It is right that Oscar Pistorius has been convicted of culpable homicide
This morning Oscar Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide – the South African equivalent of the UK’s manslaughter charge – and one charge relating to a restaurant shooting. That he showed no emotion as he was convicted is telling. (more…)
Arrogant Oscar Pistorius shows his true character yet again
Revelations that Oscar Pistorius was both in a fight in a Johannesburg nightclub last weekend and that he returned to Twitter to share his bizarre religious references sum up how arrogant this individual truly is. (more…)
Two cases that highlight that justice is a dish that should be served
Two cases featured in today’s Evening Standard provide evidence that those seeking justice should never give up. The first is that of a crook named Giovanni Di Stefano and the second is that of the murder victim Martine Vik Magnussen. (more…)
Considered the “largest living mammal on the planet” at the time and owned by Sparks Circus, Mary was a 5-tonne elephant who could play 25 tunes on the horns without missing a note. When an inexperienced drifter named Red Eldridge was hired to handle her in September 1916 in Kingsport, Tennessee, the elephant grabbed him with her trunk and stomped on his head. Eldridge died and in revenge the townsfolk demanded that the poor elephant be killed. Shooting failed so thus, in front of 2,500 people, Mary was hanged from a railroad derrick. A true indication of how depraved humanity can truly be.
Red Bull founder’s grandson remains subject to an arrest warrant
In a case that echoes that of Florida’s John Goodman trial, 28-year old Vorayuth Yoovidhya – the grandson of the founder of Red Bull – remains subject to an arrest warrant for reckless driving, causing death and failing to stop at the scene of an accident. (more…)
A Conservative MP sensibly suggests that this week’s killing in Woolwich was not terrorism
In the days since the terrible murder of Lee Rigby, 25, in Woolwich, the BNP, the EDL and other racists have leapt on the description of it as “terrorism”.
Matthew Steeples suggests Westminster City Council have no place meddling with how the humble burger is cooked
In the last week both the Evening Standard and BigHospitality.co.uk revealed that Westminster City Council had served notice on a restaurant named Davy’s for “undercooking” burgers. Current Food Standards Agency guidelines state that burger meat should be cooked at 70°C for two minutes and it is suggested that Davy’s have failed to adhere to this.
A spokesman for Davy’s told the Evening Standard:
“[Our] burgers are produced from high quality ingredients and Davy’s contends that it has safe measures in place to serve rare or medium-rare burgers.”
John Cadieux of Burger & Lobster went further in his comment:
“If you follow the guidelines to the letter then you’re going to destroy the burger industry. Not only that but you’re opening a Pandora’s box, because where do you finish? Steak tartare, runny eggs … the list is endless.”
If this ruling is maintained, a precedent will be set and those who enjoy rare and medium-rare burgers will find that their pleasure will be taken away. The busybodies of Westminster Council and their passion for cremating meat must be stopped.
I wish the Davy’s burger crusaders all the very best when they appear at Westminster Magistrates Court in May 2013.
Charles Mitford Cust tells of the breakdancing stoats at Bears Rock
Apparently the 2012 “Braun Battle of the Year” breakdance championship is underway and the coolest movers are strutting their stuff right now down in Montpelier, France.
“B-boying” or “breakdancing” as we recognise it today is a relatively new dance style which can trace its roots to James Brown’s Get on the Good Foot dance of 1969. There is, however, another species that has been practising the art for considerably longer and that is the stoat.
The stoat is one of nature’s acrobats, with a level of agility, dexterity and stamina which places it in a class of it’s own in the animal kingdom. It is also incredibly strong. A stoat is quite capable of killing and dragging home a creature 10 times its size and weight.
Although stoats, with their immaculately groomed ermine coats and pretty little black tails look almost unbearably cute and charming, they are also one of the most ruthless killers ever created. You see the stoat doesn’t dance just to amuse itself; it literally dances for its supper. For this reason, the stoat is and has to be the best “B-boyer” in the world.
Stoats dance around potential victims in order to hypnotise them. They put on such dazzling displays of acrobatics, including the famous “headspin” that defines “breaking” that your average rabbit becomes so mesmerised that it allows the stoat to dance closer and closer. The next thing the bunny knows is that the “B-boy” stoat has sunk his teeth deep into its throat and then is on a one-way ticket to the great Watership Down in the sky. Nice.
Stoats have danced their way through 7 million years of survival, and like so many highly successful predators, such as sharks and crocodiles, having once established their evolutionary niche and perfected their modus operandi, they have remained pretty much unchanged in all that time. We can therefore safely assume that stoats even breakdanced their way through the last ice age, during which time, according to the experts, they faired very well as a species with their compact dimensions and standard issue ermine to insulate them from the sub-zero temperatures. Seems like the Ice Age animation series should have featured a stoat rather than a sloth.
About six months ago, a stoat, whom I have christened Stan, moved to Bears Rock. He is obviously a discerning type of chap because having looked all around the grounds for a suitable home, he decided to move into the basement of my wooden African style rondavel which sits on an elevated veranda overlooking my lake.
