The Steeple Times

Tag: London

  • Lady Wolfson

    Lady Wolfson

    Lady WoolfsonWith her late husband, Lady Wolfson was and remains as one of the UK’s leading philanthropists. The Lord Leonard and Lady Estelle Wolfson Foundation provides around £35 million per year “to support scientific and medical research, education and the arts” and this fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; King’s College, London; University College, London; the Ashmolean, Oxford; Imperial College, London and the Royal Albert Hall is also a patron of the Royal College of Surgeons; a member of the Lord Major’s Appeal committee, a member of the Red Cross International & Scientific committee, the chair of the committee for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital; a yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries; a member of the Campaign for Institute of Physics and honorary president of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. How on earth does this stoic and generous lady find the time?

     

  • Overheard: 15th September

    Overheard: 15th September

    Classic clangers from the last week (more…)

  • Wally of the Week: Dame Vivienne Westwood

    Wally of the Week: Dame Vivienne Westwood

    England hating designer Dame Vivienne Westwood has the right to leave

     

    Vivienne Westwood was born in Derbyshire and made her supposed £114 million ($185 million) fortune in Great Britain. Yesterday, in using her London Fashion Week showcase to denounce the Union, she yet again showed herself to be nothing but bonkers. (more…)

  • A missive from Mayfair

    A missive from Mayfair

    Restaurateur Gavin Rankin shares his views on summer in Mayfair

     

    August, in Mayfair, used never to be the high spot of a restaurant’s year. Tumbleweed blew about and disheveled restaurateurs roamed the streets, avoiding eye contact, and scouring the pavements for loose change. (more…)

  • Where is David Cameron?

    Where is David Cameron?

    Matthew Steeples suggests that David Cameron needs to show his hand

     

    Yesterday, David Cameron attended the wedding of his wife’s half-brother, Jake Astor. Unlike others, we have no problem with that but at a time when Isis have beheaded a British hostage and when the Union teeters on a knife-edge, many have called for him to reassess his priorities. (more…)

  • Travels with du Maurier

    Travels with du Maurier

    Travelex founder puts the childhood home where Daphne du Maurier allegedly conducted two of her most illicit relationships on the market for £32 million (more…)

  • Terry Ronald: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    Terry Ronald: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    The Steeple Times asks author, songwriter and music producer Terry Ronald: “What’s on your mantelpiece?” (more…)

  • Independent of independence

    Independent of independence

    Orkney and the Shetland islands could remain part of the UK even if Scotland votes ‘yes’ to independence (more…)

  • Keep an eye on the auctions

    Keep an eye on the auctions

    An analysis of the results of the Christie’s Out of the Ordinary and RM Auctions Battersea sales (more…)

  • Barbara Hulanicki OBE

    Barbara Hulanicki OBE

    Barbara HulanickiThis Polish born, British raised fashion icon described herself as “a natural feminist” in a 2014 interview with The Observer. As the co-founder of BIBA with her late husband, Stephen Fitz-Simon (AKA “Fitz”), Barbara Hulanicki revolutionised design and her followers included Brigitte Bardot, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Marianne Faithful. She only closed her store once – for Princess Anne – and has designed hotels for Ronnie Wood and Chris Blackwell of Island Records. Hulanicki’s diplomat father was murdered by a Zionist extremist group in 1940 and more recently she stated: “Now whenever I finish something I take some photographs and say ‘goodbye’. When you lose everything, you realise that the only thing you have is what’s in your head”.