The Steeple Times

Tag: Cherie Blair

  • Costly Carrie

    Costly Carrie

    The extravagance of Carrie Symonds plainly knows no bounds; what ‘Costly Carrie’ wants, cost unconscious puppet mistress Carrie gets

    ‘Princess Nut Nut’ – AKA ‘Costly Carrie’ Symonds – will go down in history as Downing Street’s answer to Barbara Amiel. With an attitude to expenditure that makes she whose “extravagance knew no bounds” look meek, Boris Johnson’s puppet mistress has deservedly been criticised in recent days for her £200,000 “monstrous” and “inappropriate” makeover of the flat occupied by the Prime Minister.

     

    Now, with news that she’s topped her spendaholic lifestyle with over £12,500 of deliveries from ritzy Daylesford – owned by “lady doors to manual” Carole Bamford – during successive lockdowns, this utterly out-of-touch with ordinary folk woman is understandably being mocked and derided. Here is someone whose Imelda Marcos ways will ultimately make Cherie Blair seem like a comparative penny pincher.

     

    Having first shown her harridan handiwork in forcing ‘Bosie The Clown’ to turf out Dominic Cummings for not kowtowing to her, ‘modern day Marie Antoinette’ Symonds – who also faces scandal in the face of an investigation into the charity she works for – has also been slammed for appointing her cronies without following due process.

     

    One-time employee of another charity linked to incarcerated mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell, psychotic wine-chucker ‘Carrie Not On Regardless’ has plenty of previous. Aside from bedroom area shenanigans with The Sun’s Harry Cole, Britain’s rather unfortunate equivalent of a first lady previously had an “emotionally charged… tumultuous” relationship with Oliver Haiste, an alleged fake news hoaxer with links to the deranged far right Traditional Britain Group.

     

    Costly Carrie Symonds 2021 – Boris Johnson’s spouse Carrie Symonds is a spendaholic – The extravagance of Carrie Symonds plainly knows no bounds; what ‘Costly Carrie’ wants, cost unconscious puppet mistress Carrie gets.
    Costly Carrie – Carrie Symonds definitely wields the power in Downing Street these days. Her drippy hubby-to-be Boris Johnson is nothing but a puppet, in fact.
    Costly Carrie Symonds 2021 – Boris Johnson’s spouse Carrie Symonds is a spendaholic – The extravagance of Carrie Symonds plainly knows no bounds; what ‘Costly Carrie’ wants, cost unconscious puppet mistress Carrie gets.
    Costly Carrie – Aside from daily deliveries of expensive provisions from Lady Bamford’s ritzy Daylesford “farm shop” during the pandemic lockups, Symonds brought in the anything but cheap “celebrity eco designer” Lulu Lytle to eliminate the “John Lewis furniture nightmare” of the Theresa May era décor of the Prime Minister’s Downing Street private residence.
  • Sheen Shines

    Sheen Shines

    The ‘Guardian’s’ Rebecca Nicholson’s fascinating interview with the actor Michael Sheen is exactly the kind of reading needed during coronavirus lockdown; he reveals previously unknown details about bizarre encounters with Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng Murdoch

    It’s hard to find stories to read right now in newspapers that don’t relate to coronavirus and it’s even harder to find compelling interviews that don’t feature bleeding hearts banging on about what good they’re doing (when they’re just actually craving a return to their glory days gaining acres of Alexa Chung-type press acreage).

     

    Gone are the days of the great, the good and the not-so-good actually revealing something we didn’t already know and instead, it seems, COVID-19 has reduced The Telegraph, for example, to unimaginatively asking the chef Jason Atherton: “Powder or piste?” (His 50/50 chance answer: The latter – for those of you actually interested in this kind of inane drivel).

     

    Today, however, the Guardian’s Rebecca Nicholson pulled a blinder with what one reader described as a “marvellous portrait” of the actor best known for repeatedly playing Tony Blair, Michael Sheen. Though ‘Two Tony’s’ – according to an individual who left a comment online afterwards – “sounds thoroughly uncomfortable,” Nicholson coaxed her subject into revealing amongst other things that Wendi Deng Murdoch once asked him to “dress like [Blair]” and “make [his] hair look like him” so she could “bring [him] out and surprise [Blair].” Please don’t throw up whilst considering that rather scary image. Thankfully there’s no mention as to whether Sheen enquired about the alleged extra-marital relations that went on between the ‘real’ Tony and the now ex-Mrs Murdoch, as there would be a detail that’d certainly be nearly as off-putting as what allegedly went on between the wife of one of the most loathed premier’s in history and Carole Caplin (what on earth became of her?) in a shower in Downing Street.

     

    Sheen, a man “fascinated by Blair’s legacy,” but someone who didn’t meet the “wary of [him]” ex-PM until after he’d already played him twice, also shares snippets of an encounter with Rupert Murdoch. Of it, the ex of Kate Beckinsale recalls: “There was a very peculiar moment with Murdoch. I remember standing looking out at the view, and then I realised that Murdoch was standing next to me. It was quite a hot day. I just remember seeing a little bead of black dye, running down his face. I thought, oh, Ozymandias [two sonnets by Percy Shelley about the decline of rulers with their pretensions to greatness].”

