The Steeple Times

Tag: Tweeting

  • The battleaxe in the Beemer

    The battleaxe in the Beemer

    Matthew Steeples examines the truth behind Liz Jones giving up on her “rural idyll”

     

    The Mail’s Liz Jones is a waspish woman who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Those who’ve paid even a moment’s attention to her bleating, will be familiar with lines such as: “Last week, my brand new £1,300 MacBook Pro broke” and “Phil Spencer wanted his £46,000 and he wanted it now!” She never stops talking about money and the size of what she both owns and owes.

     

    Liz Jones

    In today’s Femail, Jones bores on about about how she feels “like a cross-dresser” trying out the Kardashian Kollection of clothing in a pointed attack on Kim Kardashian, but it was for her diatribe yesterday that she truly got the goat of the nation in “[bidding] a ferocious farewell” to life in the country in an article entitled “Goodbye
 and good riddance!” 2,151 people have commented so far and most of them have been far from sympathetic.

     

    When Upcott Farm at Brushford, near Dulverton in Somerset came up for sale in 2007 at a price of £1.6 million, it featured in an article by The Telegraph’s Caroline McGhie. The 5-bedroomed farmhouse came with a 2-bedroom annexe, a courtyard of barns and stables and 47 acres of land. McGhie waxed lyrical about the merits of moving to this location: “People come here for the peace and quiet, the night skies, the dramatic coastline, and they work from home,” she stated before adding: “You can find everything here, including butchers, bakers, afternoon tea and cake, fish and chips, an art gallery and a shop selling fishing tackle.” Of Upcott Farm itself, she concluded:

     

    “This would suit a member of the new wave of buyers dubbed Droppies (Disillusioned Relatively Ordinary Professionals Preferring Independent Employment Situations).”

     

    McGhie got it half right: Upcott Farm sold to someone who considers herself far from “relatively ordinary” and someone who is far from “professional.” The purchaser, however, was certainly someone who’d become “disillusioned” with what she’d bought and someone whose desire to be “independent” and create a “situation” just alienated all she encountered. The buyer, you’ve guessed it, was none other than Elizabeth Ann Jones.

     

    Jones was born in Brentwood, Essex in 1958 and studied journalism at the London College of Printing. She became editor of Marie Claire in 1999 but was sacked, she herself suggests, for “listing in the magazine the freebies she had been offered in the previous month.” Here, it seems, began Jones’s obsession with all things material and here she also met an Indian BBC radio journalist named Nirpal Dhaliwal in 2000.

     

    Jones married Dhaliwal but the union was to prove an “utter disaster” as he had affairs with women she terms “younger, dimmer [and] slimmer.” “I’m no racist” Jones was divorced in 2007 and said goodbye to her “3,000 square foot of Islington real estate” and “easy, if super-busy, London life” in favour of the green, green grass of Somerset.

     

    Upcott Farm, Brushford, Dulverton, Somerset, TA22 9RS

    Whoever’s side you see it from, five years of hell followed. Jones baited the locals and they grew to loathe her. She wrote columns and a book, The Exmoor Files, where she attacked them as “faintly Amish
 feral, old and smelly” and another hack and neighbour, Jane Alexander of The Telegraph, responded: “Dulverton [was] positively fizzing with fury” after each and every publication.

     

    Of the local restaurants, Jones stated:

     

    “I have given up trying to eat out in restaurants here on Exmoor
 It is still stuck in the Seventies, with only things in baskets and rum babas on the menu
 If you tell the waiter you are vegetarian, you are stared at, incredulously, as if you are black.”

     

    She whinged about her inability to find love:

     

    ”I will never, ever meet a man here in the middle of a moor, where even to be in possession of your own teeth is a bonus.”

     

    And whined about fieldsports:

     

    “I didn’t increase my popularity by being unable to pass a party of men and often children with guns, shooting rabbits and deer, without getting out of my BMW and saying: ‘Do you really have nothing better to do with your Saturday morning?’ The look of shock on their faces that I had the cheek to challenge them was priceless. I would stop, too, and shout at huntsmen on horses, galloping on tarmaced roads, one hand on the reins, the other clamping a mobile phone to their heads. ‘You will ruin your horses’ tendons!’ I would wail.”

