Who would have imagined seeing a Phantom and a Mulsanne drag racing?
In London, people do strange things with supercars. Arabs like His Highness Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, aged 28, don’t bother to insure their wrapped orange £230,000 Ferrari FF’s and find them impounded by the Metropolitan Police whilst Iraqi playboys race Ferrari 599’s down Sloane Street at 120 mph. Meanwhile, the Qatarai royals plainly don’t understand the concept of parking charges and strangely prefer to leave their £1.2million Koenigsegg CCXR’s to be clamped. The world of the super rich and their chariots is, indeed, nothing other than bemusing.
A Rolls-Royce Phantom and a Bentley Mulsanne drag racing in the 2012 goldRush Rally
When, yesterday, Thilo Martin, a director of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Geneva, kindly shared an image on Facebook, I truly saw two luxury cars being used in a manner that I could never have expected. In a photograph taken at the 2012 goldRush Rally readers will see a £253,000 Rolls Royce Phantom and a £225,000 Bentley Mulsanne drag racing.
The Rolls-Royce PhantomThe Bentley Mulsanne
We at The Steeple Times found this strange use of two vehicles that normally are more likely to be found on Rodeo Drive, Park Avenue or Bond Street most amusing and for that reason it had to be our picture of the week.
“Why pay less when you can pay more?” is a mantra that some strangely choose to live by. In my time, I have encountered a couple with a different Ferrari for each day of the week, someone who proudly declared their home had a window for each day of the year and an heiress who insists upon the local baker feeding her dog daily with a freshly baked caviar pie.
When I discovered a house in California priced at $78,000,000, I didn’t expect to subsequently find out that the same vendor is also selling another of his homes in Montana at the very same price. Having done a little research into Donald G. Abbey, the commercial real estate tycoon who owns both The Bradbury Estate and Shelter Island, I discovered that here indeed is another personality whose excess knows no bounds.
I suppose when people sell homes of this worth, the asking price they set is quite irrelevant. “What,” I’m sure they ask, “is $5 million between friends?” Equally, when it comes to developing such properties, characters of this nature do not show any reserve. Bling is most definitely the order of the day and the larger and flashier one can build, I guess, the better.
An aerial shot of The Bradbury Estate, 172 Bliss Canyon Road, Bradbury, California, CA 91008, USAThe front elevation of the main houseThe owner and his guests need not get wet on arrival in their limousines
Abbey’s Bradbury Estate is a case in point. This vast property consists of a 33,000 square foot main house with 7 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. It is almost entirely made of French limestone and includes a chef’s kitchen with a pizza oven, a 2,000 bottle wine cellar, an oak paneled elevator and a leather paneled poker room. Bedrooms include domes with hand painted frescos and in addition there is a detached 6,700 square foot guest house above a 10 car garage and a 5,700 square foot pool house with a catering kitchen, gym, massage room and a subterranean EPA certified 25 yard rifle shooting range complete with a gun storage room and 2 large safes.
The hall of the main residence comes complete with a gallery and barA vast library provides the perfect space to enjoy a good bookThe library’s glazed ceilingAnother palatial reception roomThe house features a rather impressive kitchenMr Abbey’s copper bath tub comes complete with a mat displaying his initials in front of it
Within the 8 acre grounds there is a cross shaped infinity-edged pool – perhaps Mr Abbey is religious – that is “just a few feet short of Olympic length.” It requires 350,000 gallons of water if it is to be filled to capacity. Adjoining this is something even more ludicrous: a 1,000,000 gallon, temperature-controlled rainbow trout pond that cost some $8,000,000 to construct. The pond is said to be “adorned with perennials,” is heated by a custom gravity separator with UV filters and is “chilled for the trout by a 300-tonne central cooling plant.” At Bradbury, thoughts of water crisis in Sudan and Ethiopia come way behind the needs of Abbey’s rainbows.
The rear of the house viewed from above The Bradbury Estate’s $8,000,000 trout pondThe estate’s 350,000 gallon near Olympic length cross shaped infinity edged swimming poolThe property’s EPA certified 25 yard rifle range
For those wanting to avoid California’s UV rays, Bradbury also boasts an acre of porches, decks, loggia and walkways. A 600ft blue stone driveway completes this “once in a lifetime trophy property” that “belongs in the portfolio of the most astute collector” and it has space for “60 foot truck access or multiple limousines.”
When Mr Abbey has tired of California, he is able to retreat to his own island in Montana. The 24 acre Shelter Island on Flathead Lake includes 7,000 feet of frontage to the water, a world class sporting clay course and 3 computer controlled tracks and docking systems that allow boats to be landed in the dry dock without riders ever leaving the craft or handling a line. The island is powered via an underground armoured utility cable that carry 12,000 amps to it along with CAT-5 computer cable and phonelines and the main entertaining space features a mammoth television of some 120-inches in size.
An aerial view of Donald G. Abbey’s Shelter IslandMr Abbey’s passion for copper continues with a conservatory made out of the metal on the lakeside elevation of the main residence on Shelter IslandThe Great Room of the main residence on Shelter IslandMr Abbey’s passion for fine wines is displayed in a bar and tasting room in the propertyThe owner and his guests can access their boats without having to go anywhere near the water
Abbey has built over 44,000 square foot of accommodation on his island. The main house has 5 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. His “Great Room” features ceilings of some 45 foot in height and in addition to yet another indoor shooting range, there is a kitchen that woudn’t look out of place in The Savoy hotel.
In the UK, the property most similar to anything Abbey has built has to be Updown Court at Windlesham in Surrey. Developed by a former bricklayer named Leslie Allen-Vercoe, the house was described by him as being: “The most important residence to be built in England since the 19th century.” Architectural critics did not agree and some went as far as to say that it looked like: “A cross between a Tesco superstore and Center Parcs.”
Allen-Vercoe’s behemoth of a house is gargantuan in size. With 103 rooms it includes 24 bedrooms, 5 swimming pools, a 2-lane bowling alley, a squash court, a floodlit tennis court, a 50-seat cinema and a panic room. The heated driveway that led to the house is entirely made of marble and cost some £2.5 million to construct but plainly none of this appealed to the market as it languished for sale at a price of £70,000,000 from 2006 to 2011 before being repossessed by the Irish National Asset Management Agency (NAMA). Updown Court was sold for half the original asking price to a foreign buyer in October 2011 and is, I believe, due to undergo extensive remodeling.
