This stunning model also happens to be the mascot for Kensington’s Bodo’s Schloss and considers it her “home”. Marlborough educated Davies is signed to Elite London and can also regularly be found at Tonteria on Sloane Square. A true firecracker.
Tag: Londoner
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Georgia Davies
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Alex Preston
This talented Oxford educated author is a former credit derivatives trader who is now regular on BBC2’s The Review Show. This Bleeding City, his first novel, was based on his own working experiences and analyses how the financial crash could be seen as “our subconscious revenge, our way of bringing down the system that had ensnared us”. His second, The Revelations, was described by A. N. Wilson as a “strange and compulsively readable tale of City slickers seduced by a promise of spiritual awakening”. He predicts a bleak future for financiers in suggesting that we are still in the midst of “a crisis that will take more than a few bankers paying back their bonuses to solve”. -
Picture of the Week: The Oprah of Opera
A mistake of operatic proportions
We’ve utterly no problem with the billionairess Oprah Winfrey but we’re not sure our national opera house should be renamed in her honour.
Vue’s Oprah of Opera The management of the Vue Cinema in Reading plainly don’t feel the same as here, as our picture of the week, we feature an image of a poster for their forthcoming series of events. Highlighted to us by Elizabeth Ferguson of The Royal Ballet on Facebook, Vue mistakingly renames the Royal Opera House the “Royal Oprah House” in an advertisement for “the best on stage on screen.” Of it, Ferguson commented: “Words fail me.”
Oprah may be one of America’s finest but we imagine even she’ll admit that she’s not quite ready to take centre stage at Covent Garden just yet.
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Robert Bourne and Sally Greene OBE
Well-known for their numberplates “2 BE” and “NOT 2B,” this power couple live on Cheyne Walk and are a little bit like Marmite. In Chelsea, Bourne has aroused controversy by attempting to gain planning permission to turn George Best’s favourite boozer, The Phene, into a house and in Soho, Greene’s makeover of Ronnie Scott’s caused apoplectic outbursts amongst traditionalists. Labour supporting Bourne is described as a “property and leisure entrepreneur” whilst his wife just happens to control the luvvies favourite theatre, The Old Vic in Waterloo. Bourne and Greene are a duo who should not be underestimated. -
Blessed Beckham
Victoria Beckham tours Brian Blessed’s former home
In April, the blog that preceded The Steeple Times featured an article on Clarence House in Richmond.
At the time this former school and home of actor Brian Blessed was priced at £22,500,000 but after languishing on the market, the price has been slashed by £4,500,000 to £18,000,000.
Victoria Beckham pictured in the garden of Clarence House, 2 The Vineyard, Richmond Hill, Surrey, TW10 6AQ 
The front of Clarence House would no doubt need “pap proofing” to suit the privacy requirements of David and Victoria Beckham and their family In recent days Victoria Beckham has been pictured touring this and other properties in south-west London. No stranger to securing a bargain and worth some £160 million, Mrs Beckham could no doubt slice a little extra off if she decided to proceed. She and her husband are allegedly set to return to the UK and an unnamed source is quoted as revealing:
“David has been really missing London and the UK recently. The royal wedding, the Olympics and now Christmas coming up have all made him long for the UK. He talks about being in London a lot and he misses his family, so it would make perfect sense for the family to all move back to Britain. For the Beckhams, Eton [as a school for their sons] would be the ultimate arrival.”
Since the pupils of Eton College recently parodied the ‘Gangnam Style’ high-energy Korean disco music, maybe they’ll also embrace the Beckham boys Perhaps if the couple don’t manage to get their sons to “go Eton Style,” they could reopen Clarence House as a school. The most famous pupil to pass through the doors was Bernardo O’Higgins (1778 – 1842), the liberator and founding father of Chile.
To read the original feature on Clarence House, 2 The Vineyard, Richmond Hill, Surrey, TW10 6AQ go to: http://thesteepletimes.com/opulence-splendour/blessed-clarence/
Watch the Eton Style Gangam parody at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FtZkVRkusQ
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Richard Caring
Of Italian-Jewish descent, Caring is of the “supermarket-sweep” school of empire building. This billionaire started out in the rag trade but now controls the majority of the top restaurants and clubs in Central London. He survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and viewed that to be a wakeup call. Since then he’s donated millions to charity and focused on his two passions: golf and shooting. This buccaneering businessman generally passes on breakfast and lunch and lives between a converted stable block set in 500 acres near Dulverton and a mansion on The Bishops Avenue. What will he buy next? -
Ecstasy and Babycham
A marine residence with a history tied to the Rolls-Royce Spirit of Ecstasy, the Special Operations Executive and Babycham
The House on the Shore on Thorns Beach at Beaulieu in Hampshire is a home that wouldn’t look out of place in the Hamptons or Rhode Island. Dramatically situated next to the Solent waters to the north of the Isle of Wight, this suitably named building wouldn’t have been out of place in the 1980s BBC series Howards’ Way. It could. Indeed, have been an ideal home for Gerald and Polly Urquhart. (more…)
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Jax Martin: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times asks the financier turned fashion designer Jax Martin: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom.” What’s your guiding force?