     

    Whilst Jones found little to like in her new community, they found nothing positive in her arrival either. Her dog was blamed for worrying lambs, and Jones’s inability to control it, locals say, was an indicator of the chasm between her life and theirs. In 2009, one neighbour went as far as to tell Danny Brierley of The Independent:

     

    “We have got nothing in common with her, really. I think she may find it difficult to make any kind of life here now. She is not a very friendly person and we are all sick to death of talking about Liz Jones. A hatred has been building up for months. She is actually having a go at people and they are not going to tolerate that. She has feelings like all people, of course she has. But everyone wants her to leave and leave now. No one can make her, but we think she will go. I don’t see how you can live in such a small community with people who think that way about you.”

     

    Matters came to a head when Jones’s precious black BMW convertible, “bought in 2005 for £26,000,” was pelted with eggs and teenagers fired shots at her letterbox with an air rifle. A local councilor even dressed up as her in the local carnival and yesterday Jones took revenge on those she blames for her “five-year prison sentence” and deprivation from Space NK, Cath Kidston and Illy coffee.

     

    Instead, the article just shows the true reality of this bombastic harpy. The lines Jones penned speak for themselves. Country people don’t welcome someone who planned to “hack for miles across the open moorland in my Prada jodhpurs” anymore than the folk of Knightsbridge welcome Arabs treating their roads like racetracks. The gardener who had to endure Jones yelling “walk faster!” at him didn’t deserve such anymore than a bus driver in SW11 deserves abuse from his passengers. Jones concludes:

     

    “I’m now a different person. I became so lonely. I would often get in my car, not just for the warmth, but for the kind voice of the satnav lady. I’ve learned that an amazing view and a pair of nesting grey herons are not enough to make me happy.”

     

    27 acres of land including paddocks and a fishing lake remain on the market through Savills and Strutt & Parker at a price of ÂŁ200,000 at Upcott Farm

    Miss Jones bleats that she’s taken a £500,000 loss on Upcott Farm, which languished on the market at first at £1,900,000 and then £1,750,000 for three years. The “unexpected” sale of the property has given her the ability to “flee back to the city” but the locals and even the “Droopies” should be warned: there’s still 27 acres of the farm unsold and on the market at a price of £200,000. Halloween may have passed but the battleaxe in the Beemer could still call again.

     

    Read yesterday’s “Goodbye
 and good riddance!” article by Liz Jones for the Mail on Sunday at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2231033/Goodbye–good-riddance-During-catastrophic-years-country-Liz-Jones-greeted-gun-attack-relentless-abuse-Now-flees-city-bids-ferocious-farewell.html

     

    To purchase Liz Jones’s book, The Exmoor Diaries, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Exmoor-Files-Husband-Found-Rural/dp/0297854437

     

    For more information about the remaining 27 acres at Upcott Farm, contact Strutt & Parker on +44 (0) 1392 976005 or go to: http://www.primelocation.com/for-sale/details/18314693?search_identifier=71cbb8a2fb43a12182bfa7b79b5de0a3

  • Nad's not that Mad

    Matthew Steeples suggests that Nadine Dorries is perhaps right to head for the jungle

     

    Don’t get me wrong: I think Nadine Dorries is an utter loon. For those who haven’t heard of her, she’s the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire and a bit of a mouthpiece. Her entry on our roll call attracted over 8,000 hits yesterday and that alone is clear indication that she, unlike the majority of dimwits that occupy the Houses of Parliament, is an MP who gets noticed.

     

    Nadine Dorries heads for the jungle

    “Gets noticed,” I hear you splutter. Yes, she’s someone who loves the limelight and doesn’t care whom she offends. She’s best known for having described David Cameron and George Osborne as a pair of “arrogant posh boys” who “don’t know the price of milk” and is regularly derided for her “maverick” ways. Here is a woman who gets compared to Ann Widdecombe and Edwina Currie and one that hasn’t let her party tell her what to do.

     

    In the House of Commons she’s achieved little apart from becoming a figure of fun. She’s commonly known as “Mad Nad” and the media reel her out whenever they fancy a bit of sport. Dorries can be relied upon to produce lines such as: “[I’m] not an MP for any other reason other than because God wants me to be” and these indeed are classic examples of her idiocy.

     

    On Tuesday, it was announced that Ms. Dorries, on full parliamentary pay, has headed off to Australia to participate in the ITV1 television series I’m a Celebrity
 Get Me Out of Here! For this, she’s pocketing a fee of circa £40,000 and will, without doubt, rake in a lot more in appearance fees and for interviews on her return. MPs and the media derided this move but I congratulate her.

