Video of e-scooter turning into fireball illustrates why these dangerous death traps should be completely banned in Britain
Shared by London cabbie feed @TaxiLeaks on Twitter with their 11,000 followers on Saturday, a video of an e-scooter’s battery smoking and then exploding provides proof yet again that these unregulated nuisance machines must not be allowed on Britain’s roads and pavements.
This is the death trap device that Sadiq Khan, Heidi Alexander, Will Norman and TfL are promoting.
This is what happens when the battery becomes faulty (apparently a common problem)
In their 0:45-second video – accompanied by the caption: “This is the death trap device that Sadiq Khan, Heidi Alexander, Will Norman and TfL are promoting. This is what happens when the battery becomes faulty (apparently a common problem). I’m sure Heidi can explain being deputy Mayor for transport” – illustration was clearly provided of the dangers of these uninsured ‘mobile weapons.’
Elsewhere on our pages previously, The Steeple Times have highlighted other examples of death and destruction caused by these still for the moment mostly illegally used devices. In July 2019, we reported on the case of Ambar Zohra, a foul-mouthed cretin who hit a pedestrian in London’s Walton Street on a pavement on her scooter, just days after another user was killed on such a device on a roundabout in Battersea.
Whilst later, in July 2020, we commented on the government’s decision to trial rentable e-scooters after no doubt being bunged by operations such as the £1.6 billion valued American provider Bird, @TaxiLeaks’ video today again shows whilst it time the UK did to the contrary: It is time to make e-scooters illegal and to banish them from Britain.
Only last month, a man and woman suffered “serious injuries” after riding an e-scooter they were both on hit a VW Golf in Wolverhampton. At the time, the ‘Daily Mail’ remarked: “Evidence is mounting over their safety record, with critics suggesting they make it easier for criminals to whip people’s phones from their hands on the street and make a fast getaway. And in July 2019, TV presenter and YouTube influencer Emily Hartridge was killed while riding her e-scooter in Battersea, London. Hartridge, who was thrown from the scooter on a roundabout, is believed to be the first person to die in the UK in an accident involving an e-scooter. She was later ruled to have been riding too fast with an under-inflated tyre when she was tragically killed in a crash with a lorry. In the UK, two other people are now known to have died using them, while in the United States the number of e-scooter accidents that leave people needing hospital treatment has risen by more than 222 per cent in four years.”Yesterday, in the ‘Daily Mail,’ Peter Hitchens wrote of his “near-miss with an idiot on an e-scooter.” He observed: “The point being that if e-scooters become legal, you can expect to see a lot of them careering along a pavement near you. There’s a strong chance that they will crash into you from behind, breaking one or more of your bones. This happened to a three-year-old child in Feltham a few weeks ago, and as far as I know the culprit has not been found. And, while that will itself still be against the law, nobody will do anything about it. For the same reason, they are the perfect tool for those drug couriers who are already swapping their pushbikes for them. Legal businesses such as fast-food delivery, which seem to employ some of the most ruthless people in the world, will also no doubt take advantage. We don’t actually need to find all this out. Cities all over Europe are licking their wounds after legalising e-scooters, especially Paris. Singapore last year more or less banned them after several injuries and fatal accidents, as well as fires in public housing blocks caused by faulty batteries… But Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, and the House of Commons Transport Select Committee both seem to have been beguiled by the e-scooter lobby, which appears to mesmerise its victims in much the way that a cobra is said to do.”
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.
Crumbling Northamptonshire estate Lilford Hall – where the little owl was introduced to Britain – for sale for £10 million, a sum £35 million lower than in 2014
Grade I listed Jacobean mansion with 13 chimney stacks for sale for £10 million; it was for sale last for £44.9 million in 2014 in spite of being listed on English Heritage’s ‘At Risk Register.’
Lilford Hall – parts of which have not been occupied since 1947 –is currently owned by a businessman who tried to sell burial plots in the grounds for £1,250 a pop and shares in a yacht loosely associated with Frank Sinatra for £23 each.