Updown Court, Chertsey Road, Windlesham, Surrey, GU20 6HY, UK
Allen Vercoe once stated: “If Elton John were a house, he’d be Updown Court.” Equally, I imagine if Mr Abbey’s residences were to be compared to any celebrities they’d be the vulgar car crash that is Donatella Versace and the ludicrous money obsessed singer with a dollar sign in her name, Ke$ha.
Updown Court, Shelter Island and The Bradbury Estate all illustrate that money cannot buy you good taste. I suppose, though, that those who ultimately come to live in them will have plenty of space to choose how and where to enjoy their own form of misery.
For information on both The Bradbury Estate and Shelter Island, contact Bob Hurwitz of the Hurwitz James Company on +1 310-477-8865. Website: http://www.hurwitzjamesco.com
The North Devon countryside that inspired Henry Williamson, R. D. Blackmore and Charles Kingsley
Much of my childhood was spent reading the works of superb authors and amongst the best of them were Arthur Ransome (1884 – 1967), Denys Watkins-Pitchford (1905 – 1990), who wrote many of his works under the pseudonym “B.B.”, and Henry Williamson (1895 – 1977). As a youngster, I was lucky enough to be read to by Ransome’s nephew, a most captivating professional storyteller, and was given first editions of many of the works of all three of these early to mid twentieth century authors.
I had my first sailing lessons on Windermere, where Ransome set many of his works, and went shooting in the Forest of Bowland, a place dear to B.B. Though I also fished in many wonderful locations, until now I’d never been to the land of Henry Williamson and his most famous creation, Tarka the Otter. I currently find myself here enjoying a break from London and yesterday I randomly discovered, I am staying next to the setting of one of Williamson’s lesser known stories, Salar the Salmon, on the River Bray close to Exmoor.
“Salar the Salmon” by Henry Williamson (1935)Henry Williamson (1895 – 1977) photographed by Mark Gerson, cibachrome print from original transparency, August 1970“Tarka the Otter” by Henry Williamson (1927)
Originally published in 1935, Salar the Salmon combines Henry Williamson’s great talent as a writer with his insight as a naturalist. The story tells the tale of a five-year old salmon named Salar, whose name means the “leaper,” and his return to the stream of his birth. Salar’s migration through the riverways of Devon involve him surviving porpoises, seals, nets, fishermen, otters, poachers and weirs and Williamson’s account truly gives the reader an insight into one of nature’s great journeys.
Henry Williamson wrote both Salar the Salmon and The Children of Shallowford (1939) whilst living beside the River Bray in a hamlet named Shallowford, near Lynton in Devon. The river plainly inspired him and whilst he lived there on the Fortescue Estate he also sired four children, joined Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists, was briefly imprisoned for his views and conducted several extra-marital affairs.
“War Horse” author Michael Morpurgo OBE
Salar the Salmon is a story I am not alone in recommending. Another Devon based author and poet, Michael Morpurgo OBE, best known for his acclaimed work, War Horse, speaks very fondly of Williamson and the novel in a dedication he prepared for a recent reprint of it:
“It is a rare gift indeed for a storyteller to be poet as much as a storyteller, to tell a tale so deeply engaging that the reader wants to know what will happen and never want it to end, and yet at the same time tells it in such a way as to leave a reader wide-eyed with amazement at the sheer intensity of feeling that can be induced by the word-magic of a poet. Henry Williamson is just such a story-maker poet.”
Where I am staying, I have a view of the very river on which Salar made his journey and here also a detached barn conversion is currently available to rent at a price of £1,150 per month. Malle’s Barn is a 2-bedroom stone-built property that includes a 25ft by 12ft open plan sitting room with a fully fitted kitchen and a dining area, as well as a study and shower room.
The exterior of Malle’s Barn, Brayford, Near Barnstaple, Devon, EX32 7QBA large open plan reception room includes sitting, dining and kitchen areasThe setting of Malle’s Barn overlooking the valley of the River Bray
Tenants of the house will have access to the owner’s 60-acre estate which includes a mile of salmon and brown trout fishing on both the Rivers Bray and Holewater, ancient woodland and a lake in addition to a private garden and adequate parking for several vehicles.
Malle’s Barn would make a perfect retreat for any author or artist and is just 10 minutes from South Molton, Barnstaple is 9 miles away and Exeter 40 miles. The location is 30 minutes from J27 of the M5 and Tiverton Parkway Station, which provides mainline links to London Paddington within 2 hours.
Close to Malle’s Barn are the prettiest sections of a footpath named the Tarka Trail. Consisting of over 180 miles of footpaths and cycle tracks that take in the Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks and the North Devon Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The trail takes in many of the locations described in Williamson’s most famous novel but this area of North Devon also galvanized the pens of a number of other authors.
Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825 – 1900)Professor Charles Kingsley (1819 – 1875)
Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825 – 1900) set Lorna Doone: A Romance on Exmoor in the locality in 1869 and Professor Charles Kingsley (1819 – 1875) put pen to paper here when he wrote Westward Ho! in 1855. A village of the same name was subsequently established near Bideford in the 1860s by entrepreneurs, led by Lord Portsmouth, who saw an opportunity to capitalise on the novel’s success. Westward Ho! is the only place in the United Kingdom with an exclamation mark in its name. The only other place in the world that shares such is Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! in Quebec, Canada.
Aside from literary connections, the locality is famous for its excellent fieldsports. The Earl and Countess of Arran’s Castle Hill and the Molland shoot are considered amongst two of England’s finest high bird pheasant shoots and both the Devon and Somerset Staghounds and Devon and Somerset Foxhounds hunt on Exmoor.
Johnny Kingdom
Johnny Kingdom, who describes himself as having been “a farmer, quarryman, forestry worker, gravedigger and, if truth be told, a poacher” in his youth, also lives in the locality and is well known as a wildlife photographer, filmmaker and television presenter. He sets many of his series on Exmoor because of the vast array of wildlife he comes across here and is, like Williamson before him, often to be found exploring the valley of the River Bray.
In a 1965 BBC interview Henry Williamson was asked: “What influence has this [the Devon] countryside had on you?”:
“Everything, I should say. I came down here as a youth, aged just 18 in 1914, spent a fortnight’s holiday here in the beginning of May, beginning of June. I walked 20 to 25 miles every day. Everything I saw was radiant and beautiful.”