     

    Martha Payne

    I cannot disagree with those who state that she’d be fired if she were in a normal job and just disappeared for a month, but “Mad Nad” has realised that the Conservative Party is not the place for her. She has plainly come to the conclusion that the House of Commons is nothing other than a chamber full of hot air and that to get things changed, you follow the example of the schoolgirl Martha Payne and use technology and the media to the max. With NeverSeconds, this fearless 9-year old took on the might of a council and improved school dinners. In the meantime, MPs haven’t even been able to come up with an appropriate solution to restore the Houses of Parliament, let alone solve a nation in the midst of economic meltdown.

     

    Frankly, we have too many MPs in this country and they don’t work hard enough. In total, there are 650 and this corresponds to one for every 68,000 parliamentary electors. It would be better to halve this number and double the pay of the remainder. We’d get better quality people applying to be our representatives and people like “Mad Nad” would be a thing of the past. Nadine Dorries isn’t an A-list “celebrity” but she should most certainly stick to the jungle.

     

    Follow Nadine Dorries on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/nadinedorriesmp

  • The Savile defence

    The Savile defence

    Hugo Istay discovers Jimmy Savile’s most unlikely advocates: The Daily Mail

     

    Here are some quotes from that bastion of the country’s morals, The Daily Mail. Apparently Jimmy Savile had been collecting ones like these for years to aid his defence should the proverbial hit the fan.

     

    A screenshot of the somewhat “sexed-up” first version of the MailOnline article

    A screenshot of the somewhat “toned-down” second version of the MailOnline article

     

    He was going to kick off his case with:

     

    “Elle Fanning looks all grown up at 14.”

     

    And then follow up with:

     

    “She may be only 14, but rising star Elle Fanning isn’t counting on her good genes or youth to keep her slim. Wearing black cropped spandex jazz dance pants and orange Nike trainers, the little sister of Dakota had obviously been letting loose in the dance studio as her usually silky hair was hanging down in a sweaty tangle.”

     

    No sexual innuendo there, then.

     

    Next, he’d add:

     

    ”Dressed in a satin babydoll-style top, black skinny jeans and patent peep-toe wedges, Elle looked mature beyond her 14 years.”

     

    Or this:

     

    “She has a maturity that belies her years, so sometimes it’s difficult to remember that Elle Fanning is only fourteen years old.”

     

    And, if all else failed:

     

    “The 14-year-old took to Instagram to share a photograph of her Halloween outfit and wasn’t afraid to flaunt her curves for the camera.”

     

    He then planned to sum up with:

     

    “So it wasn’t my fault M’Lud, I was misled and egged on by the Daily Mail.”

     

    Maybe there should be a crime of journalistic paedophilia.

     

    Read the Mail Online’s original (now edited) article at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2226294/Halloween-2012-Elle-Fanning-pays-homage-New-Yorks-Statue-Liberty.html

     

    This article was originally published on Hugo Istay’s blog. Follow him at: http://hugoistay.wordpress.com/

  • Hugh Bonneville

    Hugh Bonneville

    In his role as Downton Abbey’s Lord Grantham, this actor warned that “scandals” always have a habit of coming out. He graduated in Theology at Cambridge but, according to Adam Helliker of the Daily Express, Bonneville wasn’t especially keen to show Christian compassion towards Lord Archer at a party at The Cadogan Hotel when it was requested that the pair be photographed together.

  • Bravo the Beeb

    Bravo the Beeb

    Matthew Steeples reacts to the BBC quietly dropping the “Sir”

     

    This morning when I turned on Radio 4’s Today programme, as has become customary in the last weeks, the first item on the news was about a man who will forever be associated with abuse and paedophilia, Jimmy Savile.

     

    In recent days, as more and more allegations have surfaced against the Jim’ll Fix It presenter, politicians like David Cameron have looked to make hay by calling for Savile to posthumously lose his knighthood. They talk twaddle as such a title cannot be taken from you once you are dead as that very title actually dies with you. To actually “remove” the title would involve a costly change in the law and frankly, as disgusting as this pervert now appears to have plainly been, is it really worth the expense and parliamentary time during these times of austerity?

     

    Plain old Jimmy Savile

    When Jeffrey Archer was jailed, calls were made to strip him of his seat in the Lords. In, my humble opinion, rightly, nothing was done. Since leaving prison, Lord Archer has righted his wrongs by doing much good. Archer’s situation and crimes, I admit, were different to those of Savile but his and that of Lord Lucan should be a guide.