The 321-acre estate includes not only overgrown parkland, but also a zoo with cages that formerly housed bears and a lake for flamingos.
From 1711 until 1990, Lilford House was the seat of the Powys family – the 4th baron is credited with introducing the little owl to the UK.
More recently, in 1969, the “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger used the at-the-time derelict mansion in one of her best-known works.
A 32,406 square foot Grade I listed Jacobean mansion 82 miles from Central London has gone on sale for £10 million – or the equivalent of just £308 per square foot.
On this basis, Lilford Hall – set in 321 acres near Oundle – seems a comparative bargain when considered against the £4,786 per square foot sought for a Lennox Gardens, Knightsbridge triplex flatThe Steeple Times featured in May, but buyers need to remember this – parts of this crumbling building, most notably the major state rooms, have not been used since 1947.
Marketed last in 2014 for the even more punchy sum of £45 million, the “exceptional residential and amenity estate located on the River Nene,” is now offered by agents Savills. The “wonderfully proportioned” U-shaped mansion itself is constructed of grey limestone and includes over 100 rooms and amongst them are 7 “impressive” reception rooms, a ballroom, a ‘great chamber’ and 9 bedrooms. In addition, there are two Georgian pavilions that were formerly coach houses and stabling, three cottages, a former zoo, the oldest private softball court in the world, a former flamingo enclosure and a deer park.
“Impressiveness in the chief attribute of Lilford Hall as a specimen of architecture” claimed County Life in 1990 and as the seat of the Powys family from 1711 until 1990, it became not only a Downton Abbey-esque entertaining pad, but also housed nurses in the Second World War. Here, indeed, is an English country house that has seen lavishness and decline and thankfully here is an example that thankfully escaped the wrecking ball wrought so disgracefully on such houses in the 1950s and 1960s.
Fascinatingly in the 1880s, Thomas Powys, 4th Baron Lilford filled his aviaries on the estate with rheas, kiwis, pink-headed ducks, free-flying lammergeiers and it was from here that he also introduced the little owl into the UK. There are said to be around 5,700 breeding pairs today, but sadly, according to the RSPB, their numbers are now in decline.
More recently, in 1969, “sexually erotic” performance artist Penny Slinger took over the by then “derelict” mansion in conjunction with the filmmaker Peter Whitehead. Their resulting work, titled An Exorcism, was exhibited internationally and in 2004, after the current owners, Charles and Aziza Micklewright, acquired the house, they did something equally avant-garde; they attempted to sell burial plots in the grounds to Americans by citing the estate’s connections to the founder of the Brownists, Robert Browne – a man better known as ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).
Whilst Mr and Mrs Micklewright were lauded for their considerable efforts towards the “huge task” of restoring Lilford Hall, they came to the attention of Historic England in May 2019 when the building was listed on the At Risk Register. At that time, the Oundle Chronicle reported: “The roof covering is in poor condition leading to water ingress and distress to the upper storeys. The front bays require structural attention. A schedule of urgent repairs has been identified but not implemented, and no long-term solution has been agreed.”
Now, someone with very, very deep pockets is required to restore this gem. It would be helpful if they liked erotic art, bears, squash and owls also.
The Names & Numbers – The Lilford Hall Estate, Lilford, Oundle, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, United Kingdom
June 2020 – The estate is listed sale for £10 million ($12.5 million, €11.1 million or درهم46 million) through Savills. It includes 321.31 acres, of which 148.17 acres are pasture land whilst 157.48 acres are woodland. The majority of the estate is held on a freehold title, whilst the remaining 127.6 acres – known as ‘The Linches’ and ‘Lilford Woods’ – are held on a lease with 91 years remaining.