From this strategic vantage point, he, and Stella, as I have named his wife, have a lovely view of the lower garden some fifty feet below them in the mornings and can decide which of my rabbits they are going to eat for lunch.
“Just popping out for a spot of busking Stella,” says Stan as he heads out. “Alright Stan,” Stella responds: “But be as quick as you can love: I need you to gnaw a bigger back exit for us in case that Charles bloke buys a Jack Russell.”
I am sure that another reason why Stan found this des res so appealing is because the surrounding timber balustrade makes such a wonderful place to train their young, the kits, in acrobatics and the art of artistic killing.
I have often watched enthralled by the dazzling high-speed display he and Stella put on as they free run all over the structure, often appearing to defy the laws of gravity and physics. They make a welcome interlude to my day trading routine, although they have probably cost me a fortune in bad trades. I now eagerly look forward to watching the kits getting their schooling from mum and dad in the spring.
One thing is certain, it is lucky for the competitors in Montpelier that there isn’t an entry category for stoats: Stan and Stella would wipe the floor with the lot of them.
Watch a BBC One video of breakdancing stoats at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHImJVJSJ08
The 2012 Braun Battle of the Year: http://www.braunbattleoftheyear.com/
The latest sale of 32a Ovington Square
I first visited 32a Ovington Square in September 2009. At the time, this “hidden house” was the home of Lord Carrington and it had just come on the market at a price, if I recall correctly, of circa £3,000,000.
A friend was looking for somewhere to buy in London and I’d somehow come across the aforementioned property in a magazine. A detached house in Knightsbridge at this price seemed like a bargain and as he was keen to take a look and I lived round the corner, we arranged to see it together.
During this period, I had unfortunately made the mistake of making the acquaintance of a former ambassador’s wife who thought herself rather grand. Said woman somehow found out about my friend going to what Americans might term an “open house” at 32a Ovington Square and somehow muscled in. This individual happened to be selling her own home nearby and I reckon she, like my friend, thought she’d be onto a bargain. She’d previously unsuccessfully tried to persuade my friend to buy her individually styled, Ralph Lauren wallpapered home but as it actually rattled every time an underground train went underneath and as it was far from a bargain, he’d sensibly declined.
We arrived at the 2,240 square foot 32a Ovington Square to be told by a rather unhelpful estate agent that we’d have to just wander round by ourselves and that there was no brochure or floor plan. As a merry throng trailed through the house, Lord Carrington stood in the garden looking bemused and his secretary fussed around him. The pair plainly weren’t comfortable with all the interlopers and all in all, who could blame them.
The ex-ambassador’s wife, whose carelessness Rupert Everett most amusingly made reference to in his recent memoirs, spent the entire visit whingeing about the house being dark and stinking of damp. I had to agree with her as the neighbouring buildings towered over it and there was mould on the walls. My friend simply said: “It needs a fortune spending on it.” We left and later I heard that it sold for well above the asking price. The wife of the ex-ambassador thankfully departed from our lives soon after.
About a year and a half later, I saw 32a Ovington Square for sale with planning permission to construct a far larger residence with a basement and sub-basement pool complex. The price was in the order of £14,000,000. I thought that somewhat ludicrous but now that the very same property is on the market at a price of £23,00,000, it seems that the world has just gone mad.
The brochure for the new residence, which has been renamed, Carrington House, reveals a three-storey low-built freehold building with 5,300 square foot of accommodation. Though 32a Ovington Square has been more than doubled in size by a developer named London City Developments, the sub-basement leisure complex has not been constructed. Could this have been because of planning problems or simply because such construction wasn’t deemed to add value?
In August 2002, Lord Carrington, whom The Mirror described as being “doddery” in a Scurra diary piece, was said to have objected to a bar named Townhouse behind his former home being given a 1am licence. That bar has since closed but as seven of the residents of Ovington Square and Beauchamp Place also took a dislike to the prospect of subterranean developments at his former home, only proposals for a single basement level were included in the January 2010 plans submitted by a Mr & Mrs R. Garner.
Aside from controversy with residents and planning officials, this “heavily overlooked,” “dark” house gets a brief credit in Jeffrey Archer’s 1984 novel, First Among Equals:
“Charles would not have normally accepted the invitation. Lately he found cocktail parties to consist of nothing but silly little bits of food, never being able to get the right drink and rarely enjoying the trivial conversation. But when he glanced on his mantelpiece and saw an ‘At Home’ from Lady Carrington he felt it might be an amusing break from the routine he had fallen into since Fiona left. He was keen to discover more about the rumoured squabbles in Cabinet over expenditure cuts. He checked his tie in the mirror, removed an umbrella from the hat stand and left Eaton Square for Ovington Square… He arrived at Lord Carrington’s front door a little after six forty-five. A maid answered his knock, and he walked straight through to a drawing room that could have held fifty guests and very nearly did. He even managed to be served with the right blend of whiskey before joining his colleagues from both the Upper and Lower Houses.”
