Crumbling stone-built seaside cottage in Welsh foodie destination and royal town of Caernarfon goes on sale for just £1
The Royal Town of Caernarfon sits on the eastern shore of the Menai Strait in North Wales and as a result of its proximity to Snowdonia and history dating back to Roman times is a “major tourist centre,” according to Wikipedia. It has a marina, award winning arts centre, a maritime museum and numerous popular pubs, bars and restaurants.
Though clearly in need of total renovation, the space offered is just a three minute walk from the seafront and directly adjoins the town’s revamped shopping district where the annual food festival attracts around 30,000 visitors each May.
Of the property offered, the Mirror last week observed: “It now needs a total makeover to become a dream seaside cottage in the heart of the holiday town” and could instead be converted to a studio space even.
In their very brief marketing literature, Doorsteps, however, add: “Terms and conditions apply,” but when contacted for comment were somewhat curiously not able to elaborate further.
Bidding for the cottage to the rear of 72 Pool Street, Caernarfon is scheduled to commence online on 6th May 2021 at 12 noon and will conclude at 1pm on the same day. Interestingly, a bidding deposit of £500 is required to participate – some £499 or 49,900% more than the property’s guide price.
The interior of the cottage is nothing but an empty shack currently, but there is plenty of character that could be incorporated into its potential reuse as a home.The space could be used as a holiday cottage, permanent residence or a studio even – subject to any necessary planning consents being granted.The currently derelict cottage is behind an also currently derelict bakery that had been in business for over 50 years and accessed via a somewhat unappealing alleyway.The annual Caernarfon Food Festival is not happening in 2021 due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, but it is normally a popular event and attended by around 30,000 people.The festival occurs throughout the town and on the sea wall even.Previously in February 2017, ‘The Steeple Times’ featured the sale of a far grander residence in Caernarfon, The Old Court House, at a price reduced from £650,000 to just £525,000. The building’s then owner, an English property developer named Aaron Hill, told ‘Wales Online’ he was selling after “vandals had smashed his windows 46 times, daubed graffiti across doors, attacked his car and urinated through his letterbox.” He told the paper “he had reported about 26 incidents to North Wales Police and remarked: ‘They said: ‘You need to f**k off where you belong. We don’t want you here. We’ll burn the place down.’” The building was subsequently converted into a bar, bistro, restaurant and event venue in 2018.In June 2014, ‘The Steeple Times’ featured another property once sold for £1, the Grade I listed Palladian gem Barlaston Hall in Staffordshire. It was saved from near collapse in 1981 by former ‘Country Life’ editor Marcus Binney and sold on for £300,000in 1992 and offered for sale again in 2014 for £2.3 million after renovations were completed. After its asking price was reduced to £2 million, it subsequently sold for £2 million through agents Fisher German in April 2019.In the very same article in June 2014 in ‘The Steeple Times,’ we also included another £1 property, Old Whitehall House in Chirnside, Berwickshire, Scotland. Derelict since 2007, this B-listed Georgian mansion required at least £1.2 million spent on its refurbishment, but came complete with an ornate music room decorated in Italian plasterwork and 7 bedrooms.
Legal challenge to Boris Johnson’s government’s completely illogical refusal to allow indoor hospitality venues to open whilst allowing indoor retail to open to be decided on this week
In spite of venues with outdoor space being allowed to serve customers on their terraces and in gardens, the hospitality sector in the UK will continue to lose around £200 million per day until the government allows them to serve indoors in mid-May.
This week, following a perfectly sensible legal challenge by Sacha Lord, the night-time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, and Hugh Osmond, the founder of Punch Taverns, the government could be forced to bring forward the date for indoor opening for bars, pubs and restaurants.
Lord and Osmond together quite sensibly argue there is no justification or scientific basis for indoor hospitality to be kept closed for five additional weeks after non-essential retailers in England were allowed to serve customers indoors from 12th April. Their call is correct and the continuation of this illogical set of double standards is doing just one thing: Dealing another body blow to an already devastated sector.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning of their challenge to the crackpot crazy decisions of borderline bonkers’ Boris Johnson’s Tory government, Osmond remarked:
“This is something of a David versus Goliath battle. We are reassured that David won in that instance.”
“At the start of this pandemic there was a totally understandable assumption that hospitality venues might be responsible for the spread of infections. The vision of drunken people in crowded pubs is an easy and obvious target that people understand.”
