As ‘The Guardian’ explores the power of the Illuminati, Matthew Steeples argues that the few claiming links to such are nothing but mad, old cranks
This morning, The Guardian’sMartha Gill asked: “What is the Illuminati?” in an article that jokingly suggested Googling such would put one at “great personal risk.”
Referencing the organisation’s “top bananas – such as for example the Queen – [as] ancient lizards dating from an era before man existed” without even bringing the crackpot David Icke into it, politics, culture and neuroscience expert Gill made connections instead to Beyoncé, Madonna and Katy Perry. She called the Illuminati a “very clever cover-up” and a “myth” and a group that formed because a German philosopher named Adam Weishaupt “couldn’t afford the Freemason admission fee.” Overall, she concluded: “It is a powerful and savagely guarded organisation that secretly controls the entire modern world, probably while wearing cloaks. It has done this mainly through infiltrating the media and brainwashing everybody. It could be doing it right now.”
Whilst such claims are both countered and at the same time mocked in such works as Roman Polanski’s 2010 film The Ghost Writer –where a fictional former British Prime Minister turns out to have been controlled by a very shady operation named the Hatherton Corporation – what Gill misses is that the groups that continue to claim links to the Illuminati – such as the Ordo Templi Orientis – are, in fact, actually nothing but a bunch of mad, old cranks.
Well-equipped 0.5-mile harness racing track in Yorkshire for sale for £1.5 million; it was the scene of an “ear biting incident” by a traveler in 2009
A dream property for harness racing enthusiasts has been put up for sale in Yorkshire. Its star feature is a 0.5-mile all-weather racetrack and it also comes with 26 acres of land, a spectator stand, a trackside club house with bar and catering facilities, 50 stables and a horse walker.
Created by former boxer Michael Welling with what he described as “very little or no help from the racing fraternity” and built-up over ten years from 2006, York Harness Raceway and the Camden Stud was closed in 2016. It had been a destination with harness racing enthusiasts and was also the setting of a well-thought of annual horse sale.
York Harness Raceway owner Michael WellingA photograph of racing on the circuit
In 2009, a traveler turned harness racer named John Harrop was jailed for 4.5 years after biting off part of the ear of an official at the track whilst on steroids, but of it, in 2013, Welling more positively told The Yorkshire Post:
“This was where I fell in love with the sport. It is the first harness racing track I ever came to. I was intoxicated by the speed, the excitement and the atmosphere… It’s a speed thing in the same way as having a fast car and once you’re hooked you start setting aims.”
“I’m throwing everything into making the track the success it deserves to be. This place has my heart and soul and I am determined to make it work as a realistic business. When I first started racing in 1993 it was only a hobby for me but it has now taken over my time and I’m here 24/7. When I was a kid I was brought up with horses and carts so it’s really in my blood. This place holds so many happy memories and the people who come here are salt-of-the-earth families. I’m certain that if more people came to see what we offer they would be hooked in much the same way I was.”
Additional features at the property include an “almost brand new” 3 reception room, 5-bedroom detached house extending to 3,222 square foot and a large modern barn with a wash bay and tack room.
Agents Jackson-Stops seek offers over £1.5 million ($2 million, €1.7 million or درهم7.3 million) for the property. An additional 75 acres of land is available by separate negotiation that is partly prone to flooding.
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New York hotel offers a Thanksgiving dinner complete with gold-flaked turkeys and bottomless champagne for £15,100
Late last week Guest of a Guest reported that a New York hotel is to offer a Thanksgiving dinner with a difference.
Priced at £15,100 ($20,000, €17,000 or درهم73,500), HGU New York at 34 East 32nd Street’s “luxurious holiday dinner experience” includes the services of a personal event planner, butler service, a 5-piece jazz band, and two king hotel suites. Two gold-flaked turkeys, liquid gold hot chocolate and bottomless champagne form part of a “curated meal” by executive chef Keith Geter also.
Those with pockets deep enough to book should email [email protected]
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Former Wiltshire home of ‘Lord of the Flies’ author Sir William Golding for sale for 562% more than he sold it for in 1985
The one-time home of the author and Nobel Prize in Literature and Booker Prize winner Sir William Golding, CBE (1911 – 1993) has gone on sale for £795,000 ($1.1 million, €891,000 or درهم3.9 million) in spite of needing modernisation.
Ebble Thatch at Mead End, Bowerchalke, near Salisbury was the residence of the Lord of the Flies author in 1940 and between 1958 and 1985 and it was here that he met his fellow villager, the scientist James Lovelock CH, CBE, FRS. He sold the house in 1985 on deciding to move to a Georgian mansion in Cornwall for £120,000 (the equivalent of £334,000, $441,000, €374,000 or درهم1.6 million today).
