Britain’s tackiest car, a crystal covered Mercedes, sells for just under £155,000
A previous Wally of the Week, Daria Radionova, might not be such a fool after all given that she has just sold her Swarovski crystal covered Mercedes CLS 350 for the astonishing figure of £154,600. (more…)
The world’s most expensive and frankly most vulgar Christmas pudding
Christmas is meant to be about religion and families but with the announcement that the website VeryFirstTo is marketing a Christmas pudding for £23,500, we must say we were quite appalled. (more…)
The Steeple Times asks strategist and businessman Allard Marx: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
Caterine Axelsson’s daily smile.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
There is always a way. “How?” not “Why?” should be the guiding principle of our lives.
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2013?
Is she Eric’s sister? Unchecked greedy bankers. Ignoring the irrefutable damage we are doing to world’s waters and all forms of life.
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
The sunshine. I live in London.
What might you swap all your wealth for?
More people’s lives flourishing with their own efforts added. Before that, some wealth to do that with would be wonderful.
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?
Reducing their profits expectations with some more risk-taking by providing credit to business might help everyone. In other words, replacing the ridiculously high salaries of some executives and high dividends for a few shareholders with liquidity to benefit many.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
“Yes my friend” from someone I’ve just met and “You awright there?” in shops.
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home”. What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
Generosity of spirit wins you “Karma Kredits”. The Going Blue Foundation is a charity I co-founded with Susannah Stewart and Roberto Danovaro and is where the money I don’t have often goes.
The judge in Law Abiding Citizen states: “I can pretty much do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?
Using them out of my earshot.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
Caterine Axelsson, Willem Marx, Alex Marx, Harry Langley, Patricia Lukas, Michael Kermer, David Robson, Nick King, Brian Smurthwaite, Luca Sprea, Michelle Cuthbert, David Draier, Diederik van Lede, Irina Kouptcha, Tracy Elner, Filippo Verrone, Marina Capello, Rosalind Milani Gallieni, Peter Kirchem, Richard Hoare, Eduard van Raay, Gisela Söderstrom, Serena Massa, Maggie Wright. Good friends all of them.
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
Something tasty, spicy and filling. Kway Teow with vinegar in full view of the blue open sky.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
Whenever suits an individual as long as they keep making sense and don’t fall over.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
A cup of tea. There was a time when a vodka tonic would have taken precedence.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
Weekend parties, with large dining tables in huge kitchens. The ones I had in Byde Mill House in Wiltshire took some beating. Not because of me but because of the space that they were in and the people who came. Good plentiful food is as crucial as the wines.
Who is the most positive person you know?
There are three women I’d say are the most positive people I know. They are Carla Marx-Welter, Caterine Axelsson and Irina Kouptcha.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
Dairy-free chocolate ice cream from Snowflake on Westbourne Grove made by ice cream chef Paolo.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
Heaven forbid. Can’t stand the bloody things.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
A Delfino. Not that I have ambitions of being a car. I have ambitions of returning to that project and making it a success.
Cilla Black presented Surprise, Surprise. Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
I have no clue. I think I’m an open book. You’d have to ask someone who had just met me and then ask them again a month or two later.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
I don’t have one.
Allard Marx is a London based strategist and businessman. He is the author of The Business Brand Book (My Orange Bag) and companies in which he has founded and been involved in include:
– Delfino: http://www.delfino.co.uk
– Aethic: http://www.aethic.com
– Go Blue Too: http://www.gobluetoo.com
Follow him on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/AllardMarx
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One of the greatest traders ever to have lived. This thrice married American was famed for making and losing several multi-million dollar fortunes and once stated: “People who look for easy money invariably pay for the privilege of proving conclusively that it cannot be found on this earth”. Bankers today should pay heed. Nicknamed the “Boy Plunger” and “Great Bear of Wall Street”, Livermore’s end was tragic. A sufferer of clinical depression, Livermore shot himself in a cloakroom at The Sherry-Netherland Hotel in November 1940.
The tale of a pioneer landowner reduced to bankruptcy and a Baywatch babe fighting off her debtors
Former Baywatch babe turned animal rights campaigner Pamela Anderson purchased 23445 Malibu Colony Drive in Malibu, California in 2000 for $1,800,000 with her then husband and subsequent on-off lover Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee. She has just placed the property on the market for $7,750,000 as part of an attempt to solve her financial woes. (more…)
Sarah Tucker shares her experiences on a panel discussing the outcomes of Leveson
Journalist and author Sarah Tucker was one of the panelists at a talk at the Richmond Literary Festival on Thursday evening. By chance, since it coincided with the publication of the Leveson Report, the panel’s discussion naturally focused on that. Here Tucker share her thought in an article first published on her own blog:
I was in excellent company last night as part of a panel at the Richmond Literary Festival that felt almost weirdly timed to coincide with the day of the Leveson announcement.