     

    If Jimmy Savile were to lose his title now, should the hereditary title of Lord Lucan also be removed? Should his son lose a title because, even though never convicted, his presumed deceased father stands accused of the murder of his children’s nanny? This area of law could indeed become very complex and frankly the exploration of it is pointless.

     

    The Today programme, however, have found a far simpler and cheaper solution. This morning, they did what we should all do. They now simply refer to this revolting individual as plain old “Jimmy Savile.” Let’s all follow this lead, drop the “Sir” and leave it at that.

  • Now who’d want to live in a house like this?

    Now who’d want to live in a house like this?

    Matthew Steeples discovers a penthouse that even the most ambitious estate agent may struggle to flog

     

    Estate agents are a tough breed and there are very few properties that they might admit could verge on being impossible to sell. We believe, however, that we might have found one that could be in the same league as, perhaps, the homes of Myra Hindley, Harold Shipman or John Christie. In fact, this Leeds penthouse could be even more difficult to sell given how many photographs the last owner had taken there during his lifetime.

     

    The exterior of Lake View Court, Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS8 2TX gives little a way other than the resemblance to a Soviet apartment block
    The penthouse enjoys superb views across Roundhay Park and the Waterloo Lake
    The split-level 33ft reception offers a vast entertaining space and comes complete with a shagpile carpet that Austin Powers would be proud of
    In view of their tiling advertisement, perhaps the owner did a deal with Callerton Kitchens (http://www.callerton.co.uk)
    A bedroom gives further indication that this place hasn’t had much done to it since the 1970s

    On first inspection, this 3-bedroomed £325,000 top floor flat in Lake View Court at Roundhay in Leeds sounds like it could be a bargain. It includes a 33ft by 13ft split-level living room, a large balcony, a fitted kitchen (that bizarrely features tiling prominently displaying the name of the kitchen’s manufacturer, Callerton Kitchens), 2 bathrooms, a single garage and a double parking space in an underground garage.

     

    Though the agents, Alan Cooke, give a hint that it needs a complete makeover when they state that the apartment is “now ripe for improvement,” it has a “security entry phone system, an automatic lift giving private access, gas central heating system and double glazing.” They also add that it features a “magnificent outlook” across Roundhay Park and the Waterloo Lake and is on a lease of 125 years from 1971. The ground rent is just £60 per annum and a maintenance charge of £2,000 per annum doesn’t seem to be too bad either.

     

    “And here, for our home and studio audience, here’s who house it was…” Jimmy Savile
    This image of Savile in a state of undress might indeed have put off a few buyers
    Savile pictured in the reception room of the penthouse

    Now what could be wrong with this pad and why has it languished on the market since the summer? Well, it turns out that this is the former main home of the late Jimmy Savile. Though his possessions were removed and auctioned some months ago, the disgraced television presenter’s tawdry style of dĂ©cor remains as a legacy of his occupation of the flat. One simply would not want to think of what the Jim’ll Fix It presenter got upto in this place and frankly, who’d want to move into this poisoned chalice?

     

    Equally, we don’t think Loyd Grossman will be calling round at any point in the near future to ask: “Now, who’d want to live in a house like this?”

     

    For more information on The Penthouse, Lake View Court, Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS8 2TX, contact agents Alan Cooke Moortown, Moortown, Leeds, LS17 6PY on +44 (0) 113 288 8666.

     

    See full details of the property at: http://www.alancooke.co.uk/property_details.php?id=116111

  • “As it ‘appens,” sir, Jimmy’s ‘ad you too

    “As it ‘appens,” sir, Jimmy’s ‘ad you too

    The purchaser of Sir Jimmy Savile’s Rolls-Royce whinges about his lacking lot

     

    As 14 police forces announce that they are investigating an astonishing 340 leads and the claims of 40 alleged victims of Sir Jimmy Savile, we at The Steeple Times were equally astounded when we received a Tweet from one of our most esteemed followers @veniviedivici this afternoon.

     

    In his Tweet, @veniviedivici provided a link to a SKY News “exclusive” with the purchaser of a 2002 Rolls-Royce Corniche that had been sold by auctioneers Dreweatts as part of an auction of the possessions of the late Savile that took place on the 30th July.

     

    Charlotte Leeming of the BBC with the former Sir Jimmy Savile Rolls-Royce Corniche. Follow her on Twitter at @lottyleeming
    Bidders at the Dreweatts auction of the possessions of the late Sir Jimmy Saville in Leeds on 30th July 2012

    At the time, the Rolls-Royce, which Savile had (rather appropriately – given the current turn in events) nicknamed “The Beast,” was listed in the auction catalogue at a guide price of ÂŁ60,000 to ÂŁ90,000. It eventually sold for ÂŁ130,000. With a buyer’s premium, this figure totaled a figure of ÂŁ161,000 and of it the anonymous buyer, a scrap dealer from Poole in Dorset, told SKY News:

     

    “I never met him, but he was someone I’ve grown up with. I’ll only drive it now and again.”

