The Steeple Times

Tag: eccentric

  • Sir Benjamin Slade Bt.: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    Sir Benjamin Slade Bt.: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    The Steeple Times asks the right-wing businessman and owner of Maunsel House and Woodlands Castle, Sir Benjamin Slade: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

     

    The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom.” What’s your guiding force?

    Money, power, sex, success, land, trees, books and fine wine.

     

    “Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?

    “If it f**ks, floats or flies: Rent it, don’t buy it and don’t marry it!”

     

    Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2012?

    David Cameron and Sir Mervyn King.

     

    Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?

    Being in London full-time.

     

    What might you swap all your wealth for?

    Good health and two healthy sons.

     

    Donald Trump was once a case of: “If you owe the bank a thousand, they close you down; but if you owe the bank a billion, you own the bank.” What’s your view on the banking crisis?

    It’s like putting bartenders on commission and allowing them to give credit to alcoholics who die and go bankrupt.

     

    What phrase or word do you most loathe?

    I’ve got three: 1. “Sustainability.” 2. “Stakeholder.” 3. “Human rights.”

     

    In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home.” What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?

    UKIP and Help for Heroes.

     

    The judge in “Law Abiding Citizen” states: “I can pretty do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?

    They are useful for ringing up if late, doing deals and arranging dinners with girls.

     

    If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?

    Warren Buffett, Bobby Faber, Philip Gibbs, Bettany Hughes, Brian Kingham, Lady Kitchener-Fellowes, Francis Fulford, Robert Lyle, Sir John Madejski, David Ord, General Sir Michael Rose, Roger Seelig, Alexander Stockton, Jonathan Sumption PC, Norman Tebbit, Lord Westbury, the Duke of Westminster and Mrs William Worsley.  Adrian de Ferranti can sit in the luggage car and serve wine.

     

    Sir Benjamin Slade Bt.

    If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?

    It’d have to be at La Tour d’Argent in Paris.

     

    What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?

    1pm and 6pm.

     

    A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?

    Green tea.

     

    Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?

    Sotheby’s and Christie’s and those hosted by Liz Floyd and Philip Gibbs.

     

    Who is the most positive person you know?

    My friend Bobby Faber.

     

    What’s your most guilty pleasure?

    Drinking claret at £100 per bottle.

     

    If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?

    A big castle with lots of walnut trees, good books and bottles of wine. And girls’ hips.

     

    If you were a car, what marque would you be?

    A Ford Fiesta.

     

    Cilla Black presented “Surprise, Surprise.” Tell us the most surprising thing about you.

    I’m self-made, have a great knowledge of history and am a seriously good doctor with over 120 patients. And, you’ll be surprised to learn that I was a spy in the Middle East for Britain.

     

    What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?

    Tankards, invites, various Mouser and Walther pistols, cows horns, Roman artifacts, decanters, pewter cups, silver, an 18th century bottle of port and a Russian machine gun.

     

    Maunsel House, North Newton, Near Taunton, Somerset, TA7 0BU. Telephone: +44 (0) 1278 661076. Website: http://www.maunselhouse.co.uk

     

    Woodlands Castle, Ruishton, Taunton, Somerset, TA3 5LU. Telephone: +44 (0) 1823 444955. Website: http://www.woodlandscastle.co.uk

     

    Read Sir Benjamin Slade’s blog at: http://sirbenslade.blogspot.co.uk/ and follow him on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/sirbenslade

  • “Grockles” and “Emmets”

    “Grockles” and “Emmets”

    Matthew Steeples discovers Michael Winner’s links to descriptions of unwelcome “out of towners”

     

    My last linguistic rambling explored two words, “plebs” and “ladettes,” that, like Andrew Mitchell MP, truly need to be eliminated from our culture. The next two in this series, “grockles” and “emmets,” have far more amusing origins and truly sum up the eccentricities of those living in the South of England.

     

    I was led to believe that the word “grockle” was an ancient description of “those not from round here,” but having done a little research I now discover that it actually emanates from the 20th century The Dandy’s comic strip, “Danny and the Grockle.”

     

    “Grockles” and caravans commonly go together
    “The Girl-Getters” (AKA “The System”) starred Oliver Reed, Jane Merrow, Barbara Ferris, Harry Andrews and Julia Foster and was directed by Michael Winner

    The Dandy’s “grockle” was nothing other than a dragon like creature. There wasn’t anything more to the beast and it wasn’t until 1964 that the term became popularised when it was used in a film set in the Devon resort of Torquay. In The System (renamed The Girl-Getters for the US market), starring Oliver Reed and directed by Michael Winner, one of the characters states:

     

    “Bloody grockles and their caravans, always jamming up the Devon lanes!”

     

    Henceforth, the word became forevermore linked to tourists and thus we can hold Michael Winner responsible for bringing it to the world’s attention. Winner, who describes, himself as: “A totally insane film director, writer, producer, silk shirt cleaner, bad tempered, totally ridiculous example of humanity in deep shit” really should proudly add a reference to this to his Twitter handle.

