Rent-a-gob stand-in for Rod Liddle at ‘The Sun’ Olivia Utley shows herself to be nothing but a big-mouthed berk in brainlessly banging on about Brexit; she should eff off!
“Chuffed to be filling in for Rod Liddle today,” 27-year-old Olivia Utley is exactly the kind of person you’d expect to big herself up and this week was no exception for this motormouthed maniac.
Utley, a somewhat tepid try-hard attempt at being Katie Hopkins yet a fan of David Cameron strangely also, on Friday, was given space to spout her views in The Sun. In a column that’d make even Karren Brady look rational titled: “It’ll do our spoiled young Remainers good to remain in Britain for the summer holidays,” this “gleefully” childlike upstart not only attacked the lovely Fiona Bruce but also suggested “it would have been easier to have come out as a paedophile than a Brexiteer.” She’d plainly been drinking vinegar as she penned this particularly puerile drivel.
Here, in ramblings rooted in ridiculousness, Tom Utley of the Daily Mail’s “rent-a-reactionary” niece mocked other millenials and stupidly suggested they believed “the Lake District was a fictional place.” She attempted to justify proclaiming there being a “darker side” to young people “knowing nothing about Britain” and that now their “ignorance could finally be shattered.”
Concluding on the subject of how she believes young people will forget Europe in favour of their country of birth, Utley patronisingly argued: “Reconnected to their roots at last, they might just begin to feel the first stirrings of patriotism running through their British veins.” We’d suggest otherwise: They’re more likely to just tell this moron to eff off!
On Thursday, Olivia Utley was given a “guest column” in ‘The Sun’ in place of Rod Liddle. She was delighted to brag about it on Twitter.What a hypocrite – In 2019, so-called journalist Olivia Utley bragged about going on holiday to France; in 2020, she mocked others for wanting a holiday abroad. Shame on her.
As Nigel Farage ludicrously suggests Britain is “a country of doubtful democratic legitimacy” (in spite of it giving him the Brexit he so desired this very year), we join those suggesting that this furious Firestarter is still very welcome to leave
“This incident has confirmed my worst fears about the country Britain is becoming” wrote Nostradamus-like Nigel Farage in The Telegraph on Tuesday evening. The same Farage, that is, that was celebrating Boris Johnson and Brexit on 31st January in Parliament Square; the same Farage who finally had the Darling Buds of May mixed with Last of the Summer Wine pastiche version of Britain he has for so long dreamt of.
Farage, at that moment, was “optimistic” and “celebrating the free world” and whilst braying about his dream having finally come true, boldly went as far as to state: “This is the greatest moment ever in the history of our great nation.”
Now, it’s all gone so horribly wrong. After having a visit from the police as a result of breaching lockdown restrictions that ordinary people have willingly obeyed, Farage angrily proclaimed of the police: “I was astonished and, although I remained polite, incredulous. I replied: ‘I’m not going to take that.’”
Continuing his diatribe about what he calls the “new police state” run for the “sneerocracy,” hypocritical Farage – whose two children have German passports (which allows them continued free movement in Europe) – concluded: “I don’t know if I will be stopped and fined if I attempt to do my job again. However, I will look at the shipping forecast. Without question, on the next calm day they will come again, and I will be there to cover this scandal.”
Perhaps, instead, of meddling at a time of pandemic lockdown when his interventions are most definitely not required, this berk could just adapt the advice of Norman Tebbitt and get in a boat. Nigel Farage could sail away to somewhere he’s actually wanted – that being his very own mecca, Trumpland. There, in the manner of Dick Whittington, this fervent Firestarter might even find the streets paved with currency to replace that that he used to take in very, very generous EU expenses.
Jonathan Downey, owner of London’s Milk & Honey bar, takes to social media to share news he won’t be reopening without a rent holiday; it is likely he is set to head a wave of similar announcements
Just as happened to venues like Keith McNally’s Lucky Strike in New York, a wave – perhaps, excuse the pun, even a flood – of closures of bars and restaurants is likely coming in London and across the rest of the UK. As a result of coronavirus most recently and due also to landlord’s charging extortionate rents and council’s levying excessive business rates in the years prior, we could soon sadly end up with far ‘drier’ high streets.
On Wednesday night on Facebook, in an impassioned plea, the owner of the Soho institution that is Milk & Honey – a “prohibition-style speakeasy cocktail bar” where ‘house rules’ include: “Gentlemen will remove their hats. Hooks are provided. Gentlemen will not introduce themselves to ladies. Ladies, feel free to start a conversation or ask the bartender to introduce you. If a man you don’t know speaks to you, please lift your chin slightly and ignore him” – Jonathan Downey shared news that post the coronavirus lockdown ending, his venue might “never reopen.”