Consisting of 4 reception rooms, a kitchen with AGA, a conservatory, 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms the main house is described as “flexible” and “well-configured” and in addition there is a detached 1 bedroom cottage on the property’s 0.7 acre plot.
Featuring 9 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, ‘The Owlwood Estate’ or more simply 141 South Carolwood Drive is described as “easily one of the city’s most iconic and historically significant properties.” Built in 1937 to the designs of Robert D. Farquhar in a “classic European Italian Renaissance” style, the estate was owned by Tony Curtis and Sonny Bono and Cher in the 1960s and has also been home to Joe Schenck, the first president of United Artists and a chairman of 20th Century Fox.
Now offered with designs for redevelopment by Bob Shapiro, the head of Sturmer Pippin Investments and CEO of Woodbridge Luxury Homes, the property offered also includes a sunken tennis court, a swimming pool and two guest houses.
Adam Rosenfeld of Mercer Vine is the realtor handling the sale.
The Owlwood Estate – The Numbers
July 2017 – Placed on the market for £136 million ($180 million, €153 million or درهم661 million).
September 2016 – Sold for £68 million ($90 million, €76 million or درهم331 million) to developer Bob Shapiro.
July 2012 – Placed on the market for £114 million ($150 million, €127 million or درهم551 million) by Dawn Arnall, “the widow of subprime mortgage profiteer Roland Arnall.”
2002 – Sold for £25 million ($33 million, €28 million or درهم121 million).
1999 – Listed for sale for £44 million ($58 million, €49 million or دره213 million) by Ghazi Aita complete with an adjacent property.
1978 – Sold to a “shadowy businessman” named Ghazi Aita for £3.2 million ($4.2 million, €3.6 million or درهم15 million).
1970 – Sold to Sonny and Cher for £568,000 ($750,000, €636,000 or درهم2.8 million).
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Whilst elements of the media seized on one conviction being thrown out, His Honour Judge Brown, Lord Justice Treacy and Mrs Justice McGowan found that “nothing arises which could impugn the safety of [the remaining] convictions.” They specifically noted:
“Stepping back and looking at the totality of the evidence of Counts 2 to 12, including the bad character evidence, we find nothing that causes us to doubt the safety of those convictions… The primary evidence… remained intact, as did the body of bad character evidence.”
Elsewhere, one of the paedophile child abuser Harris’ unhinged supporters, Lizzie Cornish, wrote to The Steeple Times. In a series of rants on our comments pages – which we will not be publishing due to the fact that they would offend genuine victims – crackpot Miss Cornish commented:
“Your putrid words about me make me sick! … [The] case STANK from the very start…and people like you believed it! People like me, Steeples, stood up against them and had to endure the likes of YOU!”
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Shaped like a seashell and of a style akin to something out of either The Hobbit or Teletubbies, ‘The Seashell’ was built to make the most of the views it enjoys over Loch Sunart and the Morvern Hills beyond.
The wood clad building is primarily formed from natural materials, including honed tree trunks from local forests, and an eco friendly turfed roof dotted with wild flowers. Accommodation consists of an open plan living-sleeping-dining-kitchen with a double spa bath, a separate wet room, cloakroom and utility room.
Aside from 0.2 acres of surrounding land, The Seashell is available either with or without an additional 0.5 acre plot that that comes with full planning permission for an additional dwelling.
A larger adjoining 3-bedroom contemporary house on a 1.19 acre plot, Aspen Lodge, is also for sale. Offers over £450,000 ($596,000, €506,000 or درهم2.2 million) are sought for it and a closing date of Tuesday 21st November at 12 noon has been set for offers for both properties by agents the Galbraith Group.
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Previously publicity shy Menéndez brothers both speak publicly about killing their parents in the wake of the success of NBC’s ‘Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders’
Erik and Lyle Menéndez, the brothers convicted of murdering their allegedly abusive multi-millionaire parents José and Mary ‘Kitty’ Menéndez at their home in Beverly Hills, California in 1989, have generally been pretty quiet in the years since their conviction at their second trial in 1994.
Now, however, in the wake of the immense success of NBC’s eight-part series, Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, about the case Erik Menéndez has given his first interview since 2005 to A&E. Set to be screened in America on 30th November, The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All will also include previously unseen photographs and new interviews with family and friends.
In two trailers for the show, Erik, now 46, speaks through the phone from the Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California and states:
“I’m Erik Menéndez… I’m serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. I’ve heard many different versions of my life told in the media, and those stories are fictional. I think it’s time people hear the truth in my own words without the restrictions of a courtroom.”
