Matthew Steeples takes a look at a £36 million Kensington mansion formerly owned by disgraced business tycoons Alan Bond and Lord Black; its former chatelaine was known for stating “I have an extravagance that know no bounds”
Sir Winston Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames once described the buccaneering businessman and media tycoon Lord Black of Crossharbour as “London’s biggest bore unhung” whilst his wife, Lady Black – better known as the author and journalist Barbara Amiel – was suggested to be just a “rich bitch” by Sarah Sands in a “case for the defence” article in the Independent in October 2006.
“Poster boy for the 80s” turned fraudster and jailbird Alan Bond (1938 – 2015) was an English-Australian businessman equally Marmite-like in being liked or loathed and now a Kensington mansion owned for a time by both subsequently disgraced businessmen is once again for sale.
14 Cottesmore Gardens, formerly known as 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens, was purchased by Alan Bond’s Satellite Group for £7 million in the 1980s and sold by administrators of that business to Conrad Black and his wife for the knockdown sum of just £3.5 million in 1992.
Plain old Mr and Mrs Black (as they then were) lavished further millions – some of which came from the company Hollinger International, Inc., which ultimately resulted in their downfall – on the double fronted 19th century mansion and used it for entertaining on a lavish scale. Guests, including the likes of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Joan Collins, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair, were said to flock to the parties they gave there, but in 2005 these gatherings of upto 400 people at a time came to an almighty end.
Forced to sell at a bargain basement price of just £13.1 million on an ask of £17.5 million as the Canadian born billionaire faced jail time in America, Lord and Lady Black’s tenure was over and the residence saw its “arriviste torch” passed to Juan and Adriana Villalonga, a couple described as “a Mexican telecom czar and his beauty-queen wife.” Of what came next, The Globe And Mail’s Paul Waldie pointedly penned in February 2007: “[They] quickly erased many of the features that the Blacks prized.”
Once again for sale as of April 2023, the value of 14 Cottesmore Gardens has again been deemed to have substantially risen. Knight Frank offer the 12,310 square foot, five-storey residence at a punchy price of £36 million and laud it as “imposing” and “presented in good order throughout.” They add that a “pre-planning consultation” has found that further accommodation could be added that would take the internal space to more than 15,000 square feet; business barons with deep pockets only need apply.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
Pictured Top – 54-foot wide 14 Cottesmore Gardens is described by selling agents Knight Frank as “offering lateral living so often requested but so hard to find in central London.” They neglect to mention that with its hedges cut back to the minimum, the place actually looks extremely forlorn.
Flamboyant Lord and Lady Black dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette for a party at Kensington Palace in 2000. For a time, the couple employed 17 butlers (if Tom Bower is to be believed) and had two private jets and homes – aside from the 19th Cottesmore Gardens mansion – in New York, Palm Beach and Toronto. “Guests packed into their parties at Cottesmore Gardens,” Bower remarked in his 2006 book the couple, adding: “Amiel was a big spender… Under the control of senior butler Andrew Lightwood, second butler Peter Wilson and a succession of third butlers, Amiel’s life in Kensington had become what her constantly changing staff called ‘bizarre.’ Each recruit was taken by Lightwood on an introductory tour of the house, ending on the roof. ‘Make sure the landing lights are on at all times,’ instructed Lightwood solemnly, ‘because Madame takes off from here on her broomstick looking for cats. She needs the lights to guide her return.’ His face would crack into a smile. ‘Most important, take care that she never sees you. She hates seeing any of us.’ Amiel’s eccentricity demanded that her staff hid whenever she approached, diving into cupboards if necessary, and never entered her quarters when she was present. Every day, all the bed linen was changed and subjected to ‘the penny test.’ A coin was dropped onto the sheets. If it failed to bounce they were not drawn sufficiently tight. Every cushion was arranged to a precise pre-ordained position, and each towel placed exactly as Amiel had predetermined. ‘Andrew!’ she screamed down the telephone on one memorable occasion, ‘the towels are in the wrong place!’ Lightwood, as Amiel knew, was in New York, but he was expected to telephone the staff in the house in London to rectify the error. ‘You f**king pillock!’ she yelled at another member of staff for reading her ‘Daily Mail’ before it was delivered to her.”Barbara Amiel Black (or ‘Lady Black’ as she prefers to be known) in her drawing room at Cottesmore Gardens (pictured). Of her, Sarah Sands on Lord and Lady Black in the ‘Independent’ in October 2006 opined: “Conrad and Barbara in their monstrous, glamorous way, knew how to throw parties. The talk was of geo-politics and hemlines. Nowadays, we scorn their extravagance and doubt the source of their wealth with prune-faced hindsight. Meanwhile, everyone is sucking up to Russians…. Barbara would disingenuously begin her midnight calls to me by saying in her low, breathy voice: ‘I hope I am not disturbing you.’ She would then offer little glimpses of her own home life. I remember her mentioning that Conrad Black was upstairs playing with his fleet of toy gun ships in the bath… I remember her examining an exhibition of doll’s houses at the Chelsea Flower Show and sighing how restful it would be to live in this cosy little home. How she envied people in small houses. The burden of wealth was one of her more dangerous fantasies. At one of her Gatsby-style parties in Kensington, she flinched at the elaborate canapés on offer: ‘Really, all I want is a sausage,’ she said, piteously. Then, she ran a hand down her inconceivably expensive dress and whispered: ‘I hate these parties, I am so shy.’ Later, I was invited to her boudoir, where she lay on cushion surrounded by her women friends. She was Kensington’s Cleopatra, surrounded by maidens such as the designer and Forte daughter Olga Polizzi, the political thinker Tessa Keswick and the writer Miriam Gross.”The very same drawing room at 14 Cottesmore Gardens today. The décor is now somewhat more modern and less ‘classical country house-ified.’ It’s certainly more Soho Farmhouse than Alberto Pinto in style; it is currently a space that the former Meghan Markle would feel more at home than say, perhaps, the likes of Lord and Lady Black’s chum Ghislaine Maxwell and her fellow noxious nonce Ponzi scheming paedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Pinto was responsible, it should be noted, for the designs of most of Epstein’s residences.The front elevation of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens during the era it was owned by Lord and Lady Black.Multiple entries for Lord and Lady Black during the time they owned 14 Cottesmore Gardens appeared in the ‘Little Black Book’ address book often attributed as being that of the friends and associates of Jeffrey Epstein, but that featured more of the contacts of Ghislaine Maxwell in fact. In October 2020, Barbara Amiel took revenge on the pension pot plunderer’s padeophile sex trafficker daughter by featuring her in her “score-settling” memoir ‘Friends & Enemies: A Life in Vogue, Prison, & Park Avenue.” Maxwell had “dumped” Lady Black when Lord Black was being investigated for fraud. She wrote of their last meeting: “We were friends – so putting on my ‘So good to see you’ face, I headed for her. She bolted. Turned that sharp tight little turn when you really want to get away. And that was it.” Of the clear lover of plastic surgery Lady Black, in October 2020, Sarah Sands remarked in ‘The Mail on Sunday’: “She had a bohemian, almost masculine, view of opportunistic sex. She describes, for instance, accompanying an early love in his white Triumph sports car ‘in which once or twice I had performed fellatio to the fascination of passing truck drivers, all for fun.’”After getting out of the clink in 2012, Lord and Lady Black decided to go back on the ‘razzle-dazzle’ and posed for photographers before heading back to London to party with friends. In May 2019, the rambunctious peer arrogantly announced he’d be returning to the House of Lords after President Donald Trump pardoned and praised him. Commenting, of this pardon, Lord Black declared: “I’m not bitter… Officially in the United States, I’ve never been charged and I won in the end. It was a war and there are casualties in wars. I lost the time, I lost a lot of money, but as you can see my standards of living isn’t bad… The truth is, these, last 15 years, I haven’t been as interested in British politics as I was before – in the Thatcher years. It could be quite interesting again, in fact it is as of right now – it’s very interesting… It’s my good fortune that at a time when it is feasible, it happens – by happy coincidence – that it is a time of great fermentation in British public affairs.” Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem to have turned up on occasions since.The previous owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens, Alan Bond (1938 – 2015), will forever be remembered as “Australia’s most notorious corporate criminal.” Born in Hammersmith, London, Bond’s first crime occurred when he was charged with theft aged 14 in Fremantle in Australia and whilst he is remembered for bankrolling the successful challenge for the 1983 America’s Cup, it is for causing the then biggest corporate collapse in Australian history that he will be go down in history. Former Miss Mexico Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros (at the time Adriana Villalonga) bought the house in 2005. She divorced the Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga in 2009 and married the French businessman Emmanuel Schreder in Ibiza in June 2013. In August 2014, the magazine ‘Quién’ featured the model and television presenter on its cover and at that time she described her new husband as “the love of my life.”Madrid born Juan Villalonga became the joint owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens with his then wife Adriana Abascal – the couple were married between 2000 and 2009 – in 2005. He is listed on Companies House as being a director of the now dissolved Medikidz Foundation at the address between August 2009 and November 2013. Married since 2011 to a photographer named Vanessa Von Zitewitz, Mr Villalonga was a partner at McKinsey & Company in the 1980s, CEO for Credit Suisse First Boston and Bankers Trust in Spain in the early 1990s and CEO of Telefónica from 1996 to 2000. He was named as one of the best performing chief executive officers in the world by ‘Harvard Business Review’ in 2010 and is also linked to addresses in Monaco.
The Names & Numbers – 14 Cottesmore Gardens (formerly known as ’12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens’), Kensington, London, W8 5PR, United Kingdom
April 2023 – Offered for sale for £36 million ($44.4 million, €40.9 million or درهم163.2 million) through Knight Frank. Valued on Homipi at an upper sum of £28.558 million ($35.250 million, €32.440 million or درهم129.456 million).
2009 – Mr and Mrs Villalonga divorce and subsequently Adriana Abascal married Emmanuel Schreder, a French businessman, in Ibiza in June 2013.
2005 – Sold by Lord and Lady Black for £13.1 million ($16.2 million, €14.9 million or درهم59.4 million) to Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga Navarro and Mexican model, Miss Mexico winner and television presenter Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros Villalonga.
October 2004 – Placed for sale for £17.5 million ($21.6 million, €19.9 million or درهم79.3 million) according to NZ Herald.