This idyllic part of Devon that Williamson loved so much remains unspoilt to this day. If you haven’t visited yet, it really should be added to your bucketlist.
The case of a Ferrari FF driver with more money than sense
Last November, on my way to a lunch at The Stafford Hotel with The Steeple Times restaurant critic, Anthony Brown, I took a photograph of one of my favourite vehicles, a Ferrari FF, in Curzon Street, W1.
Emblazoned with a Westminster City Council parking ticket, this particular FF, baring an Arabic registration “66 C,” was especially noticeable as it was “wrapped” in orange and black and I took a photograph of it.
My photograph of the orange-black “wrapped” Ferrari FF in Curzon Street, Mayfair, London, W1 in November 2011
After sharing the image on Facebook, I received, in Margaret Thatcher style fashion, the following reply from the renowned designer, Bruce Oldfield: “No, no, no!” Another friend, Anne Marie Legault added: “It doesn’t fit with the neighborhood.” Karen Ashworth, a Mercedes SL 500 driver and friend from my school days, summed up the thoughts of the majority though when she stated of the car: “I’m not a fan to be honest!”
I subsequently saw the car a few times in the months that followed but never imagined that I’d see it on the Mail Online website and would certainly never have predicted that it would have ended up as an advert against uninsured drivers outside New Scotland Yard.
The very same Ferrari FF outside New Scotland Yard todayInstead of a parking ticket, this Ferrari FF now has a police notice glued to it’s windscreen28-year old His Highness Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi. His nickname is “RRR,” which supposedly stands for “rich in real estate resources.”
The Steeple Times picture of the week, following on from this morning’s coverage of it, therefore, has to be of this particular FF. It turns out that it is owned by His Highness Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, the 28-year old son of His Highness Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, the ruler of Ajman, and was recently impounded in South Kensington, London after he hadn’t bothered to insure it. Having paid £227,000 for such a magnificent vehicle, one would have thought he’d have the brains and finances to have done such. Plainly the age of excess and stupidity is still with us.
Georgea Blakey shares her experiences of Miss World 2012
“Welcome to the holly [sic] land of Genghis Khan. The city of green and pleasant cool.”
These are the words written on the side of the car collecting me from Ordos airport. The light summer breeze blowing through this wealthy oil and mineral rich town in the middle of the verdant grasslands of Inner Mongolia is indeed known as the coolest place in China. It now has another reason for the accolade: it is hosting Miss World 2012.
Recreating Abbey Road with Misses Northern Ireland, Scotland, UK, Wales and USAGeorgia Blakey does the Miss World pose with Misses Mexico and Panama
I’m going to be sharing the same itinerary as the contestants during the last week of this month long competition. We are being spoilt rotten at The Crowne Plaza Hotel, a huge swanky palace of a building that wouldn’t be out of place in Dubai. Normally reserved for visiting heads of state and presidents, there is marble everywhere.
The enormous glass dome above the lobby floods sun light onto a throng of beauty contestants. Their chaperones, friends and family are all tapping onto their mobile devices. It is the only place to get the odd burst of WiFi.
The Chinese government has banned Facebook for political reasons, much to the chagrin of these young ladies. Miss Scotland knows that she has 54 messages awaiting her and she can’t wait to open them as soon as she touches down at Gatwick.
The song, Puff the Magic Dragon springs to mind as the air reeks of nicotine, the Chinese are smoking enthusiastically as though it was England pre-2007. Amidst this chaos, I’m trying to have a coffee and a chat with another glamorous brunette, Julia Morley, the irreducible core of Miss World.
In the UK, the media perceived political correctness resulted in the show being yanked off our screens around the same time that the Benny Hill show was pulled. Showing too many scantily clad girls plainly didn’t go down well with the UK’s liberal elite.
In fact, the opposition to the wearing of bikinis led to their replacement with more modest swimwear after only the first contest. In 1959, the BBC started broadcasting Miss World. The pageant’s popularity grew during the 1960s and 1970s and the competition would normally be the highest rated programme of the year, regularly pulling in around 30 million viewers.
I ask Morley how she feels about being exiled from the mainstream channels in her home country: “It does bother me,” she says, “because Britain has a load of old trash on TV nowadays and…. I’m British!”
I nod in agreement, having long been stunned by the hypocrisy. I think of the hapless victims that are lined up in front of Julien MacDonald and Elle Macpherson to be told they can’t get ahead because they are: “Too boring, ordinary, nothing special, cross eyed, have no personality and look average.” This is just some of the charming critique heard on the current series of Britain’s Next Top Model. That is pure and simple exploitation for TV ratings.
Morley goes on to say: “I think the public would like to see it back. We’ve evolved so much. We even have a series of new and interesting features including special awards for talent, charitable projects, media and sporting skills.”
“If it was just girls gyrating on stage in bikinis I wouldn’t be here,” says Morley. “It really is the most fascinating job you can have.’”
“We have such a mixture of entrants; teachers, architects and even a trainee nuclear physicist. It wouldn’t matter if we had a check out assistant from Tesco’s. All are welcome.”
I personally don’t think Julia Morley need worry about Britain’s lack of interest as there is more than enough coverage elsewhere around the globe. Google and Sina (the vast Chinese internet network) are partners and over 100 countries will be broadcasting it live to over a billion. It will be shown on the popular American satellite channel E! entertainment, which also airs in the UK and Ireland. Because of their success, they are engaged for at least the next five years.
Bready, steady, go!
It’s lunchtime and I’m curious to find out what a modern day beauty queen eats.
The girls have been rehearsing in the impressive newly built Dongsheng stadium, a sort of Mongolian O2. This “glossy posse” have been on their feet since 7.30am and are so ravenous that like gazelles in stilettos they leap off the fleet of buses used to ferry them about and then do a Usain like bolt to the hotel restaurant.
Shock horror. Miss England eats carbs. They all do. Chips, pastries, pasta and anything starchy are the favourites. They are all desperate to avoid getting a dodgy stomach so like to stick to plain and filling food and steer well clear of the crispy chicken claws and pig’s willows.
It’s survival of the fittest at the buffet bar. Sporty Charlotte Holmes, representing the UK as Samantha Brick was otherwise engaged in the Celebrity Big Brother house, advises me to use my elbows otherwise I won’t get a look in. They eat like soldiers about to go on manoeuvres.
