As coronavirus threatens to kill off print papers, a salaried opportunity for a journalist has arisen with a church in Rainham, Kent
In April, The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade highlighted the ongoing decline of newspapers in the UK and suggested the coronavirus pandemic would only accelerate this. Going further we argued that this “epoch of change” would make us all the poorer, but, now, we can share a positive piece of news about the press.
Highlighted this morning in the Guardian with the headline: “The good news: Kent church posts vacancy for journalist,” Harriet Sherwood reported that the St Margaret’s parish church in Rainham, Kent is “hiring a full-time journalist to help ‘build community life’ after a survey of parishioners found a demand for local news and communication.”
In their advert for the £20,000 per year salaried post, the church announced:
“For thousands of years, it is story telling which has kept communities together. Now, more than ever before we need someone like you to tell our stories so that we might stay together even when physically we are apart.”
“Whether it’s telling the story of the local fish shop, how the restaurant owners are coping whilst shut or the history behind ‘The Oast’ House and what it’s doing now – we want a multi skilled, qualified journalist to join our staff team as soon as possible.”
“Half of the stories you produce will focus on the local community – its people and groups, schools and new housing. The other half will focus on telling the story of the church, its people, purpose and history. You’ll also take a lead on all of our digital content including overseeing the live streaming of our services. We believe this is an exciting opportunity to make a real difference in a local community through serious journalism.”
The successful candidate will be expected to “originate and produce a wide variety of news and current affairs content for relevant output across the church’s digital platforms and to oversee St Margaret’s digital presence/profile” and will report to the vicar and church wardens.
Of why they had decided to make such an appointment, the bishop of Tonbridge Simon Burton Jones, told the Guardian:
“The shrinkage in local journalism as advertising gravitates online is already having really important consequences at community level. As local papers disappear … their long-standing and important links with their communities can be lost. Online alternatives like clickbait, lists, gossip and the like are no substitute for real journalism.”
A closing date of 22nd June has been set for applications.
The vicar of St Margaret’s, Rainham Reverend Nathan Ward made headlines in April 2018 when it was revealed he was a member of the Magic Circle and performs illusions as part of his church services. ‘Kent Online’ remarked: “The new vicar of Rainham has a few tricks up his sleeves which could have his congregation crying hallelujah,” whilst Ward himself added: “I have been using magic and illusions within the church for many years now. I think it’s a great way of engaging people and also telling some of the stories you can find in the bible. It also allows me to remind people that church should be fun.”
Dominic Cummings mouthpiece Dan Wootton yet again shows himself to be a bit of a berk in attacking both ‘Tatler’ and Sir Keir Starmer in one hit in his column in ‘The Sun’
Dan Wootton has previously been branded a “deeply unpleasant” sort and today he yet again showed his true credentials in attacking two completely unrelated entities, Tatler and Sir Keir Starmer, in his diabolically dire column in The Sun.
Executive editor of the banned-in-Liverpool ‘paper’ Wootton – a New Zealander known for his “less than stellar career” according to Zelo Street – pathetically branded “dripping-with-bile” Tatler a “repulsive… bible for the elite… that makes my skin crawl” simply because it had dared to criticise the Duchess of Cambridge. He raged: “Tatler should be shunned because of the vile way it perpetuates a class system that does so much damage to society. Not Quite Our Magazine, Darling.”
Dan Wootton slammed the “lack of class from snobs at Tatler” on Friday in his “big exclusives, bold opinion” column.
Turning to Sir Keir Starmer, whom thus far has shown himself as quite the stellar opposite of Jeremy Corbyn, self-declared “working-class lad” Wootton’s analysis was clear: “The same old politics from the same old Labour… Up to its old tricks.”
On Dominic Cummings (who’d probably have preferred even Katie Hopkins as a defender): “Make no mistake, the establishment is out to get Dominic Cummings… I despair.”