January 2004 – Valued at £14 million ($17.3 million, €15.9 million or درهم63.5 million) according to The Globe And Mail. At the time, the “mansion” in “the upscale Kensington neighbourhood” was described as having “10 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a swimming pool.”
Featured also in The Guardian in an article by Chris Tryhorn. Quoting Lord Black, he shared: “At a certain price, anything is for sale. [It has] been shown to people in the not-too-distant-past.”
Going further, Tryhorn added: “Artwork from the 18th and 19th centuries lines the walls, and there is plenty of storage space for the extensive wardrobe and shoe collection of Lord Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel, who famously declared once that her ‘extravagence knows no bounds.’ … It was originally two homes and one of the two original front doors is now a ‘deliveries’ entrance. He has used it in the past to host dinners with butler and maid service that was part-paid by Hollinger.”
Also in 2004, in a profile in The Spectator, Peter Oborne wrote:
“Every year the Blacks threw two parties, one at Christmas and one summer event, at their double-fronted 11-bedroom mansion in Cottesmore Gardens. Everybody who mattered at the time went: Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, royalty, the playwright Tom Stoppard.”
“Some of these, injudiciously as it turned out, agreed to join the main Hollinger board. The luckier ones – Peter Carrington, Robert Salisbury – got away with being made directors of TheTelegraph. As the Tories faded out, Labour ministers started to arrive, the indefatigable Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett and other ministers eager to ingratiate themselves with the Tory press. Prince and Princess Michael of Kent were assiduous in attendance. In London, the Nineties belonged to the Blacks. They were London’s most glamorous power couple.”
“There had been a time when both Blacks had kept their feet on the ground. This ceased to be the case. One evening Barbara Black rang Charles Moore panic-stricken from her Kensington home. There had been a last-minute drop-out from one of the famous Black dinner parties. ‘I’m short of a woman,’ she told Moore. Moore surveyed the newsroom. His gaze alighted on the journalist Eleanor Mills, by chance the stepdaughter of the Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell.”
“An hour later, hastily groomed, made-up and brushed, Mills was sipping pre-dinner drinks in Cottesmore Gardens. Then disaster struck. A male guest, Max Fisher, dropped out. Mills was approached by Conrad Black. ‘Finish your drink and skedaddle,’ he told her. Barbara Black then told her to go to the kitchen and out through the servants’ door, where the driver would pick her up and take her home.”
2001 – Conrad Black is elevated to a life peerage in the United Kingdom at the suggestion of Tony Blair. He sat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords until 2007 as The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG, but took a “leave of absence” between 2012 and 2019.
28th May 1996 – The Royal Borough of Kensington And Chelsea ordered that 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens “shall be known and described” simply instead as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
Mid 1990s – The Blacks set about renovating 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens with the help of J. E. Evans Associates. Of the work in October 2006, The Sunday Times shared a segment of Tom Bower’s 2006 hatchet job Conrad and Lady Black that read: “Amiel vowed to create a palace that would attract celebrity worshipers of a power couple. Part of the first floor was to be removed to create a huge ground floor reception area.”
1992 – 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens sold by the administrators of the affairs of Alan Bond through estate agents Savills to media tycoon Conrad Black and his Watford born journalist wife Barbara Amiel Black for “well under the asking price” for a sum of £3.5 million ($4.3 million, €4 million or درهم15.9 million).
Mr Bond had been granted mortgages valued at £16.2 million ($20 million, €18.4 million or درهم73.5 million) on the property by Bell Satellite Services on the property along with two others at 4 and 16 Belgrave Mews in London, SW1 previously according to a report published by Financial Review in March 1990.
1991 – Rented to an American businessman for £6,000 per week ($7,400, €6,800 or درهم27,200 per week).
1990 – Placed in the hands of administrators of Mr Bond’s and placed for sale through Savills for a bargain basement sum of £3.8 million ($4.7 million, €4.3 million or درهم17.2 million) according to Financial Review.
1980s – Sold to Alan Bond’s Bell Satellite Group for £7 million ($8.6 million, €8 million or درهم31.7 million).
Circa 1905 – Walter Tapper is said to have “designed a library with handsome Arts and Crafts plasterwork (now removed) at the rear of the building.”
1869 – In their current marketing blurb, Knight Frank suggest: “There has been a house on the site of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens since at least 1869. The current house has been altered, extended and most notably joined over the subsequent century and a half. With the local planning department strongly opposed to further amalgamation of homes, opportunities to acquire a house of this width will be rarer still in the future.”
1850s to 1860s – Built “under the direction of David Howell, of Serjeants Inn, Fleet Street.” Mr Howell was described in 1853 as an “articled clerk to a solicitor, lately carrying on business as a solicitor.” The architecture was lauded as: “Designed in a bold classical manner, with rather fleshy consoles and modillions… and bands of Vitruvian scroll between the bases of the ground-floor windows.”