Miss Paraguay and Miss Israel practice their winning faces
Spontaneous choruses of happy birthday ring out in Cantonese, Chinese, Spanish and English as Miss Colombia is celebrating turning 21. She is presented with a chocolate cake, a Miss World tradition. She is delighted and trills: “It’s not often you get to spend your birthday with 115 other girls and get sung to in four different languages.”
I take a seat next to Sophie Moulds, the jaw-droppingly beautiful Miss Wales. She may be studying for a degree in business management but tells me she has a thing about jam. She likes it on everything: crackers, croissants and even noodles. She’s not fussy. She went as far as to ask for some on her toast this morning. With her very strong lilt it’s no easy task for a Mongolian waitress to understand her. Hardly any of the locals speak English, so an awful lot gets lost in translation.
She had to resort to miming the action of spreading jam onto a slice of bread. She thought she’d had a break through when the perplexed attendant at last nodded vociferously and shot back into the kitchen. Thirty minutes later (it takes a long time to get anything done here), to her chagrin, Miss Wales was presented with a tube of wasabi paste.
I am happy to report that these girls eat well. No stick insects here, just healthy and curvy women. Sorry to disappoint, but there is no artifice, no fake tan, not even a nail or hair extension. Natural is key but there is a more practical reason. Any of these beauty aids would be impossible to maintain over five weeks on the road without access to professional salons.
Yakkety Yak
There are 116 contestants staying here along with their 16 chaperones. Each chaperone has 6-8 girls to look after. There are also the Miss World crew, technicians, cameramen, judges, presenters, production staff, security, translators and volunteers. All in all there are about 500 of us.
When you imagine Mongolia, you think of yaks and yurts but it’s not like that at all. That might be the case in the countryside, but Ordos is a thriving city. The wide tree-lined boulevards, studded with modern apartment blocks look like anything you may see in a big American city. The only yakking going on around here comes from the girls. It’s obvious they all adore one another and chat and gossip happily. I notice no bitchiness. They have genuinely become friends after so long on the road with each other.
We are all at the stadium for another rehearsal. The floor manager, Stickie, has just finished directing a cast of 16,000 at the Olympic opening ceremony and is now directing an equally mesmerising cast of 116 here. The circular stage is shaped like a traditional yurt, the amphitheatre is filled with the sound of Mongolian drums beating like the hooves of galloping horses. It feels like the start of an epic opening music sequence from a Hollywood film or a Mongolian River Dance. A crash of symbols and then a rainbow of girls appear, quickly followed by excited toddlers in traditional embroidered outfits, and balletic warriors pirouette with swords. It is a kaleidoscope of colour. This is Mollywood!
Various international guests have been booked to perform, one of them a renowned black opera star, Rodrick Dixon, fresh from a stint at the New York Met, appears in jeans and a khaki shirt and practices “Somewhere” from West Side Story. It is sung so powerfully that we are all in tears, cheering. He gets a standing ovation and it’s only half past two.
Even though it isn’t even a dress rehearsal these Amazonian young women look like they just stepped out of the pages of Vogue. All the participants agree that Miss Venezuela definitely has the best wardrobe. She arrived with eight suitcases brimming with designer garb and kindly leant some of it to the unfortunate few whose suitcases were lost in transit.
Donna, the choreographer, helps 116 drained damsels learn their steps. She makes sure that when they walk onto the stage they are comfortable and confident. The contest is a 5-week “festival of beauty” that has toured China and Mongolia, visiting all the top attractions. This is a contest where there are photo shoots at sunrise in the singing dunes of the Gobi Desert for which they had to start hair and make up at 3.30am.
A particular highlight was recounted by Miss England, Charlotte Holmes, who if she had won would have been the first ever IVF Miss World. She recalls visiting a nomadic tribe in the midst of a traditional wedding ceremony:
“Basically they got the bride drunk, saddled her with a massive head dress that effectively blinded her, put her on a horse, led her round a field for a bit and then came back to the yurt and drank some more. It was my kind of wedding,” she chirps.
She and her comrades also formed a camel train across the desert, catwalked the silk route, churned yoghurt in a local ger (yurt) and were treated to a front row seat at the archery, wrestling and horse riding competitions that form the basis of the centuries old Nadaam Festival that formally commemorates the 1921 revolution when Mongolia declared itself a free country. Without exception, everyone of these young lovelies has learnt so much from their Mongolian adventure.
The girls always rehearse in their vertiginous pumps as it is paramount to get the correct ambulatory timings from exits left to right. Flats would give a false reading. Agglutinant Cola is liberally spattered across the stage to stop the girls slipping.
Though the girls do have every opportunity to change into trainers when they have finished, that would be unthinkable. Morley states that unless you tell them that they are going to be walking through mud and slush they won’t be separated from their sparkly platforms: “You know young girls love their heels but as far as I’m concerned they can wear what they bloody well like!”
“One world, one dream, let us share our hearts together in a place where we all belong”
The bearded musical director, Mike Dixon, is conducting the candidates as they sing The Miss World song. More usually found working with such acclaimed artists as Dame Shirley Bassey and the team of We Will Rock You, he loves toiling on this: “You have to remember that these women are all essentially amateurs, I enjoy getting the best I can out of them.”
“Hey Brazil, you dropped your phone.”
“Oh thank you Iceland!” The girls all call each other by country names as they’re easier to remember.
Mylene Klass and Miss England
I’m wondering if things could get any more surreal when I bump into a sequin clad, Myleene Klass emerging from her dressing room. Klass has been called upon not only for her mixed race appeal but for her extremely competent presenting skills. Svelte, graceful and smart, she is the epitome of the Miss World philosophy. She has been paired up with an American soap star, Days of Our Lives heartthrob, Jason Cook. The two of them are practicing reading from the autocue machine. There is a lot of jokey banter and Cook is quite the comedian:
“Myleene, I hear you are an internationally famous presenter, or is that just Hear’Say?” Myleene groans and retorts: “Gosh, an American with a British sense of humour.”
Suddenly there is the sound of rapid gunfire. Jason quips: “Are we under attack?!” Thankfully, it’s just some wedding fireworks going off outside. There are certainly no protestors or feminist flour bombers here. The local populace is thrilled to bits to have us and think any mention of sexism or exploitation is a load of old pigs’s willows.