Twerp of Twitter, ‘Shady Steph’ – a washed-up wastrel who’ll not be giving Albert Einstein a run for his money any day soon – posted the comment: “Shoot the looters” on Monday, but deleted the remark after being quite correctly reminded she’d been arrested for stealing £1,033 ($1,300) of clothing from Neiman Marcus in May 2006. Whilst in custody this rotten ratbag was also found to be in the possession of drugs.
Reported to Twitter for “inciting violence” and called out a “worthless good for nothing tw*t,” pointless pillock Pratt did not stop there. Further examples of this dumb blonde’s recent social media ‘activity’ follows.
Poor lamb – Pratt highlighted her first world problems in May. She couldn’t find an airline willing to take her and her pooch.Shopped out – In April, this alleged-no-longer-a-junkie tried to claim she’d found a new addiction: Amazon. Anyone got a polygraph machine handy?Music’s not her forte – In March, madam shared news of someone we’ve never heard of writing a song about “the horrible coronavirus.” Her sentiments made sense to just about no one.We’re sure the Queen was touched – In January, Pratt claimed to be “in complete denial” about Prince Harry and his wife quitting royal duties. The reality car wreck most likely hankers after the dastardly duo becoming her new ‘besties.’Cleaned out – In November last year, ‘Shady Steph’ shared news that she cleans her house before her cleaner arrives. Anyone surprised? Anyone guessing she might have a lot of white stuff to hoover up?
Entitled Hamptons brat Jonathan Davis exposed for allegedly squatting during the coronavirus lockdown; it turns out he’s a realtor with NestSeekers
Jonathan Davis is the founder of the Hamptons Brewing Company and the son of a self-declared “power broker” realtor named Tim Davis. Aside from also being a property agent and claiming to have been “born and raised” in the summer colony that the wealthy of New York flock to, on Friday, he was exposed as something else – Mr Davis has now been outed as a pesky squatter who allegedly doesn’t pay his rent and goes around wrecking other peoples’ homes.
In March, Davis, a graduate of Lynn University “with a passion for business,” featured in an interview with Fox Business in which he bragged about how much business he was doing because of the coronavirus pandemic. In the typically brash style expected of a privileged preppy prat and speaking on behalf of his bosses at the NestSeekers brokerage, he declared:
“Rental season is starting earlier now. Instead of Memorial Day, it’s 1st April… It’s a very proactive time… There is just more room to breathe out here and families feel safer… It’s not a bad environment to be quarantined.”
According to Inside Edition, completely modest to his core “like father, like son, greatness never dies” Davis – whom according to his broker profile has sold properties priced as high as £9.3 million ($11.5 million, €10.3 million or درهم42.2 million) and pompously lauds himself as a “well-regarded agent” selling “a lifestyle, not just a dream home” according to posts on his Twitter handle – has himself taken advantage of the pandemic at the expense of someone who rented him a house.
The “prominent real estate agent” and “alleged squatter,” the syndicated news-magazine reports, rented a 3-bedroom property in Sag Harbor from Paula Rosado and now “refuses to move out.” Davis is alleged to owe £12,100 ($15,000, €13,500 or درهم55,100) and has supposedly allowed his two German Shepherd dogs to “tear apart” the building and urinate all over her rugs and “couches” [sic]. Windows are reported broken also and of the situation, Rosado moaned: “It’s horrific. It really is just horrific… This has been a complete nightmare for us, for our family emotionally and financially.”
When confronted by Inside Edition’s cameras, Davis refused to comment. His lawyer, meanwhile, angrily stated: “I’ve got no comments except: GET ORF THE GROUNDS!”
The Steeple Times contacted Jonathan Davis and his bosses at NestSeekers – CEO and founder Eddie Shapiro, Bridgehampton salesperson Dylan Eckardt and associate broker Peggy Zabakolas – for comment on Saturday. They all failed to respond by 11am GMT Monday and thus provided illustration of the “ethics, integrity, loyalty, education, ingenuity and courage” by which Shapiro’s firm operates by. Allow NestSeekers into your home at your peril.
