An opportunity for readers based in Kensington & Chelsea to take part in the cult television series “Come Dine With Me”
Many of you will have watched an episode of Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me or at least glimpsed five minutes of this car crash television series.
For those who do not know it, the show takes four or five strangers and over four or five nights, they take it in turn to host what the producers describe as “the perfect dinner party.” The guests rate one another and the one who gets the highest score wins £1,000 in cash.
“Come Dine With Me’s” advertisement seeking contestants from Kensington & ChelseaOne of the most amusing episodes of Come Dine With Me featured four British expats living on the Costa del Sol. Essex girl Mekala Hodgson, wine merchant Greg Van Praagh, “fun loving thrill-seeker” Mandy Strutton and a Frank Butcher-style comedian named John Morton didn’t exactly hit it off. Spending four evenings with them would frankly would have made a dinner with Hannibal Lecter seem appealing.
Though I know several people who have participated, in the main the people who appear are plainly chosen because they are somewhat odd. Freaks, after all, make better television. Channel 4 have done extremely well with the show as a result and as their sarcastic narrator, Dave Lamb, makes a point of utterly trashing the cookery skills and personalities of those competing, viewers generally find themselves laughing at the contestants rather than with them.
Now, the producers are looking for individuals living in Kensington and Chelsea to participate. Do you dare? We’ll all be watching.
She sings about celebrities, the credit crunch and carbon footprints and has appeared on Radio 4 with Barry Humphries. She filmed a video about “Fred the Shred getting in over [his] head” at the Brompton Bar & Grill and though Mr Goodwin may have lost his knighthood, Miss Hughes’ star is definitely on the ascent. Listen out for her at The Arts Club, The Chelsea Arts Club and at private parties throughout the land.
Former restaurateur whose family are city legends. His pride and joy is a classic Mercedes-Benz Grosser and he’s often to be found propping up the bar at La Brasserie teaching Cockney rhyming slang. A maestro in the kitchen, feasts by him are hugely sought after.
The nuisance conman who pounds the streets of Kensington & Chelsea
When an old man approaches you in the street complaining he’s lost his wallet or can’t afford a bed for the night, no decent person would disbelieve him or begrudge him a few pennies.
On the streets of Knightsbridge, Kensington and Chelsea, however, in the last year I’ve regularly encountered an old man who is plainly seizing on such pity and abusing it. This chap makes the grifters of the BBC’s Hustle seem like amateurs and he’s probably raking in upwards of £300 a day.
The £50 grifter: He may look like The Right Honourable Dr Vince Cable MP but he ain’t quite so well intentioned
The individual I mention is probably about 65 years old and his favourite haunts seem to be Walton Street, Beauchamp Place, Sloane Street, Cadogan Place and Draycott Avenue. He is certainly a beggar who opts to limit himself to the finest streets and it is certainly apparent why he does such.
The cast of the BBC’s superb Hustle: Robert Gleinster, Matt Di Angelo, Adrian Lester, Kelly Adams and Robert Vaughn
The first time I encountered him I was with a friend. The man concerned approached us with a story of how he’d been pick-pocketed and requested £50 for a train ticket to somewhere up north. My friend opened her wallet and handed him the cash and he went on his merry way leaving her thinking she’d done a good deed.
The next time I was stopped, the same man told me a tale of how he couldn’t afford a bed for the night. “Could you give me £50?” he enquired. I pointed out that we’d met before and he flat denied it. In astonishment, I mumbled some excuse about not having any cash and turned to leave but then his vitriol began to flow: “F**k you, you f**king piece of Eurotrash,” he screamed. I got away as quickly as I could.
Days later I was in Beauchamp Place and he managed to block my path. Plainly, for all of his audacity, he doesn’t or cannot remember who he spins his yarns to and this time my friends and I were given a story about his wife having suddenly died and his being unable to afford a train ticket to Gloucester. “Give me £50, will you,” he politely requested. Yet again, I explained that we’d met before. Yet again, he denied such and realising he wasn’t getting a cent, the swearing commenced.
All other encounters have been similarly peppered with tales of woe and always end with a request for £50. His success is obvious as the man wouldn’t continue haunting our streets if his strategy didn’t result in people paying up. Many locals have also told me of their conversations with this man and some tell me that they too parted with their cash. Finally, though, I managed to get a snap of the con artist the other day and I publish it here as a warning to my readers.
Don’t get me wrong: I entirely support helping those in need and there are indeed several poor old people who I assist locally when I run into them but confidence tricksters such as this really should be stopped from conning tourists and locals.
If you spot this man, report him to the Metropolitan Police’s Chelsea police station at 2 Lucan Place, London, SW3 3PB on 0300 123 1212 or go to: http://content.met.police.uk/Borough/Kensington
