It has just been confirmed that 67-year old oligarch Boris Berezovsky was found dead in a bath at his Surrey home at around 11am this morning. His son-in-law, Yegor Shuppe, revealed the news earlier today on Facebook and later a statement came from Alexander Dobrovinsky of Moscow based The Alexander Dobrovinsky & Partners law firm stating:
“Just got a call from London. Boris Berezovsky committed suicide. He was a difficult man. A move of disparity? Impossible to live poor? A strike of blows? I am afraid no one will get to know now”.
Boris Berezovsky (1946 – 2013)
Berezovsky, who I encountered several times at The Lanesborough Hotel, lost a £3 billion damages claim against Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich in 2012. It was the largest private court action ever to have been heard in Britain and during the case he was described as “an inherently unreliable witness”.
In a separate case in January 2013, Mr Berezovsky former lover and mother of two of his six children, Elena Gorbunova, won a £200 million freezing order on his assets.
Aside from this, the political exile and outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was subjected to a number of assassination attempts. A 1994 car bomb decapitated Berezovsky’s chauffeur and after a hitman had been sent to kill him in 2007, he alleged that security sources had told him:
“Someone you know will come to Britain, he will try to connect to you and when you meet him, he will just kill you and will not try to hide”.
Whether Mr Berezovsky died of natural causes, committed suicide or was killed unlawfully remains to be revealed. Whatever transpires, this turn of events marks a most tragic end for this most colourful of oligarchs.
Matthew Steeples offers offers a tribute to the late Robert Troyan
I first met the larger than life Bostonian character Robert Troyan (1950 – 2013) with his partner Anthony Feldman in the early 2000s at their impressive apartment in Mayfair. Though I did not come to know them well, I fondly recall a number of evenings that they hosted there planning an event for a charity we were all involved in named Marine Conservation and several dinner parties.
The uninvited nuisances who are the nightmare of any party host
First published in October 2011 on a blog written by Matthew Steeples, we revisit the story of the leading gatecrashers who boldly go where no others would dare.
Gatecrashers are people who get into parties without invitations. Central London seems to be awash with them and though they lack the gaul of Washington’s Michaele and Tareq Salahi (who crashed President Obama’s White House state dinner for the Indian Prime Minister), they are truly a menace wherever they go.
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.
An Australian tycoon announces a bizarre plan to launch a replica of the doomed passenger liner RMS Titanic
This week, a “brash” 58-year old Australian mining tycoon named Clive Palmer announced that he will launch a full-scale replica of the RMS Titanic in 2016.
An image of how the Blue Star Line’s Titanic II will lookThe White Star Line’s RMS TitanicAustralian tycoon Clive Palmer
On hearing of this, I wondered if April Fool’s Day had come early, but it turns out that this billionaire is quite serious in his ambitions. Palmer, who is funding the estimated £133 million project personally, has just begun a world tour to share his plans. The businessman, in a bow to history, has even appointed Terry Ismay, a descendant of the Titanic’s owner, Joseph Bruce Ismay (1862 – 1937), whom many still refer to as “The Coward of the Titanic”, to the advisory board of the Blue Star Line, the company formed to manage the boat. Mr Ismay will be one of the guests of honour at a dinner at London’s Natural History Museum to celebrate the project tomorrow, Saturday 2nd March. The same 11-course menu first class passengers on the Titanic consumed on the fateful night of 14th April 1912 will be served.
Preliminary plans reveal the Titanic II will be some 55,800 gross tonnes in weight, 883 foot long and propelled by three azimuth thrusters. It will have a maximum speed of 24 knots, the same as the first Titanic. The ocean liner will have a capacity of 2,345 passengers and a crew of 900. Unlike the RMS Titanic, which had just 16 lifeboats for 1,178 people, the Titanic II will have 18 covered motorised lifeboats capable of carrying 2,700 and life rafts with an additional capacity of 800.
A replica of the RMS Titanic’s Grand Staircase will be created on the Titanic IIAmongst other authentic features will be a replica of the third class dining hall
Though the replica vessel will be virtually the same size as the original and will feature the same class divisions of first, second and third class, there will be differences. The “shopping areas” found on many modern day cruise boats will be present and sensibly, there will be extra bathroom facilities and air conditioning. A decision as to whether Wi-Fi and televisions will be provided is yet to be made.
