organic boxes – Whilst a few newspapers have delved into his political past, we ask: “Who REALLY is the bestie of Carrie Symonds and alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ Henry Newman?” Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings, Francis Maude, Conservative, Tory, Vote Leave.
    Who is Henry Newman? Facebook posts by him give a clue to his personality.

    Descriptions of Henry Newman by…

    Boris Johnson:

    “One of my three musketeers.”

     

    Carrie Symonds:

    “One of my four favourite people.”

     

    Toby Young:

    “He is new role model… If you were a [politics show] booker who had to find someone… Newman was the only name on your Rolodex.”

     

    “As the oxygen went out of Theresa May’s premiership, and her withdrawal agreement began to breathe its last, the great balloon of his career became more and more inflated.”

     

    Dominic Cummings:

    “All the evidence [regarding the second lockdown leak] definitely leads to Henry Newman… I’m just trying to get the communications data to prove it.”

     

    An unnamed “senior government source”:

    “The allegations against Henry Newman are entirely false. He wouldn’t be working in Downing Street if he was suspected of leaking information.”

     

    Follow Henry Newman on his now somewhat secretive social media (if he lets you) at @henryjohnnewman on Facebook, @henryjohnnewman on Instagram and @HenryNewman on Twitter.

     

    Who REALLY is Henry Newman? Alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ with a liking for organic boxes – Whilst a few newspapers have delved into his political past, we ask: “Who REALLY is the bestie of Carrie Symonds and alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ Henry Newman?” Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings, Francis Maude, Conservative, Tory, Vote Leave.
    Who is Henry Newman? A fan of wearing beanie hats that declare: “Let’s get Brexit done,” here is a young man who taught politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), after studying at the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the London School of Economics. He reportedly then “cut his teeth” working in the Cabinet Office during the coalition government years and then joined Michael Gove’s entourage in the Ministry of Justice after he was appointed as the Lord Chancellor in 2015.
    Who REALLY is Henry Newman? Alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ with a liking for organic boxes – Whilst a few newspapers have delved into his political past, we ask: “Who REALLY is the bestie of Carrie Symonds and alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ Henry Newman?” Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings, Francis Maude, Conservative, Tory, Vote Leave.
    Who is Henry Newman? Aside from having travelled to Russia in his youth, Newman joined the Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 referendum campaign and, according to ‘The Telegraph’ “was among a close circle of Mr Gove’s friends who were said to have helped to convince him to ‘knife’ Mr Johnson and torpedo his bid for the Tory leadership by deciding to run himself.” Later, a director of the pro-Brexit Open Europe think-tank, Newman was then rewarded for being “loyal” to Carrie Symonds when Boris Johnson came to power.
    Who REALLY is Henry Newman? Alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ with a liking for organic boxes – Whilst a few newspapers have delved into his political past, we ask: “Who REALLY is the bestie of Carrie Symonds and alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ Henry Newman?” Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings, Francis Maude, Conservative, Tory, Vote Leave.
    Who is Henry Newman? Let’s not forget that this young man’s best friend Carrie Symonds was previously dating a man, Oliver Haiste (sometimes spelt ‘Haste’), exposed by the BBC in October 2016 for a Russian fake news scandal and for his friendship with Henry Hopwood-Phillips, an individual involved in the far-right, racist Traditional Britain Group. Miss Symonds must be noted also for her having been employed by Oceana, an oceanic charity that Ghislaine Maxwell – the now incarcerated alleged mucky madam to Jeffrey Epstein – was also a tin banger for.
    https://twitter.com/JoshBerryComedy/status/1386235119002955776
  • Courting Expletives

    Courting Expletives

    Extraordinary official civil judgment from the County Court at Manchester packed with expletives sums up the state of the nation; one is simply left wondering if potty mouthed Emma Rivers was trained by the creosoted napkin slapper Dawn Ward

    Proof that the use of expletives in public documents has plainly become completely acceptable came in the form of a judgment emailed late last week by the official Courts And Tribunals Judiciary website to subscribers to their civil judgments list.