“The data [now] definitively shows that hospitality was not the major source of infections.”
Elsewhere on Twitter on Friday, Lord remarked: “The government’s defence is just in… They must be concerned, they’ve put their No. 1 legals on the case, Sir James Eadie QC, the First Treasury Counsel.”
Going further this morning, he added: “Thank you for all the good luck messages. It’s not necessarily today, the Judge has said: ‘The week commencing the 19th.’ Again, a real long shot, but as soon as there’s news, I’ll post it here. Enjoy the sun.”
Today, all at The Steeple Times join those supporting the logic of allowing indoor hospitality venues to reopen and reopen now. Let’s get the indoor show back on the road.
Pictured top: Restaurants such as Fifty Cheyne in Chelsea, London have tables that are very clearly separated from one another. As shown in this image, diners can be socially distanced in a manner perfectly reasonable. Why shouldn’t such places – which lack outdoor dining areas and thus cannot even benefit from the currently allowed outdoor opening rules – not be able to get back to business whilst small, cramped shops with little-to-no precautionary measures are allowed to trade?
Hospitality vs. Headbangers – Echoing scenes from December 2020 reported on in ‘The Steeple Times,’ on Sunday the ‘MailOnline’ reported on yet another swarm of maskless, tempestuous teenagers descending on Harrods on Saturday. Sharing the article on Twitter on Monday, Hugh Osmond remarked: “It is surely clear that all-seated, licensed hospitality venues, with table service only, cannot present more of a risk than non-essential retail… Open indoor hospitality now.”Hospitality vs. Headbangers – Giuseppe Turi, who owns Enoteca Turi on Pimlico Road, London, SW1 with his wife Pamela, is currently just serving people on his two outside tables “after loyal customers begged him to reopen,” the ‘Daily Star’ last week reported. Speaking to the ‘Mail on Sunday,’ Mr Turi added: “It doesn’t really make financial sense with just two tables, but our customers are so desperate to come back. We are now fully booked until May 17 when we can open inside. We are very excited to connect with our regulars again, but unfortunately we’ve not been able to accommodate everybody.” The chances of this business making a profit from such activity stand in the area of “zilch-zero-nothing,” but provide proof that it is businesses that are showing initiative and not the illogical, rudderless, incompetent government of Boris Johnson.Hospitality vs. Headbangers – Last October, Richard Caring, owner of many of London’s best-known high-end restaurants, stuck up two dummies of Boris Johnson (in spite of having previously given over £510,000 in donations to the Conservative Party previously). At the time of the lockdown then in place, Caring raged: “Make no mistake, this is a disastrous decision, taken by people who do not understand what terrible damage they are doing to the country.”
Featuring an unnamed person “so angry with [Tesco] rearranging its shelves during the coronavirus lockdown that they have vowed never to shop there again,” the story focused on the vitally important fact that said individual had to “back-track and walk around unnecessarily looking for products.”
The customer concerned – who unsurprisingly “wished to remain anonymous” given the amount of stick they subsequently got on the Facebook group Angry People in Local Newspapers – managed to find everything they’d set out to buy in spite of the alterations, yet ranted:
“This practice of reorganising shelves is highly annoying in peace time, but is it really sensible and safe to do this during a highly contagious, killer pandemic?”
“We, along with the majority of other people, are adhering to the rules. We don’t want to catch this awful virus or, worse still, be in any way responsible for the suffering or death of others.”
“I felt very strongly that the midst of this awful pandemic is not the time to re-organise the shelves!”
Amongst the 215 comments on APILN, one ‘top fan’ named Whitby Vlad remarked: “Anyone who invokes WW2 imagery for any reason, apart from either objective academic analysis or to highlight the cost of human suffering caused by global conflict, is the sort of person that would have been right on the phone to the Gestapo to say Mrs Smith at number 4 must have black market butter, had the Germans invaded.”
Of the “plonker” complainer, another, Mike Lewis, added: “Since I don’t know where anything is, in Tesco, apart from the booze, I would not notice them doing such a wicked thing” whilst another ‘top fan,’ Steve Larrad, quite correctly concluded: “Christ, that was a harrowing read.”