Myleene is wowed by the calibre of the entrants this year. For every girl that enjoys movies, fashion and baking there are another three who are studying economics, medicine and psychology. “These are my kind of ladies,” she states.
Miss Northern Ireland, a sailing champion and budding presenter, approaches her for some advice and Myleene helpfully allows her to listen to her in her earpiece.
Bird Flu
Having been sequestered in the auditorium for four days I get the rare opportunity to take some of the girls out for a much needed break from the Ground Hog Day like slog of rehearsals. We are window (or rather stall) shopping in a busy local market. Rows of little blue tents are adorned with their wares; dangling dead ducks and insects, a myriad of crystals and PVC handbags. I find it rather reminiscent of Portobello Market.
We had intended to visit Genghis Khan’s mausoleum but our head security guard, a very debonair ex-military man, whom the ladies call James Bond, said the schedule was far too tight to risk the 2-hour round trip in case of traffic. “00 Heaven” is accompanying us to stop us getting mobbed. Wherever this “caravan of contestants” travels, it attracts a lot of attention.
Like the Beatles hitting America, everyone goes wild behind their little white facemasks. I presume they wear them as they are worried about catching avian flu. With so many birds around, it’s not an unreasonable precaution. They’re also constantly hacking up what could be fur balls of phlegm and lift up their masks to spit them onto the pavement.
Crouching Lady, Hidden Toilet
I ask someone where the loo is: “Over there, Good Luck!” Why the words of encouragement? It all became horrifyingly clear. I opened the door and climbed tentatively up some wooden steps to the portaloo from hell. There was no actual toilet to speak of. I thought: “Has it been nicked?” I looked down and saw that it was just a shallow hole in an aluminium floor. In the reeking recess was a large stool neatly coiled into the shape of a cinnamon twirl. There was a 3 cm high curved metal edge on one side of the perimeter. Perhaps this was a helpful bum rest should one unwisely decide to actually sit down or perhaps it was a splashguard in case you squatted. There wasn’t any loo paper or a washbasin but there was a handy mirror.
Miss Israel outside the rather lovely portaloos
The camera guys find it a fairly unpleasant experience so imagine how ghastly it is for the girls. It’s rather tricky gathering up their flowing dresses and crouching down in their Jimmy Choo’s. They have taken to crossing their long thoroughbred legs and holding it for as long as they can. They are drinking so much water to avoid getting dehydrated under the heat of the stadium lights, that when they do finally go they pee like racehorses.
Beauty with a Purpose
You cannot talk about Miss World without mentioning the aspect of it that separates it from every other international beauty pageant. The contestants have to be passionate about charitable causes and they work hard to prove themselves.
The premise of this award is simple: Use your talents to help those less fortunate. Comediennes utilise their funny bones to raise money for Comic Relief, well think of this as Beauty Relief.
Chief Mandela and Georgea Blakey
I have been invited to Morley’s hotel suite and am sitting on a sofa between a former Asian Miss World and all 6’4″ of Chief Mandela, here representing his grandfather, Nelson, who is himself a strong supporter of The Miss World Organisation. The Chinese word “Junzi” would describe him well: “A man of noble character or status who is upright and benevolent.”
We are shown gut wrenching videos of each contestant’s chosen cause. There is harrowing footage of disadvantaged children from around the planet. There is a lot more to the modern day beauty queen than meets the eye. I’m astounded as I see Miss Kazakstan, a qualified paediatrician, hold a stethoscope to sick children’s chests. In hers, Miss India campaigns for the education of not only the slum children of Mumbai but also their mothers too. Miss Portugal is shown visiting an old people’s home in a protest against the abandonment of the elderly and Miss Canada is trying to highlight the atrocities of human trafficking.
Miss US Virgin Islands, a reserve in the US army, salutes
Miss US Virgin Islands is a reserve in the US army and is only recently back from a year in Afghanistan where she narrowly missed a shell attack which destroyed the shower block. Miss France is a beauty that helps the beasts. She supports the Gallic version of the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.
Misses aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty and I watch Nigeria and Kenya mucking in with the inhabitants of rural villages, crusading for clean water and waste disposal systems. The sanitation is so poor that I will never complain about a Mongolian loo again.
These videos are humbling, they put everything in perspective. I hear Chief Mandela sigh heavily, as upset as I am at man’s inhumanity to man.
That’s the emotional factor I have found about Miss World. One minute you are laughing hysterically, the next crying uncontrollably and we haven’t even got to the final yet.
The genuine dedication of these ladies to their causes fills me with awe and shame at my own lack of sisterly love. So often a Beauty Queen is mocked for the moniker: “I want to help heal the world and save the little children.”
I don’t see much difference between the Misses and Bob Geldof. He said he wanted to feed the world and he got knighted for his efforts.
This is Miss World goddammit. What the hell do you think they should look like?! Why are we opposed to beauty? How would Hollywood work if it went all PC on us? Do you think that Halle Berry (a former Miss USA) gets cast for her acting talent alone?
Life is inherently a beauty contest. Good looks open doors, but if they can also open a treasure chest and the spoils be divided amongst the poor, why not?
The Miss World Effect
I am chatting to the financial director, Michael Macario, about some of the other attractive figures involved. Miss World to date has raised over £250 million for charity.
Governments and tourist boards invite Miss World to their countries to promote tourism. When the show was broadcast from Sanya in China, the massive rise in visitors to the area was put down to the Miss World effect. The organisation was credited with changing the face of the industry. Ordos are hoping the same will happen here. Pretty girls make good marketing sense.
Let’s not forget though that the Morley family, (Julia’s son Stephen and grandson Ben are by her side) have run an incredibly successful business with a multi-million pound turnover for 62 years now. The brand is jealously guarded but has never been tarnished. Macario says there could have been loads more opportunities to make money but that is not their primary concern, BWAP is.
An auction held at a charity dinner last night raised enough money to send 30 local students to university. The contestants bring any item of cultural interest with them and supportive local businessmen bid furiously. It got quite competitive with many of the objects fetching over £10,000 each. Even Miss Seychelles’ s coconut shell achieved several hundred Yen. She told me she needed a permit to get it through customs. Craftily she removed the nut so it was lighter. It’s demanding enough lugging your suitcases half way across the world without the weight of a oversized nut adding to your excess baggage.