“From the moment after, I wanted to go back in time. It was so wrong. I didn’t want my parents dead – I just wanted the abuse to stop. Years and years of pain exploded that night in an unimaginable violence. It is my own personal hell.”
“My only hope in speaking out is that people have a more complete understanding of the events that led up to my actions on the night of 20th August and really a fuller picture of what happened in my life.”
“All I can hope for is that people will come to realise that the truth is not a simple one-line explanation that many people have tried to make it out to be. That really, that my life was unfolding of a complicated life that I lived that had all of these things that came into being and that led up to what is an ongoing and enduring family tragedy.”
“The tragedy didn’t end on that night, as devastating as that night was. It didn’t end there for my family, and it continues on to this day, and that sadness is something that I am trying to make up for them and with my parents for the rest of my life. It will never end.”
A photograph of José Menéndez with his sons Erik and Lyle on his knee; references have been made to the situation of José Menéndez’s right hand to be evidence of his highly inappropriate relationship with his children
Elsewhere, on the @MenendezBrothers Facebook page this weekend, through an intermediary seemingly in his presence at the Mule Creek State Prison where he is housed in Ione, California, Lyle Menéndez participated in what appeared to be a live Facebook chat.
Aside from sounding quite upbeat and referencing how his second wife (he has married twice since being imprisoned) had visited him earlier in the day, Lyle answered a question about which Spice Girl he liked most with the answer “Posh, of course!” and stated that “no one is good enough to play [me] for it be enjoyable” of “paddle tennis” in the prison. He shared news that he is “currently re-reading Shogun” as it is “a book centered [sic] around great patience and spirit under terrible circumstances” and in response to a question about what music he likes most added: “I like the stories that country music tells so for me it is most uplifting to listen to country music. It puts me in touch with my emotions. But I do like all sorts of music.”
More tellingly, especially given he is likely never to leave prison during his lifetime, Lyle, in referencing a question about the unauthorised @FreetheMenendezBrothers Facebook page stated:
“People have filled me in. We are not affiliated with it in any way. We have told people that writing letters to the governor right now is not helpful to our release and could actually be a detriment. We know that it is frustrating to people but these are serious legal matters that have very specific avenues that require serious legal planning. I know it is frustrating and that we cannot stop people, but what I am saying now are my wishes.”
Plainly this statement shows that Lyle still has hope that he could actually be released and given that the allegations of appalling abuse and sexual assault by their parents seem to be finally attracting worthy examination also, it does indeed seem time that the severity of the duo’s sentences again be looked at.
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Both Labour and the Tories get it very wrong in Kensington and disgrace themselves with their truly offensive conduct
On Monday, the political blog Guido Fawkes exposed the new Member of Parliament for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, as having viciously called a black Tory candidate named Shaun Bailey as a “token ghetto boy,” “gobby and dangerous,” a “free-loading scumbag” and “the most hated man in North Kensington” back in 2010 in a post on her blog.
Elsewhere, on Twitter, various users shared a survey circulated by Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham Conservatives that disgustingly asked residents of the Courtfield Ward to rate the importance of the Grenfell Tower tragedy on a scale of one-to-ten in terms of its importance.
One is only left asking: What on earth is wrong with these moronic people? Have they not an ounce of sense?
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Emma Dent Coad MP likes to blog and tweet yet blocked her now constituent Matthew Steeples on Twitter after he asked her about the hidden homeless problem in South Kensington prior to her election; she claimed to be “too busy” to answer himThe disgraceful survey put out by Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham Conservatives
Referencing the relationship between the crisis management firm Sitrick and Company and Harvey Weinstein, Menza quoted the firm’s founder, Michael Sitrick, as having told the Financial Times in 2010: “I love journalism but I’d rather eat.” His clients, tellingly, thus, have numbered “the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles [over] accusations of sexual assault” and the likes of Chris Brown and Hulk Hogan in similar regards.
Sitrick and Company’s executive handling Weinstein’s account, Sallie Hofmeister, Menza pointed out also, took on the alleged sex offender because: “It’s not about a new public image, but rather to make sure that the facts are as accurately reported as possible… Mr Weinstein has a different recollection of the events [to the women he supposedly abused].”
Here in Mr Sitrick and Ms Hofmeister is a duo with utterly no grasp of right and wrong and a pair with only money on the mind. It is time that the press and public realised enough is enough and bit off the toxic hands that for so long have just fed us all lies, lies and more damned lies.
Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
Pictured above: Sallie Hofmeister of Sitrick and Company and James Henderson, former CEO of Bell Pottinger.