2015 – Promoted as ‘The National Memorial Gardens,’ burial plots in the gardens of the hall were offered “available to any UK resident or national for an outstanding price of only £1,250 ($1,568, €1,393 or درهم5,758)” by Mark Bailey of Harley Investments. Around the same time, a website dedicated to Lilford Hall marketed “a piece of the formal gardens” for sale for £299 ($375, €333 or درهم1,377) to include “an officially certified ‘Squire of Lilford’ [title] … with this little piece of history.”
March 2014 – The Irish Times reported that the asking price for the estate had been increased to £44.9 million ($56.3 million, €50 million or 206.8درهم million). They claimed the agents Coldwell Banker blamed “confusion over currency conversion rates and new instructions from the owner.”
April 2014 – The Lilford Hall Estate is listed for sale through Coldwell Banker on MyHome.ie for £33.7 million ($44.2 million, €37.5 million or درهم155 million) on behalf of “an English gentleman.”
2004 – The estate is acquired by the Micklewright family. Little information is available online about the Old Framlingham Charles Micklewright (born July 1958), but he is described as a “patent attorney” on Companies Houses pages. The businessman is mentioned also as a publisher and trustee of the Marsh Christian Trust elsewhere, whilst his Singaporean born wife, Aziza (born 1964), was a director of Lilford Properties Limited from 2013 to 2018.
A website operated by Sign of the Times Limited, a Hong Kong company of Lilford Hall, Lilford, Oundle, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, currently offers shares in a yacht named ‘Sinatra the Voice’ for £23.91 ($29.99, €26.64 or درهم110.14) per share. The boat was built in 1956 and is tenuously linked to Frank Sinatra by the fact that a one-time owner, Beale Poste, loaned it occasionally to the crooner between 1968 and 1974 in West Palm Beach, Florida.
1990 – The estate is closed to the public.
1980s – The house is used as a location in the BBC English Civil War inspired historical drama series By the Sword Divided.
1970s – Aviaries on the estate restocked by George Powys, 7th Baron Lilford (1931 – 2005). He “opened [the estate] to the public as a leisure park” and housed more than 350 birds of 110 species there. It remained thus for around 20 years and included a restaurant and shop. The aviaries and the 1,896 square foot restaurant building remain present still today.
1969 – 1970 – American British “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger (born 1947) and Liverpudlian filmmaker Peter Whitehead used the “derelict mansion” as the setting for their works An Exorcism and Lilford Hall. They are lauded as a “photo romance” and exhibited at the Blum and Poe Gallery in Los Angeles in 2014, at the Haywood Gallery in London in 2015 and at the Fortnight Institute in New York in 2019.
1949 – Stephen Powys, 6th Baron Lilford (1869 – 1949) died without having married or having had children. His properties aside from Lilford – a house in Mayfair, Bank Hall in Lancashire and the Bewsey Estate in Cheshire – passed to his second cousin twice removed.
1947 – The estate is sold to a company named Merchant Ventures by the Powys family (though they remain present on the estate until 1990).
1939 – 1945 – During the Second World War, the parkland of the estate was used as a military hospital for nearby airfields. From 1949 to 1954, some of the buildings constructed during this period were then used as a Polish school.
1923 – First-class Northamptonshire cricketer Major John Powys, 5th Baron Lilford (1863 – 1945) built the first private softball court in the world in the grounds of the hall. It is now in disrepair and the roof has fallen into the inner court.
1909 – 1910 – The hall was extended in the Edwardian manner including the provision of a new master bedroom with dressing room and bathroom by William Dunn and Robert Watson of Dunn & Watson.
1901 – The estate surrounding the hall reaches its largest size and totals a vast 8,000 acres of land. Around this time, Queen Mary, wife of King George V, is said to have visited the gardens.
1880s – Ornithologist and expert on the fauna of the Balearics Thomas Littleton Powys, 4th Baron Lilford (1833 – 1896) introduces the little owl into England on the estate. His aviaries were said to “feature exotic birds from all around the world” and a species of European lizard, the Lilford’s wall lizard (Podarcis lilfordi), is named in his honour. The 4th baron is repeatedly mentioned in the works of Charles Darwin for his contribution to the study of the science of evolution.