Dress rehearsal
I’m having a natter in the foyer with Miss Lebanon. In vest, shorts and flip flops with her hair in rollers she tells me how much she will miss her new friends.
Happy that their big day is finally upon them but devastated to be leaving one another the girls do at least have one bonus. Never again will any of them have to pay for a hotel room again, they can now travel the world staying with various members of their recently acquired family.
A very old and obviously myopic old man approaches and asks to have his picture taken with us. He points at my chest quizzically, alluding to my lack of a name badge.
“Wish Miss, Wish Miss?” Hurrah: I’ve just been mistaken for a contestant. I knew slapping on the war paint today was a good idea. “Miss Stake,” I jovially reply.
We board the buses for the stadium. I’m on number one bus, AKA “the party bus,” as the girls are most raucous, containing as it does, Miss England and the other Celts.
Today is the penultimate day of the competition and the girls are pre-recording the “Dances of the World” section in their national costumes.
Miss Equatorial Guinea’s grass skirt and boob tube combo are from a real tribal leader, so she apologises that it whiffs a bit. Her dance is rather vigorous to say the least so she needs tit tape to secure the top half.
Some of the costumes are utterly bizarre. Poor Miss Mexico has a replica of a deer head strapped onto her barnet. Miss Fiji, dressed as an eagle is sweating in her head to toe feather combo and Miss Bermuda could be mistaken for a traffic cop. Only Miss USA bucks the trend and skips out in cowboy boots and a T-shirt.
Miss Mexico and Miss Puerto Rico in national costumesMiss America with local children
It’s now time for the dress rehearsal and the girls can’t wait to rip off their costumes and slither into their more flattering final dresses. I zip up Miss Vietnam and lend Miss Bolivia some lip-gloss.
I shall announce the results in reverse order
It’s the day of the final. The hotel lounge is more packed than usual as a Chinese wedding is taking place. Bemused guests don’t know whether to take photos of the bride or the contestants. If I were the bride, I’d be a bit miffed! Aptly a Chinese cover version of Joe Jackson’s Stepping Out is being piped through the speakers.
It’s the last lunch and the girls aren’t holding back. Locust-like they descend on the feast before them ignoring any concerns about bloating. Perhaps they’ve packed some back up spanx so they can squeeze into their finery?
Andrew, the hair and make up guy, is late for lunch as he’s been bubbling over with adrenaline and nerves. He swears he can’t eat a thing. Just as well as there’s bugger all left.
I’m having some tea in the bar with Roderick and his graceful wife Alfreda, also an operatic name in her own right. We are nervously approached by a local student volunteer and her mother who timidly ask if they could tempt us with some home made noodles and dumplings that they’ve specially made for the singing superstars.
So, already full but not wanting to offend such a sweet gesture we sample some of their delicious offering. With the chances of me wearing my slinky party dress tonight diminishing with each bite I’m going to ask Miss Equatorial Guinea if I can borrow her grass skirt.
On every floor of every corridor hair and make up stations have been set up to process the competitors as they get ready for their big night. Imagine 116 brides fretting before their big day and you have some idea. It’s a flurry of eye shadow, powder and paint. Andrew is in charge of a team of Chinese beauticians wielding brushes and straighteners. Translators are on hand to prevent any jam-wasabi like mix ups. When Miss Israel asks for pink eye shadow, it wouldn’t do to start applying green.
The excited gaggle of girls alight the buses for the last time and toddle into the bowels of the stadium in a phalanx Genghis Khan would have been proud of. Tonight, we are an intimate audience of 6,000 in contrast to the opening ceremony, where there was an image of a jumbo jet projected onto an illuminated backdrop. It was so realistic that an audience of 40,000 ducked.
Apart from a slight mishap when Miss Malawi trod on Miss New Zealand’s dress, the show went smoothly and was a smash hit with the audience. I particularly liked some of the entertainment in particular a performance by an army of Mongolian horse cellists who could make their instruments whinny rhythmically.
The top threeMiss China get crowned Miss World 2012 by Miss World 2011 as Miss Wales looks on
“I shall announce the results, as is customary, in reverse order,” announces the lady in red, a resplendent Mrs Morley. The climax of a 3-hour extravaganza is upon us.
“Miss Australia, Miss Wales and Miss World 2012 is…,” drum roll…, “Miss… China!”
The flag waving home crowd are on their feet, sobbing and cheering. Though not everyone is as thrilled. Some of the foreign contingent are grumbling that the crowning of 23-year old music student, Wenxia Yu, was a political move. I’m not so sure as it’s undeniable that she was a worthy winner. Not only did she raise huge amounts for charity, but in the talent section of the contest, she sang so unbelievably beautifully that she made Katherine Jenkins sound like a strangled cat.
My conclusions
What have I learned from my week at Miss World?
– Never have your picture taken next to a beauty queen unless they’re in bare feet.
Georgea Blakey is a portrait artist, specialising in equestrian and wildlife subjects. Her commissions have taken her from the polo farms of Argentina and Palm Beach to the game reserves of South Africa. She was the art scholar at St Paul’s Girls School in London and went on to study at the prestigious Chelsea College of Art. She is equally at home painting humans and her subjects have included a portrait of His Royal Highness Prince Charles with his polo pony. She has produced numerous commissions, and some of her notable clients include Viscount and Viscountess Cowdray, the Sultan of Pahang, Sir Tim Rice, David Soul, Teddy Sherringham and Miss World.
Sarah Tucker shares the latest of her “playground politics” experiences
My son started at a new school a few weeks back. Five foot eleven, half of him at 13 he is now taller than me.
Journalist and author Sarah Tucker’s son, Tom
He was a bit nervous, I cried in the car after I dropped him off and he refused to hug me in public, but that’s normal and natural – the crying and the non-hugging. Seems only yesterday he was three foot nothing and starting infant school. This time is so precious, still even in the teenage years which many parents dread, it’s the last chance to have any semblance of nurturing. I feel I can tell you that.
The other stuff, the negative stuff, well, I’ll leave that to fiction. Because you should never wash dirty linen in public or so the saying goes although it’s become the sure fire way of getting the 1/2 hour of fame. If it’s to sell a book, film or make more money then it has a purpose: a potentially positive end result where others learn from your mistake and you learn from your mistake and it’s not just a matter of ogling you as a loser. If you are doing it because you want to be famous for fame itself, then it has none.