More photographs of the £36 million mansion…
An entrance hall where power and privilege have most certainly mingled previously.The 54-foot wide drawing is lauded by selling realtors Knight Frank as “arguably the best room in the house” and “double aspect.” They add: “[It has] six windows overlooking the street and additional views over the private garden to the rear.”The columns where Barbara Amiel Black once posed for photographs remain, but the subsequent owners eliminated much of the 1990s ‘brash’ that had been installed by a Watford born woman whose excess clearly offended so many.This dining room, where Conrad Black hosted presidents and prime ministers, is now somewhat diminished. The table for eight looks completely out of place and a future owner would do well to install something a little grander.A double height entertaining space was installed at the insistence of the loftier-than-lofty Lady Black in the 1990s and it remains today. However, it is now currently being used for more casual affairs such as Netflix viewing rather than being the scene of something that you’d more likely find in the ‘House of Cards’ in fact.A new owner might reinstate the grandeur of the past; sadly, however, this seems unlikely and the purchaser is more likely to be a footballer or Internet tycoon than a super-connected business tycoon.This currently very dark and very depressing study would most certainly not appeal to the very clearly very, very bright yet very, very pompous The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG – a man who is said to count Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte as “his military heroes.” Of him in July 1997, Mark Honigsbaum in the ‘Independent’ remarked: “Although Black’s grandfather had briefly been a business partner of Harold Harmsworth, the original Viscount Rothermere, it was from his father, George Montegu Black Jr, that Black learned the art of corporate warfare, the importance of historical perspective and that gambling provides a disappointing rate of return compared to the Dow Jones index… The young Conrad was precocious. At the age of eight he sank his life savings of $60 into a single share of General Motors. He also became obsessed with Napoleon, and would astound his father’s friends by reeling off details of campaigns. Another story has him washing dollar bills and hanging them out to dry on a line outside his father’s home in Toronto. The last is apocryphal – Black says he slipped in the mud and was cleaning his change – but the image of the young capitalist, wise beyond his years, is accurate. His childhood tutor, the historian Laurier LaPierre, once asked Black why he always seemed to have the air of someone waiting for something to happen… A few years ago, for instance, the rumour went round Fleet Street that Black had bought Napoleon’s preserved penis at an auction. Black denied it, but many remain convinced that Bonaparte’s body part sits in Black’s collection of military curios… Black is no philanderer and is devoted to his second wife, the former ‘Sunday Times’ columnist Barbara Amiel. They are said to be intellectual soul mates and the parties at their four-storey mansion in Kensington are famous for bringing together a cross-section of the great and good.”One could not imagine the likes of the late great Baroness Thatcher, for example, liking the idea of sitting in this extremely depressing and dark waiting area. A new owner would do well to obliterate a décor scheme that could have only been favoured by a completely colour blind banker.A room currently described as a ‘cinema room’ measures 28’6” by 21’6” and is situated at the rear of the house. One can imagine Conrad Black having sat here for hour upon hour watching historical dramas about Napoleon with the likes of chums such as the acclaimed historian Andrew Roberts, the gambling tycoon John Aspinall and the politician and diarist Alan Clark, but a new owner will be more likely next showing episodes of ‘Succession’ – based on ‘The Telegraph’ tycoon’s rival Rupert Murdoch – than viewing historical works one most definitely suspects.Dining whilst the staff cook would NEVER have been on the agenda in the era that pomposity reigned whilst Lady Black was chatelaine of 14 Cottesmore Gardens.A 2,000 square foot entire floor fit for a tycoon… The master bedroom suite of the house takes up the entirety of the second floor of the building. It incorporates not only the principal bedroom, but also a “his” dressing room and a “her” dressing room as well as a sitting area, a bathroom, a shower room and storage rooms. It has direct lift access and is bigger than the average Brit’s entire house.A dressing room in the house where Barbara Black opened up to ‘Vogue’ and displayed “closets overflowing with dazzling evening gowns, designer handbags and 100 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes. ‘I have an extravagance that knows no bounds,’ she famously declared. Unfortunately for Lady Black, the article was closely perused at investment company Tweedy, Browne, a Hollinger International shareholder.”This playroom certainly did not exist in the era that Lord and Lady Black owned the property. It would be more likely crammed with books or stuffed with Manolo Blahnik shoes than toys from Toys ‘R Us. A new owner may likely reinstate it as an additional bedroom or office or games room perhaps.The pool room measures 43’9” by 26’9” and is no doubt where Lady Black spent many an hour relaxing.The garden to the rear was where Lord and Lady Black hosted their annual summer party (with guests “spilling” into their drawing room also). In surprisingly Tardis-like fashion, the duo were able to supposedly squeeze in upto 400 guests at such occasions. Amongst those said to have enjoyed hospitality there were Joan Collins and of such, magazine publisher Nicholas Coleridge wrote: “If you get a kick out of milling about with present and former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, minor royals, dukes, editors, vastly rich Americans, distinguished historians, gossip columnists, playboys and lots of pretty ‘it’ girls, then this was the place to be.”The existing floor plan of the property illustrates the vast scale of the building offered. A buyer, Knight Frank observe, has additional options and “a pre-planning consultation has been carried out with RBKC by leading architects Studio Indigo.” They add: “[It] would completely reconfigure the house adding an additional basement floor and taking the internal space to more than 15,000 square foot. The resulting house would have a 40-foot by 41-foot south-facing rear garden.”A plan of the site as presented in 1996 when 12 and 14 became known just as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
“Very unkind” windbag writer Rachel Johnson, a sympathiser of convicted mucky madam sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, offers sympathies windbag ball and cat kicker Kurt Zouma
“Poundland muckspreader” and “associate of two dirty dildo floggers” Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge CBE has been deservedly slammed for not firing Kurt Zouma, an overpaid kicker of bags of wind for West Ham, after he giggled as he got his brother to film him kicking and slapping a cat in his kitchen.