1840s – Further changes to the building are orchestrated by the architect William Gilbee Habershon (circa 1818 – 1891). The Campaign to Protect Rural England described these Victorian extensions as “sensitive” in 2006 – a rare accolade given most additions to English country houses during this period were simply brash and vulgar.
1740s – The Palladian architect Henry Flitcroft (1697 – 1769) adds “outstanding” Georgian interiors whilst “respecting the hall’s Jacobean exterior.” He “softened and brightened” the building as a result and also “constructed the Georgian pavilions and additional storeys to the east end of the two wings.” Other works by Flitcroft can be seen at Bower House in Essex, Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire and Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire.
1711 – Lilford Hall is sold to the judge and Tory politician Sir Thomas Powys (1649 – 1719), Attorney General to King James II. Powys is best remembered for conducting the prosecution of the Seven Bishops in 1699. He is buried at Lilford.
1630s – Construction of the main exterior of what to this day remains Lilford Hall as a “Jacobean-style gentry house” by William Elmes (the younger).
1473 – The land that forms the estate is acquired by William Browne (1410 – 1489), a wealthy wool merchant and landowner from Stamford, from the estate of Baron Welles (who was beheaded by King Edward IV for treason). In 1495, “in a Tudor style,” he built a hall on the site and it passed to Robert Browne (1550 – 1633), the founder of the Brownists, ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).
Billionaire Brexiteer James Dyson (yet again) shows himself as nothing but a self-serving prick in relocating his HQ to Singapore
Yesterday, in the wake of the crappy hoover manufacturer Sir James Dyson announcing he’d be relocating his headquarters to Singapore, the journalist Tim Walker tweeted: “Need a moral vacuum? Get a Dyson” and followed up with: “People are becoming legitimately angry about the sheer hypocrisy of the Brexiteers. We see them for what they are.”
Journalist Tim Walker tweets about James Dyson’s “moral vacuum”
This morning, in a similar vein, a spoof news site named Evening Harold ran a story titled ‘Dyson launch moral vacuum’ in which they declared the billionaire’s products to have: “100% less integrity than rival products and comes in cordless, bagless, spineless and gutless models.”
They are right: This tax avoider – whom also recently spent £57 million ($74 million) on a Manhattan penthouse – and his dreary overpriced rugmaker wife Deirdre are the finest examples of hypocrites on the planet; they pompously tell the populous what to do and do exactly the opposite. It’s time this “it’s one rule for us and another for everyone else” duo just bogged off to whatever tax haven they feel most comfortable in.
Fiona Bruce shows herself to be a most worthy replacement for David Dimbleby on the BBC’s ‘Question Time’; we need more like her
Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould made for a brilliant double act on the BBC’s Fake or Fortune and now, going it alone, she’s proved her worth yet again in taking over Auntie’s Question Time programme.
Debuting on the show last night, Bruce took no prisoners and at one point rightly told Theresa May’s mouthpiece James Cleverly MP: “Sometimes you have to stop talking and listen.” She then curtly added: “I asked you what your plan [for Brexit] was and you said you were going to tell me. Have I missed it?”
Praised universally on social media, Fiona Bruce last night achieved brilliance whilst other interviewers and hosts fail: This Singaporean born Scot ran this political discussion with a rod of iron and we salute her.
Reactions on Twitter:
@profanityswan – “Fiona Bruce has had 15 years talking to greedy vase-owners and she’s off the fucking leash here. #newbbcqt”
@OJBorg – “3 Minutes in to THE REIGN OF BRUCE on Question Time & if I were a politician I’d be shitting in my pants. She taking zero shit. Love it. #BBCQT”
@AaronLMatthews – “#FionaBruce has done her homework, and in doing so immediately put up a barrier to #bbcqt being simply a forum for unchallenged bullshit. This is so much more palatable.”