Turning to the real Lord Carrington, here is a man who has led a remarkable life. He served as Foreign Secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet between 1979 and 1982 and as Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988. The last surviving member of the Cabinets of both Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home was British High Commissioner in Australia between 1956 and 1959 and also chaired the 1979 Lancaster House conference that brought Zimbabwe’s revolutionary war to an end. In 1991, Carrington presided over diplomatic talks in the former Yugoslavia and commented:
“When I first talked to Presidents Milošević and Tudjman, it was quite clear that both of them had a solution which was mutually satisfactory – which was that they were going to carve up Bosnia between them.”
Milošević was found dead in his cell in 2006 but it is quite possible that Lord Carrington’s name will be mentioned in the trial of Goran Hadzic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia that has just commenced at The Hague. It is amazing to think that matters involving this 93-year old politician are still current but Carrington’s stamina is shown in his roles as the longest serving member of the House of Lords and the second longest serving member of the Privy Council after HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.
Aside from politics, there is much on the internet, a considerable amount of it written by wildcards and fantasists whose number includes David Icke, about Carrington’s involvement with Henry Kissinger, the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group and the Committee of 300. The consensus of these conspiracy theorists generally borders on the ludicrous, but it is without doubt that Lord Carrington had and continues to have influence in many high places. He was chairman of Christie’s International PLC from 1988 to 1993 and has held directorships on the boards of companies that have included Barclays Banks PLC, Hambros PLC, Cadbury Schweppes PLC, Amalgamated Metal Corporation PLC, British Metal Corpoation PLC, Rio Tinto PLC, Kissinger Associates Inc. and Hollinger Inc.
Following on from this rather over the top redevelopment, a new chapter has certainly begun at 32a Ovington Square. Whether it is bought by a popstar or a Russian oligarch, they’ll definitely not be anywhere nearly as equal to Lord Carrington in terms of their league of influence.
Carrington House, 32a Ovington Square, London, SW3 1LR is for sale through Knight Frank. For further information contact Nick Vestey on +44 (0) 20 7591 8600. Full details of the house can be viewed at: http://search.knightfrank.com/sla100211
For more details about the Carrington family’s Carrington Estates Ltd., go to: http://www.carington.co.uk/
Matthew Steeples updates readers on John Goodman’s return to jail
The conviction of John Goodman in West Palm Beach earlier this year was a tragedy for all concerned but the twists and turns that have followed have been quite something else.
Goodman, who sold his family business, Goodman Manufacturing, for $1.43 billion in 2004 and who also founded the International Polo Club Palm Beach, was found guilty of the offences of DUI Manslaughter and vehicular homicide on 23rd March.
In February 2010, Goodman had crashed his Bentley Continental GTC at speed into a Hyundai Sonata and in the process catapulted it into a canal. Whilst the driver, Scott Wilson, was left to drown, Goodman fled the scene of the accident and later claimed he did not know he’d hit another driver. On the night in question, Goodman had settled a $272 bar bill for himself and friends at The Players Club in Wellington, Florida at 12:52am and had later drunk more alcohol after the accident in a “man cave” to “alleviate [his] pain.”
In May 2012, Goodman was sentenced to 16 years in jail but shortly afterwards was released on a $7 million bond pending appeal. At exactly the same time, a juror in the case, Dennis DeMartin, self-published a “tell-all” book, Believing in the Truth, in which he revealed that he conducted drinking experiments to see if he could get drunk after three vodka and tonics. After DeMartin was called in for questioning by Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath, he stated:
“I’m only human. I made a mistake, just like John Goodman made a mistake… What can I say? I’m getting senile.”
John Goodman has spent most of the year under house arrest at his hacienda at 3665 120th Avenue, Wellington with his girlfriend, whom he also adopted as his daughter to protect his wealth, Heather Laurso Hutchins (also known as Heather Colby). In a further twist, Goodman was caught at the property by two of the $2,000 a day off-duty deputies employed to monitor him at 11pm on Wednesday in an upstairs bathroom with a small mirror. He was allegedly using it to pry open his ankle monitor and disable it with water.
Though Goodman claimed he had hit the monitor on a shower door accidentally, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of West Palm Beach County commented:
“I think he thought, you know, in my estimation he thought that was going to disable it. [It] doesn’t work like that… He paid the price for it because he’s back in the ‘Gun Club Hotel’ [Palm Beach County Jail]. That’s where he’s going to stay.”
“Think about what’s going on in America right now. You know you’ve got celebrities and people with a lot of money, they get arrested, they break the law. And, after a while they just think the rules don’t apply to them.”
“Well, guess what? That don’t happen here. He gets treated just like every other person that’s in my custody. He violates the rules, he’s back in jail.”
As a result, John Goodman will now temporarily remain in jail until the 26th November.
We await the next twist in this case with anticipation.
Read our original report on the case against John Goodman and his subsequent conviction at: http://thesteepletimes.com/the-fog/no-thank-goodnesses-for-goodman/