     

    Other definitions of the “grockle” are more specific and an especially amusing one separates these interlopers very clearly:

     

    “It’s used as an insult towards ignorant and usually posh tourists; those with caravans; those with five kids, a dog, a grandad tagging along and those that have been coming to town for twenty years and think they know and own the place.”

     

    The same commentator on this term continues:

     

    “Someone holidaying in Christchurch who’s from Southampton isn’t a grockle… Foreign tourists aren’t [grockles] either as these generally tend to be considerate people when traveling and don’t make a nuisance of themselves… However, when I went to Puerto Banus near Marbella, I’d heard it was very exclusive but it was full of grockles still.”

     

    The word is now so recognised that it was used in an a 2010 article in The Sunday Times about the sale of Lord Cowdray’s £25 million home in West Sussex:

     

    “Bar a few open-garden events, the Cowdrays have never allowed visitor access to the property, so the eventual buyer won’t have to endure grockles coming up the drive.”

     

    Whilst we have discovered that a “grockle” is a pretty general term, in Cornwall they have a more specific variation. The Cornish use the pejorative nickname “emmet” for tourists.

     

    Derived from the Cornish language word for “ant,” the “emmet” is an analogy for the way in which both tourists and ants are often red in colour and appear to mill around. “Emmets,” it seems, are nuisances who get in the way and whom the locals would rather weren’t there.

     

    Michael Winner wearing a T-shirt complete with his trademark phrase: “Calm down dear”… In this case he states: “It’s only a recession” but we do think he ought to also get one stating: “Calm down dear, they’re only grockles, they’re not from round ‘ere”

    Be they a “grockle” or an “emmet,” tourists may well generate millions in revenue for the people of the South West but still, as many a local will say: “They’re not welcome round ‘ere.” I’m sure many a restaurateur feels similarly when Mr Michael Winner lands on his doorstep.

     

    Grockles away.

     

    View Michael Winner’s official website at: http://www.michael-winner.com/

     

    Follow Michael Winner on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/mrmichaelwinner

  • A Monopolistic mansion

    A Monopolistic mansion

    Could 100 Park Lane become the property that achieves the accolade of being Britain’s highest priced private residence?

     

    Occupied by property giants Hammerson since 1969 as their corporate headquarters, the 44,000 square foot Grade II* listed Dudley House is one of Park Lane’s finest landmark properties. It is supposedly about to come to the market as a single-family residence and a price of up to £250,000,000 could be achieved.

     

    The Park Lane façade of Dudley House, 100 Park Lane, Mayfair, London, W1Y 4AR

     

    Dudley House, the only remaining example of an early Park Lane mansion, is named after the Dudley Ward family and built on the site of an earlier house with stabling. The site was acquired by John, 6th Baron Ward, in 1742 but it wasn’t until 1759 that the 3rd Viscount Dudley and Ward began “judicious alterations” to the house. Having paid £6,510 at auction for his late half-brother’s interests in Dudley House, he added an entrance portico and stained glass windows whilst his successor, an ”eccentric intellectual and politician,” set about turning the building into “the most pleasing object in the vicinity.”

     

    Works by the architect William Atkinson, carried out between 1827 and 1829, included a screen of Ionic columns, fine ceilings and gilded plasterwork. They remain to this day but it is the 1855 alterations of Samuel Whitfield Daukes that are truly impressive. Carried out on the instructions of the 1st Earl of Dudley, these included a magnificent 80ft picture gallery designed to showcase a collection of Italian and Flemish paintings and a vast 50ft ballroom.

     

    The picture gallery at Dudley House

     

    In 1895, Dudley House, which is situated at 100 Park Lane, briefly passed out of the Dudley Ward family and into the ownership of a “hard-headed South African mining magnate” named Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson. Sir John Hubert Ward bought the building back in 1912 for £10,000 and remained there until his death in 1938.

     

    Wartime bombing caused significant damage and this was not repaired until Hammerson took over Dudley House. Having hired Sir Robert McAlpine and Sons as contractors, designs by Sir Basil Spence and Anthony Blee were executed to restore the building.  Hammerson remained there until 2006 when they jointly sold the leasehold interest on the house with freeholders Grosvenor for £37.4 million to Bristol Isles Ltd., a private investment company controlled by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thana, the emir of Qatar.

     

    His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (1952 – )

     

    The ensuing renovation, directed by the designer Alberto Pinto, has been described as “tasteful” and is said to have cost some £75 million. The resulting air-conditioned home features some 17 bedrooms and 14 reception rooms.

     

    It’ll be fascinating to see who “Doesn’t pass go!” and purchases this mammoth mansion (if indeed His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani decides not to move in himself).

     

    For more details on Alberto Pinto, go to: http://www.albertopinto.com

     

    For more information about His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani: http://www.qatarembassy.net/emir.asp