Now, the Prime Minister’s somewhat off her merry rocker sister, windbag writer Rachel Johnson, has decided to stick her claws in and on her LBC radio show yesterday suggested:
“Listen, I mean I know, thank God it’s after the watershed. I am not a cat person… However, I do think we are in danger of overreacting and cancelling Kurt Zouma for one misguided kick in his kitchen which his silly brother posted on social media.”
“He’s 27, clearly he’s old enough to know better, but do we really want to live in a world where one silly mistake can lead to the end of somebody’s career? I think we don’t.”
“I think he’s taken his punishment, his cats are no longer in the house. I think he should apologise and move on. I think there are bigger issues at stake.”
As we said of Baroness Brady – who pathetically excused this animal abuser and even suggested he could “turn something negative into long-lasting positives” – yesterday and we repeat again to Rachel Johnson today: “Try telling that to the poor abused cat.”
Previously, in November 2021, ‘Rabid Rachel’ penned another ‘excuse article’ for The Spectator that was rightly condemned as “sickening.” In it, the daughter of Stanley Johnson – a man whose first wife declared: “He hit me many times, over many years… He broke my nose. He made me feel like I deserved it” – offered her thoughts on the trial of the since convicted mucky madam sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell and disgracefully declared:
“It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell – 500 days and counting in solitary confinement.”
“I intersected briefly with her at Oxford. As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh.”
“She gave me a pitying glance but I did manage to snag an invite to her party in Headington Hill Hall – even though I wasn’t in the same college as her and Boris. I have a memory of her father, Bob, coming out in a towelling robe and telling us all to go home.”
“I’m sure fairweather friends would not reveal they went to a Ghislaine Maxwell party: as Barbara Amiel’s brilliant memoir Friends and Enemies proves, you only know who your real chums are when you’re in the gutter.”
Clearly Rachel Johnson – who believes being “called unkind… really cuts to the quick” – is a woman with a moral compass as warped as not only her buffoon brother Boris Johnson, but also a woman who’ll excuse the activities of both the abusers of animals and humans. Perhaps it is now time for this blonde bozo to reassess her recent remarks and realise that the cats and victims of a sick sex trafficker are the ones she’s most definitely been most unkind to.
Pictured top – West Ham’s cat abuser Kurt Zouma, convicted sexual abusers Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein and continually abusive of power and privilege siblings Rachel and Boris Johnson.
Rachel Johnson got her breasts out against Brexit in February 2019. The LBC presenter with her father and siblings.Karren Brady – another defender of cat abuser Kurt Zouma – got elevated to the House of Lords by her guffawing chum David Cameron in spite of claiming to “have no interest in politics.” She also likes bumping fists with Carrie Johnson’s puppet, Boris.
“Very Unkind” Rachel Johnson’s Most Ridiculous Remarks
On boozy lockdown breaking parties in Downing Street:
“I didn’t see much of the Prime Minister and his family during lockdown, but the times I did see him, he was completely compliant: he dotted every ‘I,’ he crossed every ‘T.’”
“If it was rule of six, there were six. And what I didn’t see were all the things you’ve been reading about.”
“To my mind, if he did go out into the Downing Street garden – and he’s told us he did – for him, that would have been work. He may have had a drink, I don’t know. Is that one of the key questions? But that would have been work.”
“For example, at his birthday, it was me, my three brothers, Carrie and Wilf. That was six people. And I have to tell you something about my brother’s character.”
“You’ve been seeing the front pages which couldn’t have been worse: suitcases of booze going into Downing Street from the Co-op.”
“I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that he has never once turned to me or any member of my family and said: ‘I tell you what, let’s have an office party’ or: ‘I tell you what, let’s have a party.’”
“If anything, he would say: ‘Let’s play reading,’ when we were growing up, or even in our twenties, or: ‘Let’s play, who can memorise the most poems from the Oxford book of verse’’ And, of course, it was always him.”
“Look, I’m just telling you what I saw over lockdown and what I know of my brother’s character.”
On her own character:
“Of course, I’m naughty.”
“Without my Johnson trademark mop of yellow hair, I think I would be nothing.”
On politicians:
“If you tell the truth you get into trouble and that’s why politicians are extremely dull.”
On the sex trafficker and daughter of a thieving murderer Ghislaine Maxwell:
“It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell.”
On food and coffee:
“In Germany, salads are assemblies of ham and mayonnaise.”
“I am a total coffee snob and bore. If anyone makes the mistake of offering me ‘a coffee’ they tend to regret it. I’m worse than Mariah Carey and the hot milk rider is completely non-negotiable.”
On her work:
“I used to sit at home in my tracksuit bottoms and the real excitement of my day would be going out to get a copy of Private Eye and a latte.”
“It’s often discouraging sitting working at home, wondering whether to put the heating on, answering the doorbell to the gas board, feeling it’s all utterly pointless.”