Pictured top: Jonathan Davis looking annoyed alongside his ritzy Land Rover Discovery and a police officer.
The home rented to Jonathan Davis by Paula Rosado.The gardens of the Sag Harbor property now resemble something inhabited by Stig of the Dump. They were supposedly immaculate prior to Jonathan Davis moving in.Property owner Paula Rosado spoke to ‘Inside Edition’ to share her frustrations.On the Instagram page for his brewing company, Jonathan Davis declares: “A good time starts here.” As can be seen from this image, a good time is not being had by his caged dogs.Jonathan Davis’ unnamed legal representative made quite a scene, when asked for a comment.Mr Davis, however, surprisingly for a mouthy realtor, had little to nothing to say.Davis does like to brag about his supposed successes on his NestSeekers broker profile though. One Hamptons local we approached commented: “I wouldn’t trust him with a garden hoe.”
Eaton Square apartment for sale for £22.5 million in spite of needing complete renovation; it is listed at a price 25% cheaper than it was five years earlier in identical condition
80 Eaton Square in Belgravia is an address where two well-known names have both lived (albeit it very briefly). Ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925 – 2013) “temporarily” resided in a “Greek shipowner’s flat” there after leaving office whilst the American financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795 – 1869) stayed and died in the home of the Anglo-American fur merchant Sir Curtis Lampson (1806 – 1885).
Grade II* listed and featuring a Greater London Council blue plaque commemorating Peabody, the stucco fronted building on the square’s northern terrace featured in The Steeple Times in September 2015. At that time, part of its ground and basement floors were placed for sale for the not too shabby sum of £30 million ($37 million, €33.4 million or درهم135.9 million) in spite of being a “complete wreck.”
Now, five years later and most surprisingly in no better condition, the very same apartment has been relisted for just £22.5 million ($27.8 million, €25 million or درهم102 million) through agents Chestertons.
Extending in total to 6,173 square foot, the duplex was previously promoted with a fancy design scheme by David Collins Studio but now is simply listed as a “5 bedroom maisonette” with “potential to create one of the finest homes in Eaton Square.” It comes with a private garden to the rear and access to the communal spaces of the square also.
Pictured top: Baroness Thatcher, the entrance to 80 Eaton Square and a statue of George Peabody.
Eaton Square’s ‘Famous Faces’
Considered one of the best addresses in London and built for and still mostly owned by the Grosvenor family, Eaton Square features six adjoining, tree-planted gardens dissected by a four lane highway between Victoria and Sloane Square.
Amongst the well-known people who have variously lived in the square are:
Rare photograph of Winston Churchill dining with Edward VIII to be sold as part of a sale on the eve of the 80th anniversary of him becoming Prime Minister
Offered as part of the ‘Churchill in Charge – 80th Anniversary’ sale that concludes tomorrow, Wednesday 20th May, Sotheby’s New York is auctioning online a photograph signed by both Winston Churchill and Edward VIII.
Part of a collection built up over 37 years by Chartwell Booksellers, the independently owned Manhattan bookstore “home to the world’s finest selection of rare Churchilliana,” the framed 10-by-8-inch image was taken on the 28th February 1925 at a farewell dinner for Frank Kellogg, the retiring American Ambassador to Great Britain at the Hotel Victoria, London.
In a reversal of roles, Edward, Prince of Wales is the one whom appears to be scowling in the picture whilst Winston Churchill, for once, is the one smiling.‘The Steeple Times’ has previously featured items of Churchilliana available at auction. In January 2014, an unsmoked cigar and a cigar stub collected by Sir Winston Churchill’s care nurse whilst he was in the Middlesex Hospital in London in July 1962 sold for £812 ($993, €906 or درهم3,648).
Also in the image alongside ‘Our Smiling Prince’ (as Edward, Prince of Wales – as he then was – was nicknamed) and ‘Our Scowling PM’ (as the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Churchill became known) are Ambassador Charles Kellogg (US ambassador from 1924 to 1925) and William Grenfell, Baron Desborough.
