‘Middle-class homeless Heathrow couple’s’ views on housing others exposed (more…)
Tag: middle-class
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The wrong Lane?
Matthew Steeples asks: “Is the story of the ‘middle class Heathrow homeless couple’ all that it seems?” (more…)
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A tour of ‘Putin’s Palace’
‘The Steeple Times’ takes a look around a palace that allegedly cost $1 billion to construct
Located on the Black Sea coast is a palatial residence that the press have named ‘Putin’s Palace’. The reported construction cost of this property is an astounding $1 billion.
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Paedos and platitudes
Is it right that Amanda Platell faces a police investigation for looking at child porn?
Amanda Platell, the former press secretary to William Hague, wrote an article in yesterday’s Daily Mail in which she examined how easy it is to access child pornography. Later in the day, Mark Williams-Thomas, the “child protection expert” who exposed Jimmy Savile, reported her to the Metropolitan Police and now Ms Platell faces a police investigation.
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There are only two classes now
Our reaction to the BBC Lab UK’s Great British class calculator
Yesterday, Twitter and Facebook were abuzz with talk of a new class calculator created by the BBC Lab UK and a pair of academics that claimed it could grade the position of each and every one of us in society.
Gone, they say, are the 20th century definitions of working, middle and upper classes and the restrictive Downton Abbey type pigeonholing of individuals by birth and social standing. In their place, modern Britons, they suggest, are identifiable by an astonishing seven categories that range from the “elite” to the “precariat”.
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Peter Scott (born Peter Craig Gulston, 1931 – 2013)
A modern day Robin Hood who claimed to have been “sent by God to take back some of the wealth that the outrageously rich had taken from the rest of us”. This Belfast born cat burglar was a meticulous planner whose roll call of marks numbered Sophia Loren, Zsa Zsa Gabor, John Aspinall and Maria Callas. He quoted Confucius, Oscar Wilde and Proust and targeted “rich prats” as it gave him a “sexual thrill”. The 1965 film He Who Rides a Tiger starring Tom Bell and Judi Dench was based on Scott and concluded that: “If I rob Ivana Trump, it is just a meeting of two different kinds of degeneracy on a dark rooftop”. Raffles would have been proud. -
Middling
Matthew Steeples reviews “The Middle Class ABC” by Zebedee Helm and Fi Cotter Craig
Described as “indispensable and entirely charming” by Stephen Fry, The Middle Class ABC captions itself “a toilet loo book” and is an ideal Christmas present for anyone you know who winters in Norfolk and summers in Cornwall.
“The Middle Class ABC” by Fi Cotter Craig and Zebedee Helm “Middlings” is the term Helm, a contributor to both Private Eye and The Lady, and Cotter Craig, a television producer, use for this book which covers all manner of the affectations and afflictions of the middle-classes. It’s all about The Archers and AGAs and Zoopla and Ziplock Bags here and frankly it is a spiffingly light-hearted, jolly good read.
Kirsty Allsopp and Kevin McCloud better watch out. The Middle Class ABC could make for a great television mini-series.
The Middle Class ABC is published by John Murray and priced at £14.99. ISBN: 978-1-8454-6820.
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The Woman Who’ll Make Politicians Jealous
Jilly Cooper’s state of the nation style summary strikes chords with Matthew Steeples
Best-selling bonkbuster author Jilly Cooper might be best known for novels such as Riders and Jump! but in the 1980s and 90s she was equally lauded as “one of the Conservative Party’s most ardent supporters.”
Jilly Cooper Cooper, born in 1937, showed she still has a grip on the nation’s pulse yesterday when she declared that the Conservative Party is “full of terrible people now” to The Spectator’s “Steerpike.”
Separately, in a comment to The Telegraph’s “Mandrake,” Mrs Cooper shared her thoughts on Pippa Middleton’s first book, Celebrate:
“[It] wasn’t a good idea. I don’t blame her – I think that she was ill-advised… All I can say is that I hope the British don’t demonise her because of it. She seems a lovely girl and her sister is wonderful.”
Ever the diplomat, Jilly Cooper, in these comments, shows herself as a truly brilliant wordsmith. She has tact and decency but at the same time doesn’t hold back when it comes to honesty.
Nigel Farage should put in a call. Mrs Cooper could be just the asset UKIP needs to transform them from a “bunch of loons” to electability.
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Jocelyn Wildenstein (née Périsset and also known as “Jocelynnys Dayannnys da Silva Bezerra”)
If one spent $2,000,000 on cosmetic surgery, one would expect to end up looking fantastic. It didn’t quite work out in the case of the billionairess “Bride of Wildenstein,” though, as instead she discovered the husband she thought she’d please in bed with a 19-year old Russian. Feline like in appearance, the purr of this New York socialite is said to be just as bad as her bite. She’s known to be a skilled hunter and pilot and once boasted her telephone bills were at least $60,000 a year. Surprisingly far from camera shy, what on earth will she look like at ninety? -
Angela Epstein
The Daily Mail is renowned for enthusiastically bashing benefit scroungers but in November 2012, they gave Angela Epstein, whose household income is in excess of £100,000 a year, a platform to bleat that she wasn’t getting enough. This Manchester based mum of four has also penned articles speaking of her pride about driving her brats five minutes down the road to school and boasts that “being in the media puts a girl on the radar.” Epstein makes Samantha Brick seem positively sane and we really hope that someone will just turn this ridiculous woman’s antenna off.