@DonkeyDavethe – “Fiona Bruce – straight in there with “answer the fuckin question dimwit”! #bbcqt”
@Russ_Bear – Fiona Bruce isn’t taking any shit. She’s not sitting back and letting them say what they like. She’s Dimblebying the fuck out of it. Good work Mrs! #questiontime”
@ThatTimWalker – I had no great hopes for Fiona Bruce on @bbcquestiontime, but my God she’s GREAT. An honest journalist. And on the BBC. This is wonderful.
Veteran political heavyweight Melvyn Bragg lays into Brexit, David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn and Sir James Dyson
In an interview in The House magazine, Lord Bragg spoke complete sense in condemning the madness of the current British political scene.
Remarks included:
“I’m looking forward to getting hold of [David Cameron’s] book, I can tell you. Self-serving, and now this swaggering on – ‘I’m very bored, I’d like another job now. Bit bored, so I’d like to be Foreign Secretary’. He ran away. He ran a lousy campaign and then he ran away – he said he’d stay but ran away, he resigned from the Commons – we’ve never heard a pip or a squeak from him. He didn’t go on the Remain march, he didn’t do anything. Cameron could have saved his name by leading the Remain minority. Who the f*** does he think he is?”
“Now, Cameron, with his usual bloody stupidity, should have said ‘it’s got to be at least a 55%’ and so on. But he didn’t think that through because he doesn’t think things through. He is a smarmy PR man.”
“These bunch of squirearchal, hedge funding, over-privileged people who think [Brexit is] going to be okay – it’s going to be okay for them. They’re not going to suffer – not a bit of it. They don’t offer any evidence now. It’s ceased to be a programme or a process, it’s a cult. It’s a bit like the Moonies. They just believe it because they believe because they believe it. Because they are who they are, they think them believing it is significant. No, it isn’t.”
“Their so-called figureheads like [Sir James] Dyson runs away, buggers off – traitorous you could say, in some ways. ‘I’m a big Brexit man’ – as soon as he sees an opportunity, he goes to Singapore. Puts two billion in there when he could have done it here. Isn’t he rich enough? He’s the biggest landowner in the country. How greedy can somebody get?… Horrible… Everything is wrong about it. It speaks to what is wrong about our country. It also has unleashed feelings that are very unpleasant. We were getting on pretty well.”
“I would like for Jeremy Corbyn to go flat out for another referendum and back it and say Remain because that is going to be the way to keep this country prosperous, to keep it tolerant by accepting people who come from other countries instead of setting up a system that repudiates people from other countries. I’d say come off the fence, back Remain and get on with it. His dallying is doing the Labour party no good. They should be streaking away, they should be streaking away. So, that’s disappointing.”
“I was canvassing in Carlisle for the Labour party – you couldn’t believe it really – they were worried about immigration. Nearly ninety per cent of the people in Carlisle had been born in and around Carlisle… but ‘oh, this terrible threat of immigration!’ Why didn’t the Labour party tell people that. Why isn’t the Labour party behind the truth?”
“Forty-eight per cent is not a minority. This country has been built on minorities. The slave trade was abolished because of the minority pegging away. The suffragettes, the trade unions… universal education came in… again and again and again. Minorities turn into majorities quite quickly, especially when they’re right. I won’t go as far as Oscar Wilde, who said that minorities are always right. They’re not always right – but they were in this case.”
All at The Steeple Times today salute Melvyn. His analysis was utterly (sadly) brilliant.
1931 Bentley Tourer nicknamed ‘The Harem Saloon’ because of its first owner’s penchant for taking spins with his lady friends for sale for £1.15 million
A 1931 8-litre Bentley Tourer that got the nickname ‘The Harem Saloon’ because it was first used by a Chinese Mau owner to take his girlfriends to the races in Singapore is on sale at a price of £1.15 million ($1.54 million, €1.30 million or درهم5.67 million).