     

    Concerning the matter of social housing provider Jigsaw Homes Tameside against a woman plainly in need of an ASBO named Emma Rivers, the document from the County Court at Manchester detailed a breach.

     

    Somewhat surprisingly presented without a single asterisk and packed with expletives, the half page summary very clearly and very simply read:

     

    “On Friday 26th March 2021, the Defendant admitted the following breach of her injunction order – 1. On 31st December 2020, around 4pm, the Respondent used abusive, insulting and foul language towards Linda Price whilst stood in Sellars Square. This included ‘You wanna control your fucking grandkids you stupid old fucking cow’ and ‘Or what, or fucking what you stupid old cow, giving your fucking crap out all the time who do you think you are?’ and ‘Shut up you stupid cow’. It is alleged this conduct constitutes a breach of clause 1 and 2 of the Order dated 29th April 2020.”

     

    How utterly charming an indication on the state of Great Britain this truly is and plainly how lovely a woman Emma Rivers genuinely must be.

     

    Courting Expletives 2021 – Emma Rivers v Jigsaw Homes Tameside – Extraordinary official civil judgment from the County Court at Manchester packed with expletives sums up the state of once Great Britain; one is simply left wondering if potty mouthed Emma Rivers was trained by the creosoted napkin slapper Dawn Ward.
    Courting Expletives – The half page document that shows Emma Rivers to be nothing other than a potty mouthed harridan. Given the creosoted creature and notorious napkin slapper Dawn Ward doesn’t live far away, one wonders if this fellow criminal hasn’t paid her a visit to train her in how to be the ultimate example of the use of foul language.
    Courting Expletives 2021 – Emma Rivers v Jigsaw Homes Tameside – Extraordinary official civil judgment from the County Court at Manchester packed with expletives sums up the state of once Great Britain; one is simply left wondering if potty mouthed Emma Rivers was trained by the creosoted napkin slapper Dawn Ward.
    Courting Expletives – The email sent to subscribers to the Courts And Tribunals Judiciary Civil judgments list on 8th April 2021.
    Courting Expletives 2021 – Emma Rivers v Jigsaw Homes Tameside – Extraordinary official civil judgment from the County Court at Manchester packed with expletives sums up the state of once Great Britain; one is simply left wondering if potty mouthed Emma Rivers was trained by the creosoted napkin slapper Dawn Ward.
    Courting Expletives – Emma Rivers plainly has form: Previously in March 2020, the ‘Tameside Reporter’ commented on recent cases at Tameside Magistrates’ Court and stated: “Tameside magistrates have banned Emma Rivers from the road for 17 months for drink driving and fined her £120. The 37-year-old, of Sellars Square, Droylsden, pleaded guilty to the charge after being stopped on Stockport Road, Denton, on November 17 last year. She was found to have 60 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35. Magistrates ordered her to pay £85 court costs and a £32 victim surcharge. The driving disqualification can be reduced by 17 weeks if a driving course is successfully completed.”
  • Wally of the Week 2021 – Lady Victoria Hervey

    Wally of the Week 2021 – Lady Victoria Hervey

    Lady Victoria Hervey shows herself to be a contradictory cretin by selling PPE but refusing to wear a mask herself; she fails to mention her ex-lover Prince Andrew or links to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell

    In June 2020, we made Lady Victoria Hervey our ‘Moron of the Moment’ after she stupidly stated “f**k black lives matter” and yesterday this one-time chum of mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell went and slammed her non-woke wellies in the proverbial again in an interview with the Daily Mail’s Francis Hardy.

     

    A short-lived lover of non-sweating Prince Andrew, yet rejected (she claims) as “too old” by his now croaked paedophile ‘bestie’ Jeffrey Epstein, the brainbox with more knowledge than scientists that is Lady Victoria told Hardy of COVID-19:

     

    “It’s completely hyped! The biggest worldwide conspiracy that ever happened.”

     

    “I’m not going to lie, I never wear [face masks]… The security guard in [a] shop called me over and told me I had to leave because I didn’t have one on. I stormed out… I believe in natural immunity… [It’s] Bill Gates’ goal to bring out this vaccine to depopulate the world.”