A Sorry Shelf Saga – The unnamed angry shopper had visited the Weston Favell Tesco Extra store at 6am “to avoid other shoppers” and had found “walking around stressful.” They furiously told the ‘Northampton Chronicle & Echo’s’ Jack Duggan: “I have tried to get a satisfactory response from Tesco but to no avail. I will never shop there again.”A Sorry Shelf Saga – Said shopper plainly wouldn’t approve of the late Dale Winton’s ‘Supermarket Sweep’ style of shopping and would also have got very angry about Tesco’s March 2020 ‘fish finger f**kup’ as well.
Tea leaf Theresa May lookalike goes on the rampage in Hereford and robs a purse; at least she didn’t grab ‘The Donald’s’ hand this time round (or have to share a curry with rotten paedo Rolf Harris)
Featured in the Mirror this morning, it transpires it’s actually not the real Theresa May who has been on the rob in Whitecross Road, Hereford, but in fact just a body double of the ‘Boys Jobs and Girls Jobs’ loving ex-Prime Minister.
According to the paper, “cops are searching for a grey-haired ‘Theresa May lookalike’ after a woman’s purse was taken from a shop” on 11th December 2020. Going further, they added:
“The force released a CCTV image of a middle aged-looking woman wearing a red jacket similar to the one regularly donned by the ex-Prime Minister.”
“Web users were quick to point out the ‘striking resemblance’ to the current Tory MP for Maidenhead after police began circulating the photo.”
Elsewhere, LADbible reported the story had gone viral on social media with one user commenting:
“Looks like Theresa May fell on tough times after the Brexit fallout.”
Another added:
“Oh Theresa, surely times aren’t that hard. I’m sure Boris and his chums would lend you a fiver.”
Theresa The Tea Leaf – This purse stealer was widely described as a “Theresa May lookalike” after West Mercia Police released a CCTV image of her following a theft inside a Hereford store at around 10.30am on 11th December 2020. Of the theft a spokesperson for the force stated: “It is believed another woman put a newspaper on top of the wallet and then took both the paper and wallet. She then left the shop.”Theresa The Leaf – Lady May MP, herself, is often to be found dining with her ‘Garden Gnome-like’ hubby Sir Philip in Malik’s Tandoori House in Cookham, Berkshire. Here, the owner, is pictured serving her and also posing with another regular, her constituent and convicted paedophile Rolf Harris and his wicked wife Alwyn Hughes.
“International magician” Mike Alan goes mental with a cucumber after alleging a “razor sharp” M&S shelf “savaged” his coat and left him “looking like a snowman”
At a time when 13,000 families are worrying about ending up in penury thanks to retail rotter ‘Sir Shifty’ Philip Green’s empire collapsing, there’s one very, very angry man with bigger issues to fry with the sinking high street shopping sector.
Featured for “crying to the papers” first via the Facebook group ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers,’ an “international magician” named Mike Alan – a man mocked as the type that “shops in M&S but cuts a Lidl version of Richard O’Brien” – claims to have paid £75 for a coat that one commentator described simply as “I’ve seen nicer jackets on hot water tanks.”
Aptly ‘Digusted of Tunbridge Wells’ (and yes, Mr Alan just had to be from Tunbridge Wells) moaned to KentLive’s multimedia journalist John James that he was left “seething” after an encounter with a shelf in the spa town’s Calverly Road Marks & Spencer store.
Of the calamitous incident, Mr Alan – whom claims to have performed for both the Queen and the Sultan of Brunei – explained:
“I went into the store like I do most days. I don’t have a problem with the shop or the staff themselves, they’re very polite. I go to look at a tin of biscuits and as I pull them off the shelf it rips my coat.”
“I went to the desk and asked to speak to a manager and they said they didn’t have one on shift at the moment, I said ‘What are you? A corner shop?’”
“By this point I looked like a snowman walking around with all the feathers coming out of my coat. I was told to call up head office.”
Wally of the Week – Mike Alan – Especially for ‘Kent Live’ readers, “as seen on TV” Mr Alan shared an image of the damage he did to a cucumber with the offending shelf. He did not declare whether he paid for said vine plant fruit.
Continuing of his subsequent lengthy less than magical correspondence with the retailer, Mr Alan – a man plainly lacking a Debbie McGee to do his biscuit buying – then angrily added:
“They’ve denied it’s sharp, so yesterday I went back in there and cut one of their cucumbers with the shelf. And they still say it’s not sharp. It’s like a razor!”