     

    Moving on to how he is “astonished” by our current Prime Minister, Sheen observes: “It’s very hard to trust someone who can go so easily in different ways.” Nicholson then concludes the interview with a suggestion: “Part of me hopes [Michael Sheen] might one day take the idea of Michael Sheen MP seriously, after all.” Superb.

     

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  • David Bishop (AKA ‘Lord Biro’ and ‘Bus-pass Elvis’)

    David Bishop (AKA ‘Lord Biro’ and ‘Bus-pass Elvis’)

    Described by the BBC as “a serial fringe candidate,” Broxtowe, Nottingham born ‘Lord Biro’ attended the late paedophile Jimmy Savile’s funeral dressed as Elvis. He threw a 99p bunch of flowers into his grave as “a mark of respect.”

     

    A divorced painter and decorator, wacky David Bishop adopted his first moniker (‘Lord Byro’) in honour of Lord Byron and later replaced the ‘y’ with an ‘I’ to stand against everyone from Eric Pickles to Neil Hamilton and Robert Kilroy-Silk.

     

    An artist and poet also, Bishop primarily campaigns as the ‘Church of the Militant Elvis Party’ and has a website named GrumpyOldElvis.co.uk. His wacky policies have included:

     

    – Imprisoning Cherie Blair to prevent her talking about her sex life.

    – Placing CCTV in the bedroom of Nick Clegg.

    – Bono for Pope.

    – Going to Antarctica to shout at icebergs to “stop melting.”

    – Turning public schools into pound shops.

    – Introducing moats around houses.

    – Legalising and nationalising cannabis and calling it British Grass.

    – Free neutering for cats and Boris Johnson.

     

  • Reader Offer – ‘Un Ballo in Maschera’ by Verdi at Winslow Hall

    Reader Offer – ‘Un Ballo in Maschera’ by Verdi at Winslow Hall

    Winslow Hall Opera’s ‘Un ballo in maschera’ by Verdi to be performed in Buckinghamshire in July

     

    Between 7th and 16th July, a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera will be performed in the grounds of Winslow Hall in Buckinghamshire.

     

    The opera in three acts will be conducted by Oliver Gilmour, Winslow Hall Opera’s artistic director for the last three seasons, and directed by Carmen Jakobi. Attendees will have the opportunity to enjoy picnics before afternoon performances and supper during an 85-minute interval in the evenings.

     

    Reader Offer – Winslow Hall Opera’s ‘Un Ballo in Maschera’ by Verdi at Winslow Hall, Winslow, Buckinghamshire, MK18 3HL – 7th to 16th July 2017.
    ‘La traviata’ was performed at Winslow Hall in 2015, its set was designed by Sam Steer

     

    Grade I listed Winslow Hall itself is a fascinating house that was once described as “the Rolls-Royce of English domestic architecture”. Supposedly built to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, the building – famed for its curiously tall chimneys – has variously been a school, an office for RAF Bomber Command and an antiques showroom.

     

    Restored as a private house by a former British ambassador to the Netherlands in the 1950s, Winslow Hall was sold to the former restaurateur Christopher Gilmour and his delightful Australian wife, Mardi, in 2010.

     

    Details:

    Tickets are priced between £75 and £95 per person (with a discount of £10 per ticket on bookings made before 15th May). For further information and to book, telephone +44 (0) 754 472 6501 or email [email protected]

     

    Performance dates:

    7th July at 6pm

    9th July at 3pm

    11th July at 6pm

    13th July at 6pm

    15th July at 5pm

    16th July at 3pm


    Dress:

    Black tie is optional.

     

    Address:

    Winslow Hall, Winslow, Buckinghamshire, MK18 3HL. Parking is available in the field opposite. Trains from London Euston to Milton Keynes take 30 minutes.

     

  • Obituary – Marisa Masters (1925 – 2016)

    Obituary – Marisa Masters (1925 – 2016)

    Remembering one of London’s great ladies, Marisa Masters (more…)

  • Hero of the Hour: Kerry Needham

    Hero of the Hour: Kerry Needham

    Kerry Needham speaks for the nation in calling for more help for parents of missing children (other than just Madeleine McCann) (more…)

  • Reader offer: La Traviata at Winslow Hall

    Reader offer: La Traviata at Winslow Hall

    Winslow Hall in Buckinghamshire to host fourth annual opera production between 8th and 19th July 2015 (more…)

  • Trimming Trimdon

    Trimming Trimdon

    Tony Blair’s former home heads to auction for £35,000 less than he sold it for in 2010 (more…)

  • Lady de Rothschild (also known as Lynn Forester de Rothschild, née Lynn Forester)

    Lady de Rothschild (also known as Lynn Forester de Rothschild, née Lynn Forester)

    lady de rothschildThis thrice married, New Jersey born, Columbia Law School graduate was introduced to Sir Evelyn de Rothschild by Henry Kissinger in 1998. (more…)

  • Quote of the Week: Tony Blair claims: “I’ve not changed”

    Quote of the Week: Tony Blair claims: “I’ve not changed”

    Tony Blair disputes estimates of his wealth and claims that he just wants to make a difference

     

    Last week, our former Prime Minister Tony Blair declared: “I’ve not changed. It’s not about making money. It’s about making a difference”. Curiously, for a man with so little interest in cash, he then went on to spend £50,000 on a lavish surprise party for his wife’s 60th birthday on Friday night. (more…)