I appeared on a panel with Sir Trevor MacDonald (who needs no introduction, but got one any way), the editor of the Sheengate Titles, Richard Nye; Claire Fox, the director of the wonderfully named Institute of Ideas (which I thought sounded like something out of Hogwarts) and Matthew Syed, illustrious columnist, Times writer and former Commonwealth table tennis champion (I wanted to ask him about table tennis but felt it oddly irrelevant in context of the debate). We discussed if the media were ‘friend or foe’ (though it wasn’t specified ‘to whom’) this of course had been perfectly timed to coincide with the Leveson findings. It was pure fluke but that’s timing for you.
Sir Trevor felt Leveson would change nothing. Everything, he suggested, would be bogged down in committees and sub committees and nothing would be done. Ever. Fox and Syed felt if statute was put in place, it would potentially be very dangerous especially if you had the likes of Blair or Thatcher in charge again or some lesser megalomaniac.
As for my view, I think the politicians are playing a game. They are losers all of them, we are the biggest ones (the punter, the voter, the onlooker), but to think they could come out and out say one way or another would be a nonsense and would take a great deal of courage, which they don’t have.
When I look at politicians now I think of them as actors upon a stage, not meaning anything they are saying, not even understanding most of it, just reciting it. I don’t feel contempt because it takes courage to get up on that stage. And Sir Trevor noted that many journalists and reporters now treat politicians with barely restrained contempt when they interview them. As he noted, at least politicians enter the process to do something of good for their community (although I think some do enter it for ego), something you can never say about those who work in the city.
And who will be in this ‘organisation’ that will monitor the press? Who on earth, on this earth, is so honourable, so without fault, so incorruptible to be considered for this position? A politician? No. A banker? You’re joking. A policeman. Perhaps.
I think you need a ‘common man’, or woman who has a sense, a common sense and an ability to see through the emperor with no clothes phenomenon of what is bullshit and what isn’t, what is in the public interest and what isn’t. It isn’t someone who has risen to the top. If this year has proved anything the shit rises to the top more regularly than the cream does. Although I must say I do like Eddie George. I think his contempt for the city mirrors that of my own, but then he deals with them on a daily basis so that’s understandable.
In many ways the media has been it’s own worst enemy. Editors allowing for lazy journalism – the recent article about Canada in The Telegraph being an example. I met the head of PR for Canada in the UK for lunch this week and she despaired that they usual cliché about Canadians came up without anything relevant or up to date on a country that had a government which managed to manage their bankers – something our politicians have not. As she commented: “It’s harmless but it’s pathetic.”
Then there’s the phone hacking which hacked into ‘common man’ rather than celebrity, who I am afraid I have absolutely no sympathy with. That includes the royals, both the young and old. They are sold to us as though we know them. We don’t have a clue who they are. We just think we do.
Editors encourage journalists to get stories, to hit the negative angles because they are told ‘it makes better news’ and people are more interested in bad news than good. I think it’s been proven somewhere, with stats or something, but then so have a lot of other things which also turn out to be rubbish. And all media are businesses so their bottom line is more important than anything else. Associated Papers are making money, The Times is running on a subsidy, the rest of the papers I think are losing money. The BBC may have been dented but they are respected around the world and like the NHS should not be tampered with. They should not be interested in profit and should aim in their production values at all times and at all cost. Every panelist agreed on that point.
The weave between the institutions of the police, the law, the church, the city, the media, the royals, the politicians has become so entwined. This is like a lover’s tiff that will pass over because the end game is more important. There is too much money, too much power and far far too much ego invested in these institutions for morality and integrity to get in the way of profit.
This has been a year of revelation but not revolution. And if it were it would be the wrong heads that would roll.
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.
For more information about Sarah Tucker, go to: http://www.sarahtucker.info
Buy The Playground Mafia on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Playground-Mafia-Sarah-Tucker/dp/0099498456/ref=sr_1_7/202-9265101-5575054?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193856472&sr=1-7
Follow Sarah Tucker on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/madasatucker
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?
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…)
Gina Miller asks if today’s “i” generation can still embody the proverbial maxim “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”
The hysteria and media attention around the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini has made me take note and observe “i” gadget usage over the last few weeks. The idea of people queuing outside Apple stores in these times of austerity when so many are struggling seems totally absurd to me. Even more absurd is that these individuals behave like addicts and do not question what mobile phones are doing to their lives. They just can’t wait for the next high.
My observations of “mobile junkies” started on the 21st September. During the day there was media coverage of the launch of the iPhone 5 and interviews with joyous consumers as they got their hands on these new toys. In the evening, I attended a truly inspiring concert to celebrate and publicise Peace for One Day. The concert marked the United Nations’ World Peace Day, which calls for a day of global ceasefire and non-violence. Prior to the music there were links from leaders around the world in support of the day including a speech about global action against domestic violence, an Afghan Leader in support of the day and the extraordinary director of Interpeace, Scott Webber. And what were the people at either side of me, above me, in front and behind me doing? They were texting, emailing, playing games and obsessively tinkering with their mobiles.