     

    He added: “I bought it on a whim,” whilst the disappointed underbidder, a “colourful pie and peas” charity fundraiser named Leon Parrish, stated:

     

    “I’m gutted. Good to luck to him [the buyer] but at the end, I hated him.”

     

    He had a lucky escape: charity fundraiser Leon Parrish was pipped at the post and missed out on buying the late Sir Jimmy Savile’s 2002 Rolls-Royce Corniche

    Mr Parrish may now have changed his mind. Readers may also recall our own coverage of the sale and we even admit to having been somewhat hoodwinked by Savile’s supposed largesse in the statement we made at the time:

     

    “Jim fixed it that all proceeds will go to charity. Even in death, this top dollar gent continues to do good.”

     

    Since then, Savile has been exposed at worst as a rapist and paedophile and at best as a dirty old creep. As he lies in a concrete encased grave (minus it’s headstone now), we retract our last sentence. He was not a good man and sadly, though he’ll be forever remembered as a disgrace, he’ll never face a single charge.

     

    The new owner of Savile’s Rolls-Royce Corniche, as a result of the media furore over the current allegations, is certainly not laughing but today when he gave a bleeding heart interview, he just made a pathetic fool of himself. Here are a few sentences from it:

     

    “I don’t want to be associated with it
 I’m just gutted because all of this should have come out beforehand
 The only way that car will sell is to get the Savile name off of it and try to sell it for ÂŁ70,000 if I’m lucky
 I’ve never even driven it
 I bought it, they delivered it, I had it picked up, they took it to Surrey for servicing [he’s had to spend ÂŁ8,000 on the brakes and other problems with the car] and it’s still there
 A lot of people spent a lot of money on that stuff [other items in the Dreweatt sale], tracksuits and that, and they’ve got to burn them now because they’re worth nothing
 I’ve got my lawyers looking at it now, but my solicitor has spoken to a barrister and he seemed to think none of us had a leg to stand on.”

     

    The scrap dealer went on to add that his plans to rent the car out for weddings and children’s parties had been scuppered but worse still, he informed Gerard Tubb of Sky News that his wife knew nothing of his somewhat stupid purchase:

     

    “She’d absolutely kill me, I’d get thrown out
 Probably she knows deep down, but I’ve just got to deny it because I wouldn’t get away with this one.”

     

    Whoever he may be, this scrap dealer is truly not worthy of any of our sympathies. He bought a car unseen and didn’t adhere to the principle: “Caveat emptor.” We at The Steeple Times have no sympathies for this nitwit.

     

    Read the SKY News 31st July interview with the purchaser of Sir Jimmy Savile’s Rolls-Royce at: http://news.sky.com/story/996611/buyer-of-jimmy-saviles-rolls-royce-gutted

     

    Read The Steeple Times article about the sale of the car at: http://thesteepletimes.com/opulence-splendour/a-top-roller

     

    Read the SKY News 12th October interview with the owner of the former Jimmy Savile Rolls-Royce at: http://news.sky.com/story/996611/buyer-of-jimmy-saviles-rolls-royce-gutted

     

    Follow @veniviedivici at: http://twitter.com/veniviedivici

     

  • The Hon. Imogen Lloyd Webber

    The Hon. Imogen Lloyd Webber

    The daughter of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber lives in New York and is a contributor to MSNBC. Her Single Girl’s Guide was published in both the UK and America and her debut show Touched
 For The Very First Time was a mighty success in the West End in 2009. Described as a “petite polymath,” Imogen Lloyd Webber digitally published The Twitter Diaries in May 2012. Turning tweets into a novel, this co-written e-book has been lauded as: “Bridget Jones tries social networking.”

     

  • Hakim Berkani

    Hakim Berkani

    A former parking warden who was probably the only decent one out there. He refused to behave like his grasping colleagues in Kensington & Chelsea (who referred to themselves as “Ali Baba and his 40 thieves”) and got constructively dismissed as a result. He rightly got ÂŁ20,000 in compensation at an industrial tribunal but decently commented: “’I’m very disappointed because I believe that justice has not been done. My job was worth more to me than any amount of money.”