     

    Going further and aside from declaring: “I’m not going to be a lab rat,” Lady Victoria – who herself ran a business selling PPE at the start of the pandemic – excused the fact that no sane man would want her by adding: “It’s really hard to have relationships in LA.”

     

    This half-witted wench then banged on about getting herself a sperm donor, “cried” about Lady Gaga’s dogs being abducted (but made no mention of the poor dog walker who himself got shot) and sadly for Brits, announced that soon she’ll be returning to our shores.

     

    God help us all and please now, Los Angeles – Keep ‘Lady Twit Girl,’ we’ll be forever grateful.

     

    Pictured top: Lady Victoria Hervey with the deservedly currently incarcerated alleged sexual abuser and trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. The charming delight that was the late Tara Palmer-Tomkinson described the former as “unpleasant” and “a right snob.”

     

    Wally of the Week 2021 – Lady Victoria Hervey & Ghislaine Maxwell – Lady Victoria Hervey shows herself to be a contradictory cretin by selling PPE but refusing to wear a mask herself; she fails to mention her ex-lover Prince Andrew or links to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
    Wally of the Week – Lady Victoria Hervey pictured with the Duke of York. That even ‘Randy Andy’ ultimately decided her not to be for him speaks volumes.

    Classic clangers from former ‘It Girl’ Lady Victoria Hervey

    • “I am Lady Victoria Hervey – it doesn’t get more British than that.”

    • “Unless it’s champagne, I can’t handle it.”

    • “I’m an A-list celebrity and this is a C-list party.”

    • “I do have a day job.”

    • “My career always goes much better when I haven’t got a man.”

    • “A baby is easy – you hand them over to a nanny!”

    • “I’m kind of into star signs and I want my baby to have a sign that’s compatible with mine. It’s to plan though… We’ll just have to see… We’ll do the embryos and then I’ll figure out which month I’d like the baby to be born.”

    • “I’m not stupid. I’m not a dumb model.”

    • “[I aim to become] the next Kate Winslet – but with class.”

    • “I have had four past lives, three of them as a man. I was a composer in 17th-century Paris, I made materials in India and in Ancient Greece I was a famous politician. In Ancient Egypt I was keeper of the oils for the Pharaoh’s wife, and I love oils so it all kind of fits.”

    • “I feel I’ve aged 100 years in lockdown. I’ve had Botox, of course.”

    • “What annoys me is when these families have got like 12 children and we’re paying for these kids… They work out that they make more money being on the dole than having a job, they just laze around.”

    • “The real irony of this is that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.”

    • “Travelling is in my blood, and so is liking luxurious things and spending.”

    • “I haven’t given up on men, there are a few of them around, but I keep leaving every city I meet them in.”

    • “Everyone from Europe wants to buy houses in LA.”

    • “I was too old for Jeffrey Epstein… [He seemed] very charming… He was a very well-liked guy.”

    • “I’m not one of those kind of girls, I don’t like going to dinners with ten models invited… I was very young and impressionable, Jeffrey was a very charismatic man.”

    • “I haven’t seen [Ghislaine Maxwell] since September [2018] at a friend’s baby shower… I don’t think anyone is going to find her. She’s gone far away. She’s a bit like a James Bond character. She’s quite a unique person and I don’t believe anyone is going to find her… I don’t think we will ever see her again, it’s going to be like Robert Maxwell continued; she will continue that family mystery.”

    • “I had no idea what was going on [with Jeffrey Epstein]… It’s extraordinary it’s the case, it’s a wild story.”

    • “I suddenly thought, I’m just Victoria Hervey… Horrible.”

    • “I don’t want to make enemies.”

    Wally of the Week – Lady Victoria Hervey defended Prince Andrew on ‘Good Morning Britain’ in November 2019. At the time, she ludicrously claimed her other mate Ghislaine Maxwell would “never be seen again.” Nobody anywhere will be calling upon her psychic powers ever again on that basis.
  • Hero of the Hour – Andy from Argos

    Hero of the Hour – Andy from Argos

    Grimsby resident takes with good humour someone attaching an Argos sign to his house on New Year’s Day whilst journalist reporting story of it goes all Miss Marple

    “I think if people were all a bit more like Andy, there would be no wars” remarked one Nick Kay on the Facebook group ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ of a story about an Argos sign “taking a tour of Grimsby before ending up attached” to the house of someone named Andy.