Jeremy Kyle and all the chat shows get the common man to be open and honest about themselves. Celebrities rarely, if ever, are honest, because they realise or fear that the masses wouldn’t like them if they were. Real people don’t have publicists to guide them through the media mire, and lay themselves open to ridicule by laying themselves open.
“The Playground Mafia” by Sarah Tucker
So, when I was asked on ITV1’s Lorraine show a few weeks ago to talk about playground politics I was excited. Here was an opportunity to talk about an issue that is relevant not just in this country but globally, the bullying that goes on between mothers. A subject I know a lot about. I have the stats, done the research, written the book, devised the app (Mummy Mafia), rehearsed the stage play but no, they wanted me to talk about my own ‘personal journey’ dealing with playground politics. Nope. Not going to do it. I’ll talk about how to deal with it, Ill talk about the book and the numerous funny, sad, ridiculous anecdotes but as my son is still at school (albeit he’s moved to a new one), there are repercussions.
The TV wanted a ‘victim’ and I wasn’t going to be it, even one that had recovered. In the end, they chose a woman who was prepared to talk about her experience of it.
Sarah Tucker’s son, Tom, as Gollom
That week, I saw the mothers from my old school at my son’s school’s superb production of The Hobbit – the production is so good it made the Evening Standard and BBC London News, my son plays a wonderfully dark Gollum) and had a coffee morning with the new mums, who were the usual suspects of the previous playgrounds, I will say no more. Not until my son has left for college or university will I talk directly, but until then the books will always be fictionalised, the interviews about the experience of others and all linen will be washed but under the guise of creative imagination.
Sarah Tucker is an award winning travel journalist, novelist, producer and broadcaster. She has edited, produced and presented her own radio and TV series as well as presenting reports for BBC Holiday Programme and anchored I Want That House on ITV. She is the author of best selling novels The Playground Mafia (short listed for the Good Housekeeping book of the year 2007) The Battle for Big School, The Last Year of Being Single, and The Control Freak Chronicles.
The Steeple Times asks the businessman, philanthropist and reality television star Lorenzo Borghese: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom.” What’s your guiding force?
Beer and bacon. I need both to function.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
“No one sues a homeless man.”
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2012?
Kerry Katona: Who is she anyway?
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
My black Labrador, Belle, who died of cancer in 2005.
What might you swap all your wealth for?
Someone else’s wealth, someone who has more wealth than I have.
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?
Plant more trees.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
LOL.
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home.” What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
Charity begins with a problem that needs a solution. Helping others is our responsibility as the dominant beings on this planet. My favorite charity is Animal Aid USA not just because I co-founded it, but because all of it’s members are volunteers and love animals.
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 say: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Being blown up kills you, so that’s where I draw the line.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
My family, close friends and a little band called The Rolling Stones – there’s never a good party without good music.
Prince Lorenzo Borghese
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
Three bacon cheeseburgers in the middle of the Amazon jungle. I think they would provide me with enough energy to sneak away and get lost forever.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
That all depends what one is drinking.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
Why do I have to choose? I’ll take all three.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
The one’s I have because I tend to know more people at those.
Who is the most positive person you know?
Mickey Mouse: That guy is always waving and dancing.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
I don’t have one. What pleases me doesn’t make me feel guilty.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
A tiny freckle: I’m not a fan of tattoos, so the smaller the better.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
Any electrical car as long as it’s yellow, has four wheels and a great sound system.
Cilla Black presented “Surprise, Surprise.” Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
I don’t wear underwear – I never understood the purpose.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
Several pictures of my family, a lighter and an empty pack of matches.
Prince Lorenzo Borghese is the founder and president of Royal Treatment, a high-end bath, body and skin care line for pets. He is also the founder and president of Animal Aid USA, a not-for-profit focusing on saving animals and changing laws to stop animal cruelty. In 2006, he starred in ABC’s reality show, The Bachelor, and in summer 2012, he was one of the housemates in Channel 5’s Celebrity Big Brother in the UK.
He founded Odey Asset Management in 1991 and now manages some $6.2 billion of assets. This graduate of Christ Church, Oxford was first married to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Prudence, but after divorcing her Odey formed a union with a fellow financier, Nichola Pease. The couple, termed “The City’s Posh and Becks,” live between Chelsea and Gloucestershire. They hit the press in September 2012 when they applied for planning permission to build a “rather grandiose” hen house, costing some £150,000, in the grounds of their Grade II listed mansion, Eastbach Court.
The deportation of Abu Hamza and the story of Hassan Butt
It’s taken far too long but thankfully the day of Abu Hamza al-Masri’s deportation has arrived. This evil one-eyed Egyptian-born Sunni preacher, best known for his hateful views and involvement in terrorism, has been in prison in Britain since 2004 and is now finally to be extradited to America to face terrorism charges.
Abu Hamza al-MasriHassan Butt when he appeared on the American CBS television magazine news show “60 Minutes”
My only experience of such people involved meeting a young man named Hassan Butt in 2008. Butt, known in the Muslim community as the Al Qaeda supergrass,” was allegedly a former recruiter for the organisation. I met with him after he wrote an article for the Daily Mail in which he stated:
“My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror… My pleas to fellow Christians: you must renounce racism.”
These words came from a man, born in 1980, who had previously said of Britain:
“I feel absolutely nothing for this country. I have no problem with the British people… but if someone attacks them, I have no problem with that either.”
These words came from the very mouth of a man who had been a member of the now banned radical Islamist group Al-Muhajiroun. Butt claimed to have taken tea with Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, recruited upto 200 people to undergo jihadist training in Pakistan and raised between £7,000 and £9,000 a month towards the “cause.” Here was someone who had concluded that:
“I would agree to being called a radical and one day I may even be called a terrorist, if Allah permits me. That is something it would be an honour to be called.”
On the day Butt’s “Damascene conversion” article was printed I was working with an American billionaire vodka tycoon on his various projects in the UK. The man concerned came to London on a periodic basis and always began his day by scouring his favourite right-wing paper for whatever took his fancy. If there were something or someone he liked the look of in it, he’d yell across the room: “Get ‘em round.” More often than not, when I made the call, such people would turn up as many sought funding for their projects. Few of them ever got whatever they were after as this individual was especially careful with his dollars.