From the woman talking on her mobile as she steps into the road to cross without ever looking up, to the parents waiting in the playground for their children texting and emailing, the mobile has taken precedence over what we should really be paying attention to. In restaurants, couples and families do not talk to each other but instead have their mobiles in their hands as they eat and prop up mobiles or iPads playing cartoons for the children instead of talking to them. Have we lost all sense of propriety? When do we talk to each other? When do we get to know our children?
People text to ask someone out, they text to break up and they text to ask what is for supper. Trust in relationships is tested as women track their husband’s iPhones and if a partner doesn’t call or text at least five times a day then the other questions the depth of commitment or love. Children as young as seven demand iPads or mobiles from doting parents who don’t know how to say ‘no’ or instil the idea that you strive to attain the rewards of hard work. There are even reported increases in teenagers and a young adult complaining of aches and pains in their thumbs due to over-texting. 24/7 email access engenders expectations and stress that means people are never really shutting down from work mode. People on trains incessantly chatter and children get brutally attacked on their way home from school for their mobiles. All sense of privacy has been eroded as any celebrity or person in the public eye can be spied upon now that mobiles have cameras. All these negative trends are due to these gadgets but sales keep rocketing most especially amongst those who can least afford them.
I read with interest an account from a guide at the Sistine Chapel who said visitors come in, take photos on their phones and iPads and then move to the next room. No one, the guide suggested, really looks with their eyes, wonders or lingers at the beauty before, around and above them anymore. For these visitors, instead, it is all about taking the picture and instant gratification.
Whilst mobile phones keep us in touch and mean we can assure our loved ones we are safe, running late, find out about the children or ask whether grandmother is warm; this convenience appears to come at a very high price. Apple recently sold its 100 millionth iPad and reported profits of £5.08 billion in the three months to 29 September 2012. Apparently there were 2 million iPhone 5s ordered in the first 24 hours and similar figures are expected for the aggressively priced iPad mini. If you the average spend one of these new gadgets were to be conservatively calculated at £200, that gives a total spend of £400 million. Just think what a difference that amount of money would make if each person gave it instead to the extraordinary small community charities who battle at the coalface of the negative trends in our society?
The ancient three monkeys proverb associated with being of good mind, speech and action has been corrupted by gadgets and now in the modern world we turn a blind eye. We have grown an extra appendage that we appear unable to live without.
What if we all engaged in a national day of no phones or portable tablet? What if, as a social experiment, all networks were also to shut down for one day? Would we not have a different sort of ‘peace day’ that would start to rebuild our interaction, families, relationships and empathy? We would have to look into each other’s faces when we spoke and we might remember when we laughed more, talked more and maybe even tolerated more. If we took up this challenge, perhaps we might even rediscover some of our lost humanity and ‘we’ culture rather than the egotistical ‘i’ culture that sadly dominates society today.
Gina Miller, founder of Miller Philanthropy, is the host of Champions in the Community at The Hurlingham Club on 8th November 2012. For more information and to donate, go to: https://mydonate.bt.com/events/championsdinner
The spoof of Nick Clegg apologising hits the iTunes charts
“I’d like to take this opportunity to put things straight,” began the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, this week when he attempted to say sorry for breaking his party’s election pledge on tuition fees.
Such a stunt was inevitably going to be controversial and equally opened Clegg to taunts from his opponents and the public in general. I am sure, however, the Liberal Democrat leader did not expect that an adapted version of his speech would enter the Top 40 hits of the week in the iTunes charts or that he’d find himself challenging the likes of Kanye West, The Killers and Carly Rae Jepsen for the top spot.
Turned into a ditty little song named: “The Nick Clegg Apology Song: I’m Sorry (The Autotune Remix)” by parody site The Poke, Clegg cleverly realized the political capital in embracing the two-and-a-half minute video and gave permission for it to be released. He did so on the basis that all profits go to the Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, of which his wife Miriam is a patron, and now appears to be benefitting from the publicity during the key time of his party’s annual conference.
A spokesman for The Poke commented:
“Nick Clegg has been very good-humoured about this. He has become the first politician in history to achieve a position in the pop charts for making an apology. The Poke is staggered by its success.”
A spokesman for Mr Clegg added: ’It’s good news that the Sheffield Children’s Hospital will be the ones to benefit from the song getting into the charts.”
Whilst Clegg’s days at Number 10 may hopefully be numbered, perhaps a career in the pop business beckons. For that reason, we make it The Steeple Times Video of the Week.
Watch the full video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDjRZ30SNo&feature=player_embedded
Read The Poke, whose motto is “Time well wasted,” at: http://www.thepoke.co.uk