     

    Featured in GrimsbyLive on Saturday, the aforementioned sign was taken from the closed down Argos store in Osborne Street in the coastal town – a place where a UKIP candidate dopily named Victoria Ayling asked a council meeting: “What happens when renewable energy runs out?” in 2015 – on New Year’s Day.

     

    According to the paper’s Gregory Ford, a journalist with plainly a hell of a lot of other subject matter to sift through as he moves into 2021, “[the sign] first took a stop at the town hall a few yards away” and appeared the next day “at an address in West Marsh where it appeared to have been attached to the side of a house.”

     

    Ford – a man who makes Miss Marple looks like an amateur – continued:

     

    “GrimsbyLive finally caught up with the wandering logo at around 1pm where it was found still attached to the side of a property on Haycroft Street near the junction with Lord Street.”

     

    Speaking to the “resident at the property,” a man whose surname he neglected to include named ‘Andy’ subsequently, Ford gained the following surprisingly witty comment:

     

    “I think someone has put it here as a bit of a joke, we have some banter with the neighbours, one of my friends sent me a video of someone attaching it to the house last night.”

     

    “I’ve got no idea how they got it down or if they were even the ones that took it off the wall in the first place to be honest.”

     

    “I’m keeping it up though I think, it is a bit funny isn’t it? I might just treat it as a bit of a late Christmas present, I’ll have to set up my own click and collect.”

     

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    Hero of the Hour – Andy from Argos – Argos sign on Grimsby house – Grimsby resident takes with good humour someone attaching an Argos sign to his house whilst journalist reporting story of it goes all Miss Marple. Facebook group Angry People in Local Newspapers, GrimsbyLive.
    Predictably members of the Facebook ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ had fun with the story with one declaring: “Bet Visit Grimsby are pissing themselves over this free advertising.”
    Hero of the Hour – Andy from Argos – Argos sign on Grimsby house – Grimsby resident takes with good humour someone attaching an Argos sign to his house whilst journalist reporting story of it goes all Miss Marple. Facebook group Angry People in Local Newspapers, GrimsbyLive.
    Another added: “They’ll put a pick-up point anywhere these days” whilst another mocked: “I saw Argos tour in the 80s, before they sold out.”
    Hero of the Hour – Andy from Argos – Argos sign on Grimsby house – Grimsby resident takes with good humour someone attaching an Argos sign to his house whilst journalist reporting story of it goes all Miss Marple. Facebook group Angry People in Local Newspapers, GrimsbyLive.
    Andy from Argos’ sign is about its only highlight – Grimsby (a grim town whose residents are nicknamed ‘Grimbarians’) is the place Theresa May chose to give her final speech prior to the final vote on her ultimately rejected Brexit deal in 2019 in a hangar for housing life vests (rather appropriately); ditch loving murderess Jane Andrews (pictured with her former boss Sarah Ferguson) grew up in Grimsby and as of November was a Morrisons shelf-stacker in the town; chancellor “best known for singing in the bathtub as the economy collapsed” Norman Lamont was brought up there too and in 1974, Sir Elton even decided to sing about the accursed place. Now, in 2021, it doesn’t even have an Argos.
    Whilst Elton John waxed lyrical about Grimsby in his song – with lines including “there’s nothing to compare with my Grimsby,” “Grimsby, oh, a thousand delights” and “I miss your magic charm” – one visitor remarked of it: “The place just stinks of fish.”
    In August 2020, Argos announced it would no longer be printing paper copies of its catalogue. ITV1’s ‘This Morning’ responded by interviewing a retail studies expert named Professor Leigh Sparks who’d collected every single copy since 1973. He remarked: “It was a book of dreams in many ways. What a record of consumer tastes they were” whilst Eamonn Holmes intelligently chirped: “They can show you every stage of your life.”
    “It’s So Easy” was Argos’ strapline in advertising campaigns in the 1980s. No doubt, ‘Andy’ won’t share such sentiments when he’s bashed his head against the sign after a night out on the razzle dazzle.
  • The Hotel Detective and his Lover

    The Hotel Detective and his Lover

    Hotel legend Derek Picot’s novel ‘The Hotel Detective and his Lover’ is a perfect easy read for those wishing to enjoy quirky hotel land

    Derek Picot is a legend in the world of hoteliers. He has charm and a brilliant eye for detail and now he’s written a novel, The Hotel Detective and his Lover.