On reading Butt’s article, which I admit I also found well written, the Jewish billionaire was thoroughly impressed. He said: “I like the sound of this guy. Get him round.” At the end of the article was a Gmail address so reluctantly, imagining that no doubt MI5 would begin monitoring my own account, I sent off a message. Within minutes, Mr Butt was on the phone.
Butt told me that he’d be in London in the following days to appear on Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman so I invited him to lunch. On the day in question, an extremely well presented 27-year old appeared in a brand new £50,000 Audi Q7. After he’d parked, I said: “That’s a nice car.” His response: “The BBC have loaned it to me.” I was perplexed and thought this unlikely, but let it go.
I introduced Mr Butt to the vodka tycoon and for the next hour, the Muslim and the Jew chatted about the differences and similarities between their religions and ways of life. The utterly charming Butt wanted the billionaire, who happened to own a publishing house, to pay for and print his autobiography. The aggressive billionaire had another agenda. His vision of how to unite the religions was to produce a leaflet. He ranted: “It’ll begin thus: ‘If I want to worship a tree, I’ll worship a tree’.” An impasse was reached.
Over lunch at Choy’s on the Kings Road, the conversation continued hopelessly in the same vein. When it was over and as Butt drove away in the Q7, all I could think of was that the security services would most probably now begin monitoring our business activities.
That night, Butt appeared on Newsnight and beat off all of Jeremy Paxman’s attacks. I suppose all who recruit for terror organisations are probably charm personified but Butt most definitely showed his utter brilliance of mind when put up against the media’s finest.
Butt’s strategy worked as he was subsequently invited by the then Minister of State for Security, Counter-terrorism, Crime and Policing, Tony McNulty, to advise them on how to stop young Muslims being “radicalised.” Butt, whom a government source described as having “understood the terrorist mindset perfectly,” had managed to get to the heart of the British government.
The next move of this man, who was arrested but released without charge on five counter-terrorism charges between 2002 and 2008, was to claim that Greater Manchester Police were harassing him. Many of his allegations, though, were illustrated to be pure fantasy in the transcripts of interviews held with them:
“I actually arranged myself to be stabbed in the shoulder, sorry in my arm and in my back because I knew if I said I had been attacked Shiv ([Malik] a freelance journalist and co-author of Butt’s autobiography, Leaving Al Qaeda: Inside The Life And Mind of A British Jihadist) was going to ask for some proof so basically I stabbed myself… you know it was just part of the whole scam.”
I do not know what has become of Butt now but the last reports of him I have been able to find were published in the Daily Mail in July 2009. Here, the paper reports that he “hurled an onslaught of race abuse at police” during an argument over where his Audi Q7 was parked. How odd that that vehicle, supposedly loaned by the BBC, had surfaced again but equally strange was that this educated man was accused of shouting such things as: “Do you like feeling Pakis up?” and calling police “Gestapo,” “bald dogs” and “members of the BNP.” This portrayal was most certainly at odds with the Butt that I met, but plainly he was the Jekyll and Hyde of Al Qaeda.
Whilst my encounter with the pseudo-terrorist Butt was almost certainly with a young man of fantasist tendencies, Abu Hamza truly is a preacher of hate and a force for evil. This hook-armed “terrorist facilitator with a global reach” claimed tens of thousands in benefits in Britain yet also incited others to blow up our citizens. He solicited murder and stirred up racial hatred yet happily ran up legal costs at this nation’s expense. As such, Abu Hamza’s downfall is very much welcomed and his deportation from the British Isles will be celebrated not just by Her Majesty the Queen but indeed by the whole nation.
Watch a Channel 4 News video clip featuring Hassan Butt at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t3uw2nZ7kY
J.K. Rowling sells the home where she first moved after the initial success of her “Harry Potter” series
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is a lady said to be worth some $1 billion. Her path from “rags to riches” is well documented but the announcement of the sale of the Edinburgh home she first bought after the initial success of the books gives an insight into how she is also financially shrewd when it comes to property investment.
Joanne “Jo” Rowling OBE, FRSL, pen name J.K. Rowling
Having paid £425,000 for a first floor flat in a 2-storey Victorian house at 1 Abbotsford Park in Edinburgh’s Merchiston neighbourhood, 2 miles from the city in 1999, Rowling bought the other half of the building in 2003 for £375,000. In turn, the property was converted back into an 8 bedroomed single family residence and became one of several residences the author lived in with her second husband, Dr. Neil Murray, and their children.
The front elevation of 1 Abbotsford ParkSecurity at the house was ramped up as Harry Potter sales soared due to the volume of fans appearing outside the property
As well as extensively refurbishing and extending the property, in a submission to Edinburgh Council in December 2003, in the names of Mr. and Mrs Murray, the couple sought permission to install five CCTV cameras inside mock lamps at 1 Abbotsford Park. Though a neighbor objected on the grounds of invasion of privacy, the application was approved.
The house’s 35ft sitting-dining roomJ.K. Rowling’s kitchen features free standing units, a Lacanche range cooker and a mural of tiles that, from a distance, could even be a scene from a Harry Potter novelThe garden of 1 Abbotsford Park
J.K. Rowling also built a detached 656 square foot office complex in the grounds of the 3,240 square foot house during her occupation. Additionally, as well as a library, she fitted out a study where she wrote many of the series of books that have now sold more than 400 million copies.
An external shot of the garden office said to have been used by Rowling’s staffAn internal shot of the office building
Though Rowling permanently moved into another Edinburgh home she purchased for £2 million in December 2009 last year, whoever purchases 1 Abbotsford Park will have other authors to call neighbours. Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith both live locally.
Rettie and Co. seek £2,250,000 on behalf of Dr. Murray and J.K. Rowling. Even allowing for their extensive renovations, the author’s initial £800,000 investment appears to have certainly paid off if this price is achieved.
For more information on 1 Abbotsford Park, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH10 5DX, contact James Whitson of Rettie & Co. at 11 Wemyss Place, Edinburgh, EH3 6DH or telephone: +44 (0) 131 624 9068. View full details including a PDF brochure at: http://www.rettie.co.uk/sales/EDI121294
J.K. Rowling’s official website can be viewed at: http://www.jkrowling.com. Her first adult book, The Casual Vacancy, is published by Little Brown on 27th September 2012.