Of the lot and the evening the photograph was taken, Sotheby’s remark:
The dinner was convened by The Pilgrims of Great Britain society, whose motto appears on a framed sign behind the table: “Hic et Ubique” (“Here and Everywhere”). The Pilgrims society was founded in 1902 “to promote good-will, good-fellowship, and everlasting peace between the United States and Great Britain.”
Winston Churchill was serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer to Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin at the time of this photograph. Baron Desborough was an athlete of renown in Great Britain, as well as a politician, and the president of the Pilgrims society. His wife, known as “Ettie,” was one of England’s great society hostesses, a leading figure in the social group “The Souls,” entertaining luminaries at their country house, Taplow Court, such as H.G. Wells, Vita Sackville-West, Oscar Wilde, and, of course, the Prince of Wales and Winston Churchill. The couple lost two sons in the trenches during World War I, including Julian Grenfell, a noted war poet.
The Prince of Wales would ascend to the throne upon the death of his father, King George V, in January 1936. He and Winston Churchill were longtime friends. Churchill almost destroyed his own political career attempting to ward off abdication and save Edward’s crown. In the end, he failed. Edward VIII renounced the throne on December 9, 1936 to marry his commoner love, Wallis Warfield Simpson.
A starting bid of £12,245 ($15,000, €13,695 or درهم55,088) has been set for the photograph along with a high estimate of £19,588 ($24,000, €21,907 or درهم88,140). As of this morning, there have been no bids for the lot.
Triplex apartment in Knightsbridge building once home to Marianne Faithfull for sale for the astounding sum of £25 million
Marianne Faithfull has been recuperating in London after being treated for coronavirus in April, but even with her wealth the singer-songwriter is unlikely to be able to afford to return to where she lived at 29 Lennox Gardens in Knightsbridge for several years from 1967. An apartment that forms the majority part of that Grade II listed building is now for sale for the staggering sum of £24.75 million ($30 million, €27.7 million or درهم110 million).
Marianne Faithfull pictured in her apartment in the building in 1967. She lived there with her then husband John Dunbar and their son, Nicholas, but left to live with Mick Jagger. At the time, she told ‘New Musical Express’: “My first move was to get a Rolling Stone as a boyfriend, I slept with three and decided the lead singer was best.”Residents of Lennox Gardens have access to its private communal gardens. They were laid out on the site of the Prince’s Cricket Ground – the location of the famed Gentlemen of England vs. Australians and Players vs. Australians game in 1878. In 2017, we featured another £35 million flat overlooking this garden square also.
Spread over three floors and extending to 5,280 square foot, the triplex is a complete contrast to the ordinary “white suburban bedroom” Faithfull imagined in her song The Ballad of Lucy Jordan. A far-cry from the drug riddled existence she subsequently slipped into, the ground floor, basement and first floor apartment includes a large formal drawing room, a family dining kitchen and a separate chef’s kitchen, a media and wine room, five bedroom suites and two courtyard gardens.
The leasehold with share of freehold property – redeveloped by London Land Asset Management and designers 1508 London “on behalf of a private investor” – is offered by agents Strutt & Parker. The building was in recent years primarily home to the socialite-philanthropist Pia Hahn Marocco and its top floors offered to rent at a sum of £15,167 per month ($18,357, €16,966 or درهم67,416 per month).
1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino in 2001 – to be auctioned
On 8th January 2001, “shop assistant turned model turned multi-millionairess many times over turned fugitive” (via a stretch in what American’s so pleasantly term ‘pokey’) Countess Francesca Vacca Agusta “disappeared” from the terrace of her Ligurian seaside home. The series of events that preceded and followed could have featured in an Agatha Christie novel or a Sherlock Holmes story.