     

    Available on Amazon for £10.50 since the 9th August, ex head honcho at London’s sadly now under renovation Carlton Tower, Picot’s second foray into print – following on from, Hotel Reservations, which was very much a deserved hit in its own right – tells the tale of an internal detective at a fictional hotel on The Strand.

     

    Complete with characters drawn from his own real-life experiences in the industry and quite a bit of action in the suites, this is a book that is fun and it is one that makes for a perfectly delightful read. You’ll find skullduggery, deviousness and dining on its pages and you’ll marvel at a world that has sadly long since been eroded by multi-national chain blandness of Hiltons and Intercontinentals.

     

    In the days of dullness of coronavirus lockdowns, we need to remember the fun times of the past and in Picot’s work, you’ll find something refreshing. Here is a book that has, as the author’s restaurateur friend Philip Lawless commented to The Steeple Times, “had names changed to protect the innocent, yet not has lost the authenticity of something of Agatha Christie’s At Bertram’s Hotel.”

     

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

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    The Hotel Detective and his Lover – By Derek Picot – Hotel legend Derek Picot’s novel ‘The Hotel Detective and his Lover’ is a perfect easy read for those wishing to enjoy quirky hotel land.
    ‘The Hotel Detective and his Lover’ is set in a fictional hotel on The Strand; The Savoy, of course, is the only real hotel of any note on that street, but Picot’s creation is an utterly fascinating concoction of intrigue.
  • Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent

    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent

    Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extorionate ground rent

    A 2,124 square foot artists’ studio in Belgravia has gone on sale for just £1.3 million or the equivalent of £612 per square foot. There is, of course, a catch and that is that the ground rent is a staggering sum of £58,000 per year.

     

    Featured in The Steeple Times when last offered for sale for £995,000 in November 2017, the opulently decorated ground and first floor property available provides not only a double height 23’9” by 20’6” reception room but also a dining room and kitchen. There are also 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and the space is described as being “for those involved in arts and media.”

     

    The lease on the space is described as having been “renewed for 15 years with the Grosvenor Estate and agents Lurot Brand remark: “The grandeur and scale of this property is extraordinary in both charm and character.”

     

    The Numbers – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom

     

    • August 2020 – Offered for sale for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million) by agents Lurot Brand.

     

    • August 2020 – Ground rent of £58,000 per year ($76,000, €64,000 or درهم278,000 per year), an increase of 9.4% on the sum in 2017.

     

    • November 2017 – Marketed for £995,000 ($1.3 million, €1.1 million or درهم4.8 million) by Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward.

     

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

    Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

    Twitter: @SteepleTimes

     

    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
    Grosvenor Grabs The Ground Rent – Studio Place, London, SW1 – Vast Belgravia artists’ studio goes on sale for just £1.3 million, but of course, there is a catch and that is the extortionate ground rent – Ground and First Floor Apartment, Bradbrook House, Kinnerton Street, London, SW1X 8EL, United Kingdom for sale through Lurot Brand for £1.3 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم2.4 million).
  • Falling Down Flass

    Falling Down Flass

    Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion built by opium dealer and once marketed for £1.5 million for sale for just £460,000; it was also the scene of the UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012

     

    A 23,000 square foot, 52 room, mid-19th century Palladian mansion in the Westmorland Dales National Park is to be sold at auction – by order of the mortgagees not in possession – for £1 million less than it was marketed for in 2014. It is sadly now described as being in an utterly wrecked, vandalised condition.