“The Lady [which she was the 9th editor of between 2009 and 2013] is a piddling little magazine that no one cares about or buys.”
On what others think of her:
“I’m worried about looking like a bad person… I don’t like the public image I’ve been dressed with and it worries me.”
“When I’m called unkind, that really cuts to the quick. You can say anything else that you like about me.”
“I don’t mind being called snobbish, a pain and a social climber, but being called unkind really hurts.”
Latest PR spin from anonymous “friend” of Gerry and Kate McCann is plainly simply part of yet another attempt to get more cash to top up the £12 million already wasted
Just as ‘Operation Grange’ is no doubt about to need a further input of wonga-wonga to top up the £12 million plus pointlessly thrown at it so far, “friends” of Gerry and Kate McCann have returned to PR spinning and are now describing the investigation into Christian Brueckner to be “beyond bizarre.”
Featured in the Mirror this morning, the unnamed “friend” in question claimed the McCanns cannot understand what is going on with the German suspect and anonymously remarked:
“Any police force or prosecuting chief should not be boasting… but should be remaining silent as in the case of the Met Police.”
“They should… not be suggesting that members of the public would be reaching the same conclusion as they do about the suspect if they knew the evidence they had. It is beyond bizarre and not very helpful to the investigation.”
“If Mr Wolters [the German prosecutor] has got any significant evidence we cannot understand why the key suspect is not being questioned.”
“If the prosecutors are intent that Brueckner is a genuine person of interest to be questioned and possibly charged over Madeleine’s disappearance, why has this action not been taken.”
“If they think he is a red herring and had no involvement they should say so, instead of playing games, because the real culprit could be out there and escaping any scrutiny.”
Responding on the Facebook group ‘The Madeleine McCann Controversy,’ one of 36,500 members, Lisa Jeynes, quite rightly remarked: “Good PR from Kate and Gerry. Or are they getting cold feet?”
Matthew Steeples highlights three things that are keeping him going through coronavirus lockdown living (aside from not running out of gin)
Having found myself ensconced in East Anglia for five weeks now –never did I imagine myself staying in a rural place so long – and having not actually got into a car or visited a town in that period, I busy my days reading, writing and walking a bit. It’s been especially strange not to physically see friends and I can’t say I’ve fathomed ‘House Party,’ but my telephone device has certainly seen more Bob Hoskins-esque “It’s Good To Talk” action than ever before.
Whilst most people will tell you Netflix has been their best source of entertainment during this period and I will most certainly join them in commending ‘binge watching’ Ozark, I’ve found time to do things that I’ve always put-off such as clear out my iPhone’s address book and chuck out paperwork I’m never going to actually get round to dealing with. It’s been a time to read and reflect and an opportunity to listen to music a little more often and here follows a few other ‘lockdown discoveries’ of mine that you might find useful:
Harvey Nichols
Nobody would imagine that Patsy and Edina’s favourite shop, Harvey Nichols, would be the bargain food and drink store of the lockdown, but given they don’t charge for next-day delivery wherever you are in the UK and there’s no minimum spend, here is an unbeatable service. Unlike some greedy online booze retailers (some of whom have actually increased their prices and introduced preposterously high delivery charges to coincide with us all being stuck at home), you can get a bottle of the heather-hinted, 43% ABV Edinburgh Gin for just £32, a jar of highly addictive ginger and chilli jam for £3.95 or an utterly delicious asparagus and shrimp risotto that feeds two for just £5.95. Add half a glass of white wine and Bob’s Your Uncle and Fanny’s Your Aunt.
Podcasts and Radio Plays
I’ve become addicted to true crime podcasts such as Murder Mile (in spite of the most recent one I listened to being about the appalling murder of my late friend Robert Troyan in Mount Street Mayfair in 2013) in the last weeks. An especially gritty and somewhat grim example is The Clearing, an eight-episode serialisation based on the crimes of the American serial killer Ed Edwards (AKA ‘Wayne’ Edwards) that has been lauded by the Guardian as “an immense achievement.”
Equally gripping, if you haven’t heard it already (I’m listening to it for a second time), is BBC Radio 4’s rerun of GF Newman’s The Corrupted. Featuring a fictional dodgy MP interacting with real political figures from the past including Margaret Thatcher and Douglas Hurd, here is something for political geeks to get their teeth into before the ‘B-word’ again raises its ugly head once coronavirus fades into the background.
‘The Quiz’ on Facebook
Some of us were already playing before orders to stay indoors arrived, but the ‘Quiz Planet’ app on Facebook has proved a charming way to interact with friends from near and afar. Some of the questions do border on the inane and others have induced a Major Charles Ingram-esque cough on my part, but if you want to while away the hours, do sign up and if you want someone to thrash, try challenging me.
And Then… What’s Next?
Most of all, of course, what will really keep you going through all this is this: A day will soon come when you’ll again be eating, drinking and being merry with your nearest and dearest at your very favourite establishment. Whether you fancy fish and chips or a bottle of Chablis (or both), it’ll come and it’ll come not a moment too soon.
For now, do heed the words of the late Mr Hoskins: “What men call chatter, really does matter. It’s about being a friend. Having the time to listen. It’s what makes the world goes round.” Call a friend or, if you’re not a technophobe like me, ‘give’ them a Zoom.