Graffagni saw off the business tycoon’s first wife, Pupetta Maresca, after a torrid affair and following their marriage in 1974, amongst other things, became chatelaine of a 40-room property complete with a helipad. It had been built in 1870 by George Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon – whose death was attributed by amongst others Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the “curse of King Tut” – as his holiday home and during the 1970s and 1980s guests to “jet-set parties” given at the house by the socialite Countess were ferried back and forth from their dock in Portofino harbour in a custom built 1978 Piaggio Ape coachbuilt ‘limousine.’ This vehicle, described as a “perfect yacht tender” with its opulently patterned interior and passenger-driver intercom, is now for sale.
Countess Francesca Agusta (née Francesca Vacca Graffagni, 29th October 1942 – 8th January 2001). It is most surprising that the late Dominick Dunne did not make a television programme about her life and demise.Villa Altachiara (alternatively known as ‘Villa Alta Chiara’ or ‘Villa Carnarvon’) was one of Countess Agusta’s homes from the 1960s until her death in 2001; it was originally built as a holiday home for Lord Carnarvon (26th June 1866 – 5th April 1923) – the financier of Howard Carter’s explorations of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings that led to the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The Carnarvon family hosted many guests during their ownership, amongst them Brooke Astor and Evelyn Waugh.
Count Agusta died in 1989 without divorcing his second wife in spite of separating from her in 1985. At that time, in addition to Villa Altachiara, he had given her four apartments in Milan, an estate in Cuernavaca, Mexico, family jewellery and an undisclosed cash sum. With his demise, she came into yet further fortune.
This by-then “very wealthy woman” hit the headlines again in 1994 when she and her new lover, a “former Portofino playboy politician [named] Maurizio Raggio,” were discovered to have been part of a corruption scandal involving Bettino Craxi, the Prime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987. Before police could apprehend them to charge them with amongst other things money laundering, the pair fled to Mexico and lived on her estate until 1997 as fugitives. During this period, the Countess reportedly attempted suicide at least once.
Upon her return to Italy, the Countess plea-bargained and spent just three months in Milan’s Opera prison for her crimes in spite of receiving a two-year jail sentence. After “some further time under house arrest” in the Villa Altachiara, the “retired” gadabout then took up with a Mexican, Tirso ‘Tito’ Chazaro (also known as ‘Tirso Di Ricardo’ and ‘Rafael Tirso Roncado Gonzales’), and lived in the style of Miss Havisham. She was rarely seen in public and having become dependent on drink and drugs, was known for her erratic behaviour and temper.
“Considerably the worse for wear and muttering she would not be coming back” on the night of 8th January 2001, the Countess supposedly told her lover and two others present that she was going for a swim, but either slipped on wet leaves or was pushed off a veranda into the sea. A search followed, but after the only traces found were the Countess’s dressing gown on the seabed close to the Villa Altachiara and her slippers on nearby rocks, press reports suggested she had either committed suicide or, given her past form, staged an “elaborate disappearing act.”
Countess Agusta’s badly decomposed body washed up three weeks later on a beach at Toulon on the French Riviera. Her feet had been gnawed off by fish, her skull was smashed and her face was disfigured. She could only be identified by two rings she was wearing and her exact cause of death could thus not be determined.
As an autopsy found no trace of water in her lungs, she plainly did not die by drowning, but in in 2004 the Countess’s brother, Domenico Vacca Graffagni, was quoted in the Independent as stating: “The [original] inquiry was closed in a hasty fashion because of absence of proof, relying too readily on ‘reasonable doubt’ … It was manslaughter. He [Chazaro] was always beating her. He didn’t mean to kill her. But that evening things didn’t go the way the Carabinieri said, my sister was not drunk and she did not slip on wet leaves on the veranda.”
Adding further to speculation, much earlier, the Countess’s step-son, racing driver and team owner Rocky Agusta (1950 – 2018), told Corriere della Sera in 2001: “Francesca was a beautiful woman, simpatica, very rich… People have written that she inherited 500bn lire, but if it had been only 50 or 25, who commits suicide with 25bn lire set aside? … The people who were around her certainly did not help her… It’s not up to me to formulate accusations, but Francesca was not alone that night. She was very upset. She should have been put to bed. Instead, they let her go out into a dark, wet, cold night, not even dressed.”