In his post, multiple venue owner-operator Mr Downey stated:
This is Milk & Honey in Soho. A very special place that was 18yrs old last week. It’s been the ‘World’s Best Bar’ (a few times) and the making of so many great bartenders, but we may never re-open. Our annual rent is £210,000 but, despite the current closure and no hope of re-opening for months, our landlord won’t allow any deferral or rent free. He expects payments to be made upfront. He’s got no chance.
One of three things will happen (in most likely first order):
– We give the keys back.
– We get a 9 month #NationalRentFree and re-open paying rent for another 18yrs.
– The landlord backs down/sees sense.
I’ve written back to our landlord. I don’t expect we’ll get anywhere and without a #NationalTimeOut, we won’t be able to re-open Milk & Honey. Including VAT, we’ve paid more than £3.9m rent in 18yrs.
Going further, Downey shared the letter he’d written to his landlord. It read:
We won’t be paying any rent on this site again this year. I’m sorry but you’re kidding yourselves if you think otherwise. We have no income.
We have been paying rent there for 18 years, totaling in excess of £3m. We have no idea when we may be allowed to re-open. Even when we are allowed to re-open, we won’t because fear of the virus and physical distancing will mean we will be loss-making. The best (and possibly only) time we can expect to re-open is once a vaccine becomes widely available. Until then, zero income = zero rent.
I have been campaigning for a #NationalTimeOut for tenants and landlords, which includes a 9 month #NationalRentFree. If we get this, then there may be a way through for all of us. Otherwise, we’ll be giving back the keys and surrendering the very valuable 03:00 licence.
I am happy to discuss if you want but that’s our position and we don’t have any other.
Jonathan Downey (right) shared his sentiments on the future of the bar he set up in 2002, Milk & Honey, 61 Poland Street, Soho, London, W1F 7NU in a Facebook post on Wednesday.Mr Downey also published the text of a letter he had sent to his plainly thus far unsympathetic landlord.
Previously, in an interview with The Caterer earlier this month, Downey commented:
The best thing for most people in our industry is a National Time Out – nine months rent-free, with a matching debt repayment holiday for our landlords. Understandably the pubcos don’t like it, but it is being supported by UKHospitality.
We can’t each negotiate 150,000 separate agreements with landlords. We need a national arrangement that everybody falls in line with, that the government decides and legislates on.
We should get the rest of this year rent-free – for most businesses it’s the biggest single cost apart from staff – and extend loan terms for landlords, because if they can’t get their rent for nine months, they can’t repay the debt for the premises. If they have borrowed, they should get a nine-month repayment break. It should be pushed back onto the banks – they can handle nine months of not having loans repaid.
Of the longer-term, he added:
I don’t see anybody doing well. Nobody will do well out of the crisis. I think there will be even more empty high street sites. My next business will probably have to be something outside the hospitality industry. Certainly, the business I’m in – large-capacity venues – I don’t see coming back until there’s a vaccine, which is a year or maybe 18 months away. Maybe I’ll take a year off and come back in the way that music festivals will have to. We needed a shake-up as an industry, but we didn’t need one so brutal.
That, to a large extent, the business model of a lot of hospitality businesses is hopelessly flawed. It’s ridiculously fragile, the margins are far too slim and it’s just not sustainable. We were fucked after 10 days to two weeks of no and low income.
I think there’s going to be a lot of reflection and soul-searching and realising that, despite these brilliant things we do as individuals and businesses, if the business model doesn’t stack up, you’ve got to find another way or find something else to do.
We can’t pay people what we need to pay them, we can’t pay the rent, we can’t deal with business rates at this level and with VAT at 20%. It’s just insane. Everybody wants something for nothing. In hospitality we always try to deliver, but this has made us realise we can’t deliver the impossible or the unsustainable.
Since its inception, The Steeple Times has advocated the premise of ‘use it or lose it’ for bars and restaurants and today we join Jonathan Downey in calling for #NationalRentFree and #NationalTimeOut. Now, we must all unite in coming together to support our favourite establishments as otherwise, just like many of us found with the closure of the very much missed La Brasserie in South Kensington in March 2017, we’ll again be left crying into our caipirinhas with nowhere to go.
On Tuesday in the Guardian, the columnist Marina Hyde condemned Branson’s offer of Necker Island as security for a £500 million bailout from the British government as “the most WTF-tinged piece of collateral action since that late-1980s moment when Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond bought Van Gogh’s Irises at Sotheby’s, using a loan from Sotheby’s, for which the painting itself was collateral.” She was spot on about this and in stating: “I’d encourage you to speculate on how soon it will be before Richard requests UK or US bailout money for his Virgin Galactic enterprise, where space travel has been ‘set to be a reality next year’ for a good 12 years now,” this journalist hits the nail on the head. Branson can certainly be termed an immensely clever (if deviant) stage manager and anything but a one-trick pony, but what lies beneath his mirage is nothing but a house of sand propped up by a bag of bilge.
In response to the feature, one Nicholas Fox of Virgin Group wrote to the Guardian on Saturday. His missive pathetically bleated about being “saddened” by Hyde’s suggestions