     

    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    The entrance elevation of the mansion then and now

    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    The strikingly grand interiors of Flass (prior to visits from the ‘Urban Explorers’)

    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    The completely trashed interiors of the mansion (after visits from the ‘Urban Explorers’)

     

    Built in 1851 for wealthy merchant brothers and tea and opium magnets Lancelot and Wilkinson Dent, 8-bedroomed Flass at Maulds Meaburn, near Penrith in Cumbria was designed by architects Grey and Mair and includes furnishings by the renowned firm Gillows of Lancaster and London.

     

    Opulent to its core and said to have featured marble fireplaces, ivory door handles and friezes with pearls, Flass remained in the Dent family until 1973. Just prior to being sold for £17,000 (the equivalent of £202,000 today) that year to a historian named Frank Walsh, the then owner Sir Robert Dent opened up an attic of the house and discovered items from the Mughal Empire that he then auctioned for the astounding sum of £220,000 (the equivalent of £2.6 million today).

     

    Subsequently this vast stucco finished, limestone built house – complete with a Doric porte-cochère and a three-storey tower – became a care home and was then after sold in 2000 to a singer-songwriter best known for co-writing the creepy Christian crooner Sir Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman named Christine Holmes (also known as Kristine Sparkle) and her husband Paul Davies. The pair turned the property into a performing arts school.

     

    After the couple divorced, Davies took control of the mansion but due to spiraling maintenance costs, he eventually got himself involved with a gang of drug dealers in 2011. Due to what rental agents at the time described as the house being “totally private and hidden away, with an unmatched seclusion and charm,” Davies and his five cohorts were able to grow cannabis with a street value of £5.26 million undetected until a neighbour became suspicious. He was jailed for his role in the crime for three years and eight months in September 2015.

     

    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    Singer-songwriter Christine Holmes outside Flass in September 2017 (after visits from the ‘Urban Explorers’ and their having trashed her home)

    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    Paul Davies turned Flass into Britain’s biggest cannabis farm (and got himself three years and eight months in jail for his efforts; on his conviction his representative said: “He blames nobody but himself for getting involved in this criminal business”)

    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    The “massive scale” £5 million cannabis farm operated at Flass was described in court as “a professional setup” and having the “real hallmarks of organised crime”

     

    Christine Holmes subsequently took back control of Flass and after trying and failing to sell the house for £1.5 million spent £200,000 on renovations to put right the damage done by the drug operation. Her bad luck, however, was not to end there. In September 2017, the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald reported that a gang of ‘Urban Explorers’ had raided the somewhat derelict building and filmed their exploits. In the weeks that followed, trespassers returned at least twelve further times and “ransacked and trashed” the once glorious residence. She told the paper:

     

    “I was absolutely horrified when I saw [videos of the house] online. I couldn’t believe how anyone could come into my home and believe it was an abandoned building.”

     

    “I think since then people have been staying in the building and have even been there hiding while I’ve been there. I’m petrified. These are evil people who are breaking into my home. I think it’s becoming a game to them. They are breaking in every day.”

     

    Auctioneers Harman Healy will now offer Grade II* listed Flass along with 17.5 acres of overgrown grounds with a guide price of just £460,000+ on 30th January. Christine Holmes no doubt will be glad if she finally gets shot of what she likely ended up considering to be the worst kind of white elephant.

     

    Flass – The Numbers

     

    January 2019 – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million).

     

    July 2014 – Offered for sale for £1.5 million ($1.9 million, €1.7 million or درهم7.1 million).

     

    2000 – Sold for £490,000 ($635,000, €559,000 or درهم2.3 million) to the currently jailed drug dealer Paul Davies and his then wife songwriter Christine Holmes.

     

    1998 – Reduced to £650,000 ($842,000, €741,000 or درهم3.1 million).

     

    1997 – For sale for £750,000 ($972,000, €855,000 or درهم3.6 million).

     

    1982 – Sold for £115,000 ($149,000, €131,000 or درهم547,000) to a retired solicitor named Malcolm Whiteside. He turned Flass into a care home which he ran with his wife Mary.

     

    1973 – Sold by Sir Robert Dent, a descendant of the family who built the house, for £17,000 ($22,000, €19,000 or درهم81,000) to a historian named Frank Welsh.