Refugee turned “one-man vodka band” Pleurat Shabani shares a message of positivity (and a reminder that we’ll all be having a martini or three together again soon)
Having escaped the civil war in Croatia, Kosovo born Pleurat Shabani headed to London in 1994. He, unlike Dick Whittington, did not find streets paved with gold but ended up working as a lavatory cleaner and kitchen porter.
Later, forced onto the streets after losing his job at Soho House, Shabani “hit rock bottom” but did not give up. He found a job as a glass washer at Oliver Peyton’s Atlantic Bar & Grill – which ironically was later ‘sunk’ by Marco Pierre White’s Titanic restaurant – and after being promoted to a role as a bartender, began a journey that ultimately resulted in the creation of his own vodka, Konik’s Tail.
Shabini, without the big money backing most spirits brands garnered in the early-to-mid 2000s, is a surprising success story. We reported on it back in 2014 and in spite of his shoestring budget – and the fact he literally had to glue his own footwear together (he considers them “ part of his journey”) – Konik’s Tail is now stocked in everywhere from Dukes Hotel to Waitrose.
Now, at this time of lockdown, the notoriously shy luddite Shabani has taken to social media and on Instagram, a place he’s only posted once before, shared a message of positivity that we should all heed. It follows in full below:
“First of all, I hope this finds you well in these increasingly challenging times of disruption and enormous changes to the daily lives of all of us. Together, we have learnt that passion, optimism and community will help us all come out stronger.”
“The pride of who we are as a community is not part of our past, it defines our present and our future. You have inspired me. Your presence has inspired me. Your friendship has inspired me. And, your stories have inspired me.”
“Together we will succeed and that success will belong to everyone of us. Better days will return. Stools behind the bar might be empty, no late nights, no last calls, but this – you are not forgotten. Our hearts are full of love until we are reunited again. I know we will be with our friends again, with our families again and I know we will share a Konik’s Tail martini again.”
“Spread the love and positive energy, help a friend, even a stranger. Until we meet again, be well, be safe and love each other. My warmest wishes to you all and thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Konik’s Tail Vodka is available from Waitrose for £38 for a 70cl bottle. Thankfully they can still deliver it – so have your chilled martini glasses at the ready.
That Prince Andrew decided to share his birthday with the diminutive skinflint Bernie Ecclestone shows the new low he has reached
‘Randy Andy’ has never been considered capable of carefulness in his choice of company, but in opting to have one of the stingiest billionaires on the planet round for a spot of dinner (and a “few high-spirited games” afterwards according to The Sun) shows this alleged groper’s demise is nearly complete.
This morning, the paper reported the Duke of York and his family had the poisonous dwarf Bernie Ecclestone round to his Royal Lodge, Windsor home last Wednesday to celebrate his birthday. That they couldn’t get a better quality of guest given the scandals they’re engulfed in is not surprising, but one is only left asking: “What did this reprehensible bunch consume?”
Given tax careful Bernard – a man with qualities that would make Leona Helmsley look generous – is renowned for his meanness with money, most likely he brought with him the cheapest margherita from the Woking branch of Pizza Express. Undoubtedly nobody sweated either and one can likely predict that ‘The Coffin Dodger’ opted to take the takeaway cardboard box home with him for re-use later.
Prince Andrew is plainly a man who’ll hang out with anyone – as long as they are rich and/or powerful. He had no qualms in staying with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein after he got out of jail.He’s spent time with the alleged procurer of underage girls Ghislaine Maxwell as recently as last summer.He’s a friend of Donald and Melania Trump. The President is well-known for tax evasion and many other nefarious activities.He and his wife spent time holidaying at the expense of the alleged paedophile Peter Nygard.The Duke and Duchess of York also associated with the convicted paedophile Stuart Hall. Shame on the pair of them.
New columnist Charlie Gray of ‘Ask Charlie’ shares her tips as to how to cook a perfect Sunday roast
A Sunday roast is the perfect time to leave your phones to one side, turn off the TV and sit down with your loved ones and enjoy eating in their company.
A Sunday roast doesn’t have to be at lunch time, early evenings work well too – this way, you have more of the day to do the things that need to be done.
Cooking the roast shouldn’t be stressful so I thought I would share my top tips with you:
Take the meat out of the fridge an hour before cooking, at this point, it is the perfect time to lay the table and prepare the vegetables and make the all-important pudding (bread and butter, treacle tart, apple pie are great options).
Prepare the meat, season, stuff, etc and pop into a hot oven.
Par boil your potatoes for 8 mins then strain and give a little shake to fluff up.
Tip on to a lined roasting tray drizzle a little rape seed oil and sprinkle a tablespoon of flour and season with sea salt – place these in the oven with the meat.
You can now sit down and relax for 30 minutes.
Next steam your veggies and make a bread sauce or cheese sauce to accompany them.
Make sure you keep the water from the bottom of the steamer as this is perfect for adding into your gravy.
Now is the time to warm your plates and serving bowls.
Take out the meat and let it rest while you make the gravy
Carve, serve and enjoy.
My roast beef recipe with all the trimmings is available on my website.
Sussex based mother of three and lifestyle blogger Charlie Gray shares ‘homegrown skills’ and practical advice on her website Ask Charlie. Watch her videos on YouTube by clicking here.