In a press release, Professor Palmer, who is described on Wikipedia as “an eccentric billionaire with a reputation for bizarre publicity stunts”, romantically stated:
“Why build the Titanic? Why go to the moon? Why do the Yankees play the Red Sox? Why did Christopher Columbus discover the Americas? Because they could, and they can, and we can build the Titanic”.
“By learning from the lessons of the past, the spirit of Rose and Jack, Romeo and Juliet, lives in all of us. The spirit of life, the spirit of love, to dream the impossible dream, all of us live in time, this is our moment, this is our turn to board Titanic II and set sail on a new sea, of our own making”.
“The Titanic was a ship of dreams, Titanic II is the ship where dreams will come true”.
Unlike the original RMS Titanic, which was built in the Harland and Wolff yard in Belfast, it is intended that Titanic II will be constructed in the Chinese state-owned shipyard, CSC Jinling. This is a curious choice as the company have no experience in constructing passenger vessels and as of date, according to Zheng Yi of the Global Times, no contract for completion of Titanic II has been signed, no date for start of construction has been fixed and no price has been finalised.
Equally, the first of a series of launch events for the project on a pier in New York this week (which began with a “rather cheesy guitar rendition of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On”) was met with derision by many, amongst them Vanity Fair’s Juli Weiner. In her article, Weiner refers to the “morally reprehensible and dehumanizing economic divisions” that “one weird rich dude’s” boat will feature and goes on to describe it as “the second worst cruise we’ve ever heard of”.
The RMS Titanic sank without trace in 1912 but was discovered on the seabed in 1985RMS Titanic became one of the most famous ships in history, her memory kept alive by numerous books, folk songs, films, exhibits, and memorials. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet will forever be remembered for this scene from James Cameron’s 1997 film “Titanic”.
Robert Colville of the Australian title The Age, however, took a contrary view and though skeptical about this “bizarre” and “crazily ambitious scheme” shared his admiration for Palmer:
“Palmer risks becoming a latter-day Ozymandias, his monument a 50,000-tonne liner rather than a crumbling statue. Yet at least he has the courage to dream his impossible dream, and help make the world a slightly weirder, and slightly more wonderful place”.
Larger than life, Queensland based Palmer is known for causing controversy. In 2012, he suggested Greenpeace were funded by the CIA and were attempting to bring down the Australian coal mining sector with the help of Barrack Obama and the Rockefeller Foundation:
“You only have to go back and read the Church Report in the 1970s and to read the reports to the US Congress which sets up the Rockefeller Foundation as a conduit of CIA funding, you only have to look at their secret budget which was passed by Congress last year, bigger than our whole national economy, which the CIA’s got to ensure that. You only have to read the reports to US Congress when the CIA reported to the president that their role was to ensure the US competitive advantage and economic advantages. That’s how you know it’s funded by the CIA”.
No doubt, there are cranks out there who’d suggest the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912 with the loss of 1,502 lives, was also a conspiracy. Given also Palmer’s odd view of the world, we’d most definitely avoid embarking on this tasteless pastiche of the tragically doomed ship, if, indeed, it is ever completed and if indeed it ever sets sail.
We leave the last word with the family of the RMS Titanic’s captain, Edward Smith R.D. R.N.R. (1850 – 1912), who have simply commented that the Titanic II is just a vessel that is being built “in bad taste”.
The tragic story of Oscar Pistorius and the death of Reeva Steenkamp
Oscar Pistorius was a man many rightly came to admire. He achieved the unthinkable on the track and was, as his father, Henke, pointed out “a man strong beyond his years”. In an advert for Nike, he himself is quoted as saying:
“I was born without bones below the knee. I only stand 5ft 2. But this is the body I have been given. This is my weapon. How I conquer. How I wage my war. This is how I have broken the world record 49 times. How I became the fastest thing on legs. This is my weapon. This is how I fight”.
Picture of the week: Oscar Pistorius in Nike’s “I am the bullet in the chamber” advertisementAthlete Oscar Pistorius and his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp (19th August 1983 – 14th February 2013)
Our picture of the week is of another advertisement in which Pistorius featured for Nike. Titled, rather unfortunately, “I am the bullet in the chamber”, these are words that will now haunt the athlete forever more.