     

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

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    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    The garden elevation of the mansion then and now

    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    The no doubt once glorious gardens of Flass have now gone to wrack and ruin

    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    The entrance gates to the estate (in better days)

    Falling Down Flass – Flass, Maulds Meaburn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 3HN, United Kingdom – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million) by auctioneers Harman Healy – Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion once marketed for £1.5m for sale for just £460,000; scene of UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012.
    A plan of Flass and its surrounding land

  • A Rental Ruin

    A Rental Ruin

    Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler”

     

    Other than the legendary Roy Brooks, the only honest man in his game, estate agents will be optimistic about just about anything. A bit of damp: “no problem”; a nuclear power station next door: “positively charming” but John D. Wood & Co. truly take the biscuit with the marketing material for a property they are currently trying to let in chi-chi Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London.

     

    Sent to us by an eagle eyed reader, the £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week), 867 square foot three floor aforementioned house has conventional features such as a reception room, kitchen, three bedrooms and a bathroom. It also, rather unconventionally, has walls that haven’t even been painted and are just bare plaster. Pictures show also scruffily made-up beds propped up on wooden blocks, wiring and ageing televisions discarded on the floors and a garden littered with leaves.

     

    Of this strange offering, our reader remarked: “I saw this listing and thought it was a half-finished project and up for sale, but no, it’s a rental. Buy-to-let plainly says can’t afford to finish it, says sod it and tries to rent it out in a half-finished state and describe it as a ‘unique house packed with character and charm.’ I particularly like the exposed gas meter!”

     

    When he telephoned, a member of staff at John D. Wood told our reader: “The landlord would prefer to rent the property ‘as is’ and not do further work. It would be at least £1,000 per week if it were finished. He is happy for any tenant to paint and make further improvements.”

     

    In typical estate agent fashion, she optimistically added: “It does have a new boiler.”

     

    Roy Brooks – “A painfully honest estate agent”

    “Beyond any doubt the best copywriter for property advertising in the history of the British press,” Roy Brooks (died 1971) took a “puckish delight in telling the truth” about the houses he was asked to sell.

     
    A Rental Ruin – Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler” – 62 Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 4AR, United Kingdom – To rent through John D. Wood & Co. for £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week).

    An example of this Kings Road based eccentric’s advertisements read:

     

    “Do not be misled by the trim exterior of this modest period res with its dirty broken windows; all is not well with the inside. The décor of the nine rooms, some of which hangs inelegantly from the walls, is revolting. Not entirely devoid of plumbing, there is a pathetic kitchen and one cold tap. No bathroom, of course, but Chelsea has excellent public baths. Rain sadly drips through the ceiling on to the oilcloth. The pock-marked basement floor indicates a thriving community of woodworm, otherwise there is not much wrong with the property… Sacrifice £6,750.”

     

    Another announced:

     

    “Wanted: Someone with taste, means and a stomach strong enough to buy this erstwhile house of ill-repute in Pimlico. It is untouched by the 20th century as far as conveniences for even the basic human decencies are concerned. Although it reeks of damp or worse, the plaster is coming off the walls and daylight peeps through a hole in the roof, it is still habitable judging by the bed of rags, fag ends and empty bottles in one corner. Plenty of scope for the socially aspiring to express their decorative taste and get their abode in The Glossy, and nothing to stop them putting Westminster on their notepaper. Comprises 10 rather unpleasant rooms with slimy back yard, £4,650 Freehold. Tarted up, these houses make £15,000.”

     

    Justifying his reasoning for driving his Rolls-Royce from London to Russia loaded up with 1,000 pairs of shoes, Brooks – author of Brothel in Pimlico and Mud, Straw and Insults: Confessions of an Honest Estate Agent – glibly explained: “I take these for old times’ sake – Stalingrad and the defeat of the German hordes. Perhaps I could bring back in return some of their women engineers whose factories I saw prefabricating good homes by the thousands.”