The boozy bird the Duchess of Sussex and the newly formed The Independent Group have something in common; this “TIG moment” lover should become their leader
The former Meghan Markle – a bizarre woman who ludicrously likes to create “spaces to share” and “breeding grounds for ideas and excitement” – once had a blog called ‘The Tig.’ It was supposedly about matters “lifestyle” and on it she created “a hub for the discerning palate – those with a hunger for food, travel, fashion [and] beauty.”
On this oracle of wisdom the busybody ‘Murky Mucky’ shared information that the world simply shouldn’t be without. On the now defunct site’s ‘About’ section, she bizarrely stated:
“Several years ago I had a sip of wine called Tignanello (pronounced “teen-ya-nello“). But let’s be real – in the states most people said “tig-na-nello“…or just plain old “Tig.” The Italiano of it all gets a little tricky, so the bartender kept it simple; it was a glass of “Tig.“So there I am, with very minimal wine knowledge and I take a sip of this wine. It wasn’t just red or white – suddenly I understood what people meant by the body, legs, structure of wine. It was an ah-ha moment at its finest. For me, it became a “Tig” moment – a moment of getting it.”
“From that point on, any new awareness, any new discovery or “ohhhhh, I get it!” moment was a “Tig” moment. At New York Fashion Week understanding that clothes aren’t just pieces of fabric, but that they can be art. So Tig. Traveling off the beaten track and hand diving for sea urchin in Jamaica – understanding that travel is adventure and discovery, culture and surprise. A Tig moment, indeed. And the same could be said for my love of cooking & dining, for cultivating friendships that inspire you, for the idea of “beauty” and what that means to us. An understanding that comes with living your life to the fullest so that it bursts at the seams. An unbridled joy. An insatiable curiosity. That’s what Tig means to me.”
We won’t bore you with the rest of this right royal pest’s drivel but yesterday, in Westminster, seven now ex-Labour MPs quit their party. They formed a group called ‘The Independent Group’ or more simply ‘TIG.’ Perhaps it might be appropriate that their fellow ‘Tigger’ The Duchess of Sussex become their leader.
The Independent Group announced their creation in Westminster yesterday; they came across as a bunch of attention seekers.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, in New York, ‘The Modern Day Mrs Simpson’ couldn’t help but don the look of an extra from ‘Last Of The Summer Wine’ in wearing a flat cap. Here indeed was a right royal embarrassment.
Mayfair “farmhouse” where Mrs Simpson began her affair with the then Prince of Wales for sale for 147% more than it was marketed for in 2012
Last marketed at a price of £4.75 million ($6.04 million, €5.30 million or درهم22.19 million) in 2012 and offered for sale in 2005 at an undisclosed sum also, a house where the then Mrs Simpson began her affair with the then Prince of Wales is again for sale.
Rebuilt in the early 1900s by a Mrs M. Strakosch in “the Gothic style,” Farm House – or 22 Farm Street as it is more simply known – stands on the site of a farmhouse that predated the development of Mayfair.
Entered through a large oak front door that feature the heads of the twelve apostles, the half-timbered house Mrs Strakosch commissioned featured Flemish linenfold paneling and 17th century doors. Though much of this has now gone, a number of Jacobean and medieval features remain and what is now offered is described as “the perfect space for modern entertaining.”
Farm House, 22 Farm Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5RQ – For sale for £11.75 million
Gloria Swanson, Gloria Vanderbilt and Thelma Furness
Farm House includes three reception rooms, two kitchens, six bedrooms, four bathrooms, two terraces and a garage. It extends to 4,564 square foot over four floors and was home to the Swiss born Thelma Furness, Viscountess Furness (1904 – 1970), the twice married mistress of the then Prince of Wales and later King Edward VIII between 1930 and 1934, during their relationship.
Furness, whose twin sister Gloria (1904 – 1965) became a Vanderbilt and was also the maternal grandmother of the American news anchor Anderson Cooper, at this time, was friends with Wallis Simpson. She introduced her American friend to the prince at her country house, Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray, first in 1931 but then became supplanted in his affections in 1934.
With their relationship approaching its end, Furness embarked on a short affair with Prince Aly Khan whilst in America and whilst there allowed Simpson to live in her Farm Street home according to the actress Gloria Swanson (1899 – 1983). Later, in her autobiography Silent Boulevard, Swanson wrote:
“Lady Thelma Furness had a charming house on Farm Street, where her friend Wallis Simpson has kept the Prince of Wales company while Thelma was away in the States.”
Swanson, whilst pregnant, and her then husband Michael Farmer subsequently rented Farm House from Furness and of their time there wrote: “The house was empty for the moment, so we settled in to wait for the baby and see old friends.”
Knight Frank now seek £11.75 million ($14.95 million, €13.12 million or درهم54.90 million) for Farm House. Reportedly, according to a 2012 Mayfair Times article, the property comes with deeds that specifically mention that it still has a “right of way for sheep.”
As Victoria Beckham embraces being a ‘bag lady,’ one could argue she’d simply do best to keep her head inside for good
On the surface, Victoria Beckham has it all: Fame, fortune and friends. In spite of this, this pop princess turned fashion fiesta never smiles and frankly seems as miserable as sin.