Love.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
“If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.”
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2012?
Reality TV personalities are unacceptable in any year (but to be clear Kerry Katona is still unacceptable).
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
Sleep.
What might you swap all your wealth for?
High quality education for all children.
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?
Bankers who created complex financial instruments should not receive the brunt of the blame. Let us not forget the inept regulators who permitted these activities to flourish, causing the crisis to become much worse than it might have been.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
“Reaching out.”
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home.” What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.” Plato. I anonymously support several charitable causes related to: education, medical research, the arts and women’s and children’s issues.
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?
You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. But, I have no interest in listening to other people’s loud conversations on their mobiles.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
Oscar de La Renta, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mao Tse Tung, Madonna and Ronald McDonald.
Fashion designer Jax Martin If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
I LOVE to eat; I would have a very large meal comprised of chateaubriand with shallot sauce, Cajun chicken and fries from Le Bilboquet and a bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions from Corner Bistro. All of the aforementioned would be served with a bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin. For dessert, I would have a slice of mille-feuille with fresh cut strawberries on the side. If I were allowed to dine outside of death row, I would have the meal served in either Trancoso in Bahia, Brazil or José Ignacio in Punta del Este, Uruguay.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
This question makes the assumption that somehow one has stopped partying from the previous evening.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
A martini.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
It doesn’t matter who throws the party, it’s the company you carry that makes the party.
Who is the most positive person you know?
Lucy.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
Can’t say.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
A phoenix.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
A Koenigsegg Agera R.
Cilla Black presented “Surprise, Surprise.” Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
While I was in engineering school, I was also a professional dancer.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
An antique Buddha, candles and a couple of black and white family photographs.
British designer Jax Martin is a former financier and professional dancer. A graduate of Columbia University, Martin also has an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and began her career in the hedge fund business. She now creates “chic clothing for today’s woman” and states: “I live to make women feel great and look fabulous”.
For more information about Jax Martin, go to: http://jaxmartin.co.uk
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Fry's delight
Andreas Kirchberger captures the atmosphere at a private view of the works of Robert Fry
On Thursday 25th October, Ilona Pacia and Jesper Thomsen of Mews42 Gallery hosted a private view of the works of Robert Fry in Princes Gate, South Kensington.
Artist Robert Fry pictured with exhibition sponsor Andrew Harding of Qube Property Management 
The exterior of Mews 42 Gallery, 42 Princes Gate Mews, London, SW7 2PR 
Robert Fry’s works on display at Mews42 Gallery Andreas Kirchberger was on hand on behalf of The Steeple Times and captured an exotic array of guests who numbered Bianca Boscu Brandinelli, Esther Osorio, Ivan Rosenschein, Alexander Batchvarov, David Stoddart, Marco Calmisani Calzorali, Zuqiang Lin, Oonagh Shanley-Toffolo, Aurelia Bonito, Wendy Coumantaros, Klas Nilsson, Georgina Budge and Robin Dutt.
For those yet to discover his works, Robert Fry is a London based painter with an impressive CV. Born in 1980, he has already exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery and Alexia Goethe Arts & Co. in his home city, Moscow’s Atelier 2 and Los Angeles’s François Ghebaly Gallery.
Fry is described as having an “obsession with the concepts of form and norm, symmetry and deformation and that of mutation and maturity.” Martin Coomer of Time Out suggests he leads us “back to Picasso via the spatial experiments and fine line of David Hockney” and adds that he has: “Found a fruitful way of using the traditional skills shunned by most artists of his age.”
Robert Fry’s works are on show at Mews42 Gallery, 42 Princes Gate Mews, London, SW7 2PR until 2nd December 2012.
Viewing is by appointment and can be arranged by telephoning +44 (0) 798 000 0264 or emailing Ilona Pacia at [email protected]. Website: http://www.mews42.com
All images © Andreas Kirchberger/Photo-Factory 2012