Whatever the truth is behind this tragic story, one person is dead and another’s life and career is now ruined. May the case of Oscar Pistorius be a lesson to us all.
Undoubtedly best known as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, Yorkshire born Dench briefly played Pru Forrest in the BBC’s The Archers. She’s an advocate for “more progressive drug policies” and only took the role of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride & Prejudice after director Joe Wright wrote to her and said: “I love it when you play a bitch. Please come and be a bitch for me.” There’s barely a role she hasn’t conquered.
Zach Topley reports on a Wellington College teacher who lost his battle with cancer who is now topping the iTunes chart
Jimmy Higham, who sadly lost his battle with cancer last year, has soared through the iTunes download charts with a beautiful cover of Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely. Higham, a Lancashire born teacher at Wellington College in West Berkshire, recorded the song just months before his tragic death in December 2011, aged just 26.
The late Jimmy Higham is now topping the iTunes downloads chart
After being released on iTunes last week, the song quickly rose through the charts and now stands at number 15. All proceeds go towards the Jimmy Higham Bursary Fund, set up in his memory to enable 16-year-olds from the north of England to attend the school and play sport.
“Jimmy was an instant hit at Wellington with students and staff, hard-working, dedicated, wise, funny, kind, helpful, a gifted teacher with amazing promise. The students loved his dry humour and willingness to listen,” the College said in a statement.
Students at Wellington have got behind the cause, spreading the word via Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #jimmyhigham.
A student commented: “We’re all hoping it can get to Christmas number one. We need support from everyone, both in buying the song on iTunes, as well as telling friends about Jimmy’s story.”
The story of a 1929 bi-plane with a truly fascinating pedigree
Britain’s best-known wartime Prime Minister piloted a Gipsy Moth aeroplane that will be sold by auctioneers Bonhams in February 2013 at a guide of £120,000. The same craft was also featured in an iconic 1980s film and was also supposedly flown by a member of the Fiennes family who mysteriously disappeared in 1998.
The 1929 De Havilland DH 60 GMW Gipsy Moth bi-plane G-AAMY that will be sold by Bonhams at the Grand Palais in Paris in February 2013Sir Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965)
Piloted several times by Sir Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) and used in the Oscar award winning Out of Africa, this 1929 De Havilland Gipsy Moth bi-plane is 24-foot long and has a 30-foot wingspan. It is capable of a maximum speed of 105mph and “wears” a yellow and black livery. It’s registration is G-AAMY in homage to the pioneering English aviatrix Amy Johnson (1903 – 1941).
In the film, the plane was flown by Robert Redford but though the life of the big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton he played is intriguing; the exploits of Redford’s aviator double are just as fascinating a story.
Sydney Pollack’s “Out of Africa” (1985) starred Robert Redford and Meryl StreepTom Danaher pictured whilst filming with Mel Gibson
Few outside of the aviation world will have heard of Tom Danaher (1929 – ) but aside from Out of Africa, he’s pretty much done it all. After graduating from a high school in Dallas in 1941, he became a Marine Corps fighter pilot. Stationed on Okiwana in August 1945, he shot down the last Japanese bomber on the final night of the Second World War and also made history, aged 21, for downing three other Japanese “Betty” bombers in the eight nights before the ceasefire.
Recalled to active service in 1951, Danaher flew one of the earliest jets, the F3D Skynight, with the Marines in Korea on night combat patrols and then was part of the last combat mission on a high altitude bombing strike over Pyongyang, North Korea in July 1953.
Danaher’s passion for flying continued after the war and in 1954 he flew his own plane, a 1948 Bonanza, to England to visit friends he’d made from the RAF whilst in Korea. To make the journey, he built a 109-gallon auxiliary fuel tank so that he could fly straight across the Atlantic. On the way home he called in for an audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome.
The surplus Second World War minesweeper from which Wonderful Radio London operated in the 1960s
Danaher’s visits to England led to him becoming involved in a pirate radio station in from 1944 to 1967 named Wonderful Radio London. Like many others, Danaher was not impressed by the BBC’s monopolistic attitude to radio programming and so helped build a 17,000-watt station on a surplus Second World War minesweeper. It was anchored three and a half miles off the English coast and outside of Britain’s territorial limit. Of the experience, Danaher told Airport Journals:
“We had someone in Dallas who would record KLIF, a top 40 station, and we put it right on the air… The Englishmen over there just ate it up… The station programmed news and top 40 music and was very successful. It had the largest listening audience of any of any commercial broadcast station at the time.”