The magnificent machine, which was subsequently kept in a mine during the Second World War and then eventually rebodied as a gentleman’s tourer in 2002, retains its original bonnet and scuttle but has effectively been completely rebuilt.
Described as having “very good long legs on the motorway and also around the country lanes without the need of an overdrive,” the car is said to have “behaved impeccably with no problems” on “numerous trips down to Le Mans” and is now offered by Richard Biddulph of Vintage & Prestige Classic Cars of Grays, Essex.
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“Dapper Dan” and “quasi New Yorker” Isaac Hindin-Miller established his online presence “at the very beginning of the blogging boom” in 2008. A “shameless self-promoter”, New Zealand born Hindin-Miller offers “relationship advice for anybody who asks” and claims not to be afraid of legal spats. He lists his career highlights as having met Kanye West and watching Tyga record Hotel California.
5,000 acre Irish estate where “anything can happen” for sale for £24.1 million; its current owner would prefer a buyer who’ll allow him to use it for three months a year
Michael Jackson hid out at Luggala in County Wicklow, Ireland in 2006 for three months after being cleared of child molestation charges and other guests at this magical estate have included Francis Bacon, Orlando Bloom, Bono, John Paul Getty II, Mel Gibson, John Hurt, Mick Jagger, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Paul McCartney and Anita Pallenberg.
Encompassing a plot of some 5,000 acres, Luggala (meaning: “a hollow in a ridge”) is also known as ‘Fancy Mountain’ and has been used in films including Zardoz, Braveheart and Excalibur. It is located 28 miles south-west of Dublin, was described by the singer Marianne Faithfull as “the most beautiful place in the world” and the main house there has gradually morphed into what has been called “the most decorative honeypot in Ireland”.
Architecturally significant, Luggala Lodge (also known as Luggala Castle), was built in 1787 and is lauded as having “that special brand of 18th century Gothick that rejoices in little battlements, crochets, trefoil and quatrefoil windows and ogee mantelpieces, Indeed, quite like the Gothick of pastry cooks and Rockingham china”. It “boasts all the appurtenances of a grand castle but on a miniature scale” and though standing on a modest footprint, extends to some 7,438 square foot in total.
In 1937, the estate was bought by the Hon. Ernest Guinness (1876 – 1949) and given to his daughter, Oonagh, on her marriage to Lord Oranmore and Browne – a peer with the rare distinction of managing to sit in the House of Lords without ever saying a single thing. It subsequently became a place where “nobody could stay away: Dublin intelligentsia, literati, painters, actors, scholars, hangers-on, toffs, punters, poets and social hang-gliders” and was even immortalised in poetry by Seamus Heaney.
Current owner of Luggala, the decidedly eccentric the Hon. Dr. Garech Browne (born 1939)Luggala Lodge, Roundwood, Leinster, County Wicklow, IrelandLuggala Lodge after a fire in 1956Oonagh Guinness, Oonagh, Lady Oranmore and Browne (1910 – 1995)
On Oonagh, Lady Oranmore and Browne’s death in 1970, the estate passed into the “custody” of her son, the Hon. Dr. Garech Browne. He has spent considerable sums restoring the house and made it a “cultural hub for Irish music, art and literature”. A co-founder of the record label Claddagh Records and instrumental in the formation of the traditional Irish folk group, The Chieftans, Browne and his Indian princess wife, Purna Devi of Morvi, added an indoor swimming pool to Luggala Lodge as well as a Gothic library for his collection of 8,000 books.
Now for sale due to 77-year old Garlech Browne and his wife primarily choosing to be based in Singapore, it has been suggested that the Irish State should purchase the estate. Thus far no offer has been forthcoming and this week Jennifer O’Connell of The Irish Times even penned an article that suggested: “Opening the national chequebook is not the way to secure [Luggala’s] future”.