“All I’m after is for them to own up to it and give me £50 for the coat, which I’d give to a homeless charity so they could buy a coat.”
“I’m just really annoyed with their attitude. I’ve not been going in there since the incident. I’ve sent an invoice to them, I’m going to charge them for every email I send them.”
“The shelf is sharp and it’s at the same height as a child’s face. It’s a joke.”
Plainly sick of this moaning Minnie, an M&S spokesman responded: “We are giving him a gesture of goodwill to cover the cost of his coat.” Magic that, Mike.
Pictured top: Mike Alan displays his “savaged” coat for the benefit of readers of ‘Kent Live’ (left); previous encounters with retailers including Sports Direct feature on his Facebook page.
Wally of the Week – Mike Alan – ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ members had a field day with Mr Alan subsequently. “It’s not just any savaging. It’s an M&S shelf savaging,” remarked one Michael Burke.Wally of the Week – Mike Alan – “This is a proper Quentin Tarantino film in the making” added a ‘top fan’ named Marcus Marr. Another ‘top fan,’ Cath Dodge, added: “Wearing a natty hat does not make you a magician, mate,” whilst one Danny Beattie observed: “I know what has a problem, and it’s not the shelf!”Wally of the Week – Mike Alan – “That shelf could have cut a woman in half… and that’s my job!” mocked one Jim MacNee.
EXCLUSIVE – Matthew Steeples reports on coronavirus and the lack of Arabic arrivals killing off Knightsbridge’s most expensive ‘convenience’ store, Lord’s Food & Wine of Brompton Road
Lord’s Food & Wine at 209 Brompton Road, SW3 was a shop you only ever went into when you were drunk, deranged, desperate (or all of the above). It was grotty and grim and known only for its truly extortionate prices, but to its credit, this favourite of both High Net Worths and the homeless was open 24/7, 365 days per year. This ‘convenience’ store was reliably dreadful, but, today, it was finally locked up and locked up and shuttered for once and for good.
Run by the rudest staff imaginable and featuring a pungent smell of samosas that never escaped its price unconscious patrons, here was a shop where a magnum of vodka could be had for £1,000 a pop whilst they’d flog you something as unlovely as Blue Nun for “just” £18.50 a bottle. They even sold Whispering Angel for those desperate to be “a banger” – but even that rotten rose was marked up from about £22 to an astounding £60.
Aside from visits that emptied my student loan fund in the early 2000s to buy ‘Mother’s Ruin-esque’ gin that I now wouldn’t serve to even the barbarian bear slaying bitch Larysa Switlyk let alone my dearest friends, I especially remember having to walk over to Lord’s on Christmas Day last with a chain smoking twit of a girl from Tunbridge Wells. She would have been utterly unremarkable in any other circumstance, but was so desperate for cigarettes that she was ridiculously in a torrent of uncontrollable tears.
Said spoilt Norah Docker-esque madam was astounded at the £18 price per twenty fags, but promptly handed me the bill for the four packs she claimed to require. I cannot say I’ll actually miss the ludicrousness of Lord’s after that after that expensive Christmas ‘gift’ to a completely pointless person, but, late at night when they eventually return, where will all the ‘gulfies’ go for their late-night fixes now that this shabby shithole of a store has been finally killed off by a combination of coronavirus and its no doubt very greedy landlord?
The (Loss) of Ludicrous Lord’s – On Wednesday evening, for the first time in decades, the shelves of the most overpriced ‘convenience’ store in Britain were stripped bare.The (Loss) of Ludicrous Lord’s – The last feedback from one-time customers on the very own website of Lord’s Food & Wine, 209 Brompton Road, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2EJ before it finally closed forever was hardly positive.
That ‘lockdown’ and ‘MEGXIT’ have become the Collins Dictionary words of the year for 2020 sum up this sorry period perfectly
LOCKDOWN 2020 – This morning, The Sun crowed about how they’d come up with the word ‘MEGXIT’ and celebrated it becoming one of Collins Dictionary’s words of the year for 2020.
Joining it on the list also were:
Furlough
Key worker
Self-isolate
Social distancing
BLM
Speaking to the paper, Helen Newstead, a language content consultant at Collins, remarked:
“Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic.”
“We have chosen ‘lockdown’ as our word of the year because it encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict their daily lives in order to contain the virus.
“Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise.”
“With many countries entering a second lockdown, it is not a word of the year to celebrate but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world.”
Let’s hope 2021 brings some far more positive words to the fray – if nothing else.
As Phillip Schofield’s book is banned from sale in Wales, we ask: “Did the temperamental telly host ‘Schofe’ have another meltdown as a result?”
Whilst nobody was surprised when Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Kenya, Kuwait, Liberia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Senegal, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand amongst others banned The Satanic Verses in 1988 for supposed blasphemy against Islam, news that Phillip Schofield’s memoirs have been outlawed from sale in Wales might actually surprise.
Though no doubt an affront to literature in terms of the quality and relevance of its content, an image of Schofield’s recently released Life’s What You Make It in a taped off section of a Tesco store in Cardiff appeared yesterday in The Sun. Appropriately, however, given the shocking reviews the tome has deservedly received, a notice was pinned to the shelving stating: “We are unable to sell non-essential items at this time.”
We’re left wondering: Did ‘Schofe’ hit his “only fit for the bin” boxed wine as a result? If so, we can only pity those dealing with his hangover this morning.
Schofe Banned – With his memoirs banned from sale in supermarkets in Wales and his boxed wine rubbished as “no more palatable than fizzy Ribena,” ‘Schofe’ no doubt had another temper tantrum. Poor lamb.Schofe Banned – D. H. Lawrence’s ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ was banned from sale in the United Kingdom for violation of obscenity laws. The ban was lifted in 1960 and one is now left wondering how long Phillip Schofield’s tome will remain on a list of banned books for.
‘Starve a Kid to Save a Quid’ goes viral in the wake of the government’s disastrous attempt to starve poor school kids whilst Tory MPs deservedly get banned from shops and restaurants
Shared on Twitter this morning by @WhatEuroPinion, a poster placed “in a shop window in lovely Lancashire” perfectly sums up public opinion in reaction to the government’s decision to vote to not fund the feeding of poor children.
The notice pictured stated:
“POLITE NOTICE – David Morris MP is barred from entering this store for voting to starve children.”
“Along with 322 other Conservative MPs, he voted against extending free meals for kids.”
“He has been listed one of the top ten MPs claiming expenses with £77,676.00 so far.”
“He has also voted to give himself a pay rise of nearly £3,400.00.”
“Thatcher starved the miners, Morris starved the minors.”
Featuring a shot of the Tory leader and chancellor of in the House of Commons, it was accompanied by Boris Johnson asking: “Rishi, what’s the new slogan to follow ‘Eat Out to Help Out’?” and Sunak replying: “Starve a Kid to Save a Quid.”
Starve a Kid to Save a Quid – Marcus Rashford’s campaign should have been supported. Instead, the government’s own goal in opposing it has been universally slammed.
Starve a Kid to Save a Quid – The government’s decision to starve poor children has unsurprisingly caused a national uproar at a time when MPs shamelessly voted to award themselves a £3,400 per annum pay rise.
Matthew Steeples expresses lament for London’s post-coronavirus future – here is a city that faces an exodus and recession
This morning in The Guardian, Emma Brockes – a “British writer in New York” according to her Twitter handle – penned an article about how that city is “going back to the 1970s” as a “long overdue correction to the ravaging effect of high finance.”
Her fascinating analysis of how the “post-Covid hotspot” is set to lose its middle classes and “become more dangerous,” could also be applied to London.
Aside from families releasing that they desire outside space rather than cramped flats in the pandemic, the exodus to the suburbs and beyond is most definitely occurring. Property prices are rising in more rural areas and workers will commute less and less.
The new era ahead involves working from home and the consequences were explained to me recently by a city restaurateur. When allowed, he reopened for a week – but hardly anybody came. He found the city empty of his usual regulars, closed his doors and will try again in September.
Sandwich shops such as Pret have seen a sharp decline in revenue and tailors are suffering as well. People no longer need a Savile Row suit and instead wear their shorts or dressing gowns whilst they work. Many shops have closed – some would have closed anyway given the high street was already failing – and stabbings have sadly dramatically risen.
Dick Whittington famously fictionally arrived in London expecting the streets to be paved with gold. He initially found to the contrary and ended up cold and hungry and now many will find the same. With an expected second wave of coronavirus this winter and the worst recession in history underway, London needs to wake up and smell the coffee.