     

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

    Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

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    A Rental Ruin – Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler” – 62 Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 4AR, United Kingdom – To rent through John D. Wood & Co. for £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week). A Rental Ruin – Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler” – 62 Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 4AR, United Kingdom – To rent through John D. Wood & Co. for £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week).A Rental Ruin – Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler” – 62 Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 4AR, United Kingdom – To rent through John D. Wood & Co. for £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week). A Rental Ruin – Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler” – 62 Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 4AR, United Kingdom – To rent through John D. Wood & Co. for £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week). A Rental Ruin – Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler” – 62 Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 4AR, United Kingdom – To rent through John D. Wood & Co. for £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week). A Rental Ruin – Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler” – 62 Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 4AR, United Kingdom – To rent through John D. Wood & Co. for £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week). A Rental Ruin – Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler” – 62 Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 4AR, United Kingdom – To rent through John D. Wood & Co. for £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week). A Rental Ruin – Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler” – 62 Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 4AR, United Kingdom – To rent through John D. Wood & Co. for £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week).

  • Canvassing a Con

    Canvassing a Con

    After a Chelsea chef who came out of nowhere named Michael Riemenschneider is revealed to be a “conman” in the ‘Mail on Sunday’, readers tell of his past form

     

    As can only be expected of a paper that loves a bit of sensationalism this week’s Mail on Sunday’s ‘YOU’ got rather carried away in an interview with a “wealthy widow” named Flora Mascolo – a woman who claims to be a victim of, mind the magazine’s gushingly cringeworthy description, a “delicious romance soon turned sour” with a Michelin starred chef named Michael Riemenschneider.

     

    Bizarrely, that Riemenschneider – a man whose first London restaurant, we noted in February 2014, was literally covered with images of his face and captions referencing his name – is lauded as a “handsome celebrity chef” in the feature by Margarette Driscoll is somewhat ambitious given several locals we contacted remember him as “podgy” and a “little bit greasy.” A well-known Chelsea restaurateur – where the Swiss born chef opened a replacement restaurant that few ever even got to hear of just months after opening and nigh on immediately closing his original Marylebone premises in summer 2014 – recalls an individual whose “ability to talk about himself and his achievements made me immediately question the truth of his claims.”

     

    That Driscoll lauds this individual as “talented and dynamic” is perhaps fair given his “experimental cuisine” most definitely had many merits, but that she describes a man Mascolo herself calls a “coward of a man” and “somebody who was a lie, from the beginning” as “destined for similar success” to Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay is nothing but far fetched. Here was someone who opened in bizarre off-piste locations, insisted diners fitted into limited time spots and ridiculously thought he could limit customers to a set menu priced at £275 per head or a ‘cheaper’ one at £95 per head.

     

    Riemenschneider, a man whose exploits are reported to have cost the widow of the co-founder of the Toni & Guy hairdressing empire some £2.27 million, is now supposedly bankrupt and living in Austria. Cars bought by him including a Mercedes-Benz GTS have reportedly been seized and of him Mascolo comments: “If you wrong me, you will remember my name. He didn’t know who he was messing with.”

     

    A wealthy female reader of The Steeple Times contacted us to share her thoughts on the interview. She did not wish to be named but stated: “This strange, anything but handsome individual, pestered me on social media. He messaged me one day out of the blue in 2013 and he told me that we had friends in common. I am glad I did not fall for his attempts to lure me. Plainly, Mrs Mascolo did and I am sorry for her.”

     

    She continued:

     

    “This man wasn’t a ‘celebrity chef’ but, in fact, a Facebook stalker of ladies he thought had a bit of cash. In his messages to me, I quickly realised he was an individual who’d come out of nowhere and brought with him an ego the size of Harrods.”

     

    “The journalist [Margarette Driscoll] gets rather carried away about his restaurant. It was in a sub-basement off Sloane Square and it didn’t even have a website. Nobody went there because nobody even knew about it. Where there’s money, there’s muck.”

     

    Michael Riemenschneider will no doubt reemerge someday. He was certainly a good cook, but sadly he turned out to be an even better conman.

     

    Canvassing a Con – Chef Michael Riemenschneider revealed to be a conman by the Mail on Sunday’s YOU magazine.Canvassing a Con – Chef Michael Riemenschneider revealed to be a conman by the Mail on Sunday’s YOU magazine.