Back in America, Danaher owned three car dealerships in Wichita Falls, Texas but sold them in 1972 to open his own airport, the Tom Danaher Airport. Lake Wichita Airport (7TXO), as it was also known, kept the aviator busy but he has also piloted in films numbering Empire of the Sun, Sky Bandits, Air America, Bad Medicine, The Pleasure of Love, White Hunter Black Heart, Cliffhanger and Goldeneye.
In 1985, Danaher was recruited to fly Gipsy Moth G-AAMY by Sydney Pollack (1934 – 2008), the American director of Out of Africa. He recounted his six week experience on set in Masai Mara, Kenya in an interview for his local Texan newspaper, the TimesRecordNews, in 2008. Here, he highlighted the problems of trying to film with a vintage plane that “has no brakes and is difficult to steer”:
“Robert Redford couldn’t make the thing turn. It took considerable finesse to turn it on the ground… The third time, he gave it full throttle… The left wing contacted a thick thorn bush and it tore some of the fabric off the lower left wing of the plane. We couldn’t fly it the rest of the day.”
Other dramas arose with G-AAMY in terms of Meryl Streep’s body double refusing to fly in it and the craft struggling to reach the high altitudes necessary to film a sweeping shot of the plane flying past a waterfall. Danaher took charge stating: “If I can get a piece of string and a ruler, I can fix this.” He found just such, cleverly installed them and Pollack: “got every single shot he wanted.”
Pilot Roger Fiennes (1944 – 1998) pictured with Alexy Zaitov during the 1989 Glasmoth project expedition to Moscow and back
Another person to have piloted the Gipsy Moth G-AAMY, according to a comment left in the PPRuNe Professional Pilots Rumour Network forum, was a man named Roger Fiennes. Whether this “rumour” is true or not, the cousin of the actor Ralph Fiennes and the explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, is another character with a flying history as fascinating as his true family name – which turns out to be “Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes” when presented in full. Of why he did not use this lengthy and historic surname, Fiennes is said to have once commented:
“You try writing that signature on a 6 foot long cheque book.”
Fiennes flew many hours in a variety of planes and one of the best documented was an expedition supported by the Daily Mail from White Waltham Airfield in Berkshire to Sheremetyevo Airport in the Soviet Union in April 1989 and back. He flew one of three Tiger Moth bi-planes with a Russian navigator named Alexy Zaitov. The journey took three weeks to complete, involved 33 perilous stops and covered 5,000 miles.
On 19th April 1998, Fiennes was piloting a 1941 DH82A Tiger Moth, G-BALX, from Dieppe to Headcorn Aerodrome in Kent but he failed to reach his destination. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report into the disappearance concluded:
“Although the pilot contacted Paris Information by radio, in the absence of a specific request, the flight plan was not activated. Lashenden was therefore unaware of the flight’s departure and ETA. When the aircraft was reported missing overdue action, and the subsequent Search and Rescue operation, which was activated on the morning of 21 April 1998. Since then there has been no sign of the aircraft or pilot.”
Articles at the time and forums since are sparse in detail but several forum posters and articles suggest that Mr Fiennes had “mounting debts and a string of business collapses.” Whilst some go as far as to suggest a “Lord Lucan” style disappearance and make references to “paddling canoes” and “check[ing] the Panamanian register,” others remember a “nice guy, sadly missed.” Whatever really happened that fateful day, though, will probably never be solved.
Another image of Gipsy Moth G-AAMY
G-AAMY, which was marked G-AAMT for the filming of Out of Africa, is a plane with a remarkable past. We suspect there’ll be a few more dramas for this craft yet.
The 1929 De Havilland DH 60 GMW Gipsy Moth bi-plane G-AAMY will be sold by Bonhams at the Grand Palais in Paris, France sale during Rétromobile week (6th to 7th February 2013). For more information telephone +33 1 42 61 10 11 or go to: http://www.bonhams.com