In due course, the last of many wills left by Countess Agusta revealed Tirso Chazaro to be her sole beneficiary, but after this was challenged in court by her former lover, Maurizio Raggio, the pair split the legacy – reported to be worth as much as £165 million ($201 million, €186 million or درهم738 million) according to the Guardian in 2001 – sixty-forty between them.
In 2009, the Villa Altachiara was offered for sale initially for £44 million ($54 million, €50 million or درهم198 million) and then for £30 million ($37 million, €34 million or درهم135 million) in 2014. It supposedly eventually sold for less than half that sum to a Russian billionaire a number of years later in spite of an estate agent remarking: “Some say the spirit of Countess Francesca Vacca Agusta still walks the estate looking for her husband and you can hear her shouting for him on the wind.”
An estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000) for the Countess’s Piaggio Ape. Described as “sweet” and “[anything but] an Italian tuk-tuk” by RideApart, the one-off private taxi will be auctioned as part of the forthcoming RM Sotheby’s ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 online sale. One can only hope it finds a happier home than it encountered at that of its former mistress.
Private island just 75 miles from New York for sale for just £650,000; it could make an ideal downsize from Necker for Sir Richard Branson
Created from pink granite bedrock that once formed hilltops prior to the last ice age, the 365 islands that form The Thimbles in Connecticut are mostly uninhabited rest stops for migrating seals.
With 81 houses across the 23 inhabited islands, 14 of those isles have only a single residence on them and now someone with £652,000 to spare can join past residents who’ve counted President William H. Taft and purchase one named Jepson Island.
An aerial shot of Jepson Island.
Only accessible by boat from the nearby village of Stony Creek, Branford the tiny 0.77-acre island is dominated by a 962 square foot “contemporary vacation” bungalow with two bedrooms and a bathroom. It has power from a generator and passive solar power, mains ‘city’ water and is offered for sale fully furnished.
Situated just 75 miles from New York City, Jepson Island is described by agents William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty as “the ultimate easy, nearby escape.”
The Names & Numbers – Jepson Island, Branford, Connecticut, CT 06405, United States of America
May 2020 – Jepson Island is offered for sale for £652,000 ($800,000, €737,000 or درهم1.2 million) through William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty. Two other islands available include 0.77-acre Wheelers Island at £2.4 million ($3 million, €2.8 million or درهم11 million) and the 1.04-acre Belden Island at £1.2 million ($1.5 million, €1.4 million or درهم5.5 million).
2016 – Offered for sale as part of an “eight island deal” for £63.5 million ($78 million, €71.9 million or درهم286.5 million) by owners Edmund and Christine Stoecklein.
Late 1990s to early 2000s – Christine Stoecklein, widow of John Svenningsen (president of the party goods manufacturer Amscan Holdings Inc), bought a number of the Thimble Islands for a total of £24.4 million ($30 million, €27.7 million or درهم110.2 million).
Prolific party pest David Pun spotted wandering in Waterloo having a coronavirus canapé crisis
Spare a thought for David Pun, a deviant, degenerate door list dodger who has most certainly lost out more than most as a result of the coronavirus lockdown.
When free-flowing champagne and crateloads of canapés are the epicentre of your world, the effects of the outbreak of a pandemic plainly were going to be life-changing. In his mind only “director of Harvey Nichols” and in reality, the best-known party crasher in London if not the world, Pun has – much to the delight of his Twitterati following – reemerged.
Looking as disheveled as ever, an image of this washed-up wastrel was shared on social media by one Ben Springett. In the picture, normally ‘any party, anywhere’ Pun appeared next to a bus “looking forlorn whilst searching for a party in Waterloo” along with a swag bag he’d “liberated” from the London Art Fair and the hashtags #lockdown #bagfullofoldcanapes.
Sadly for ‘The Pun,’ not one canapé was harmed in the making of this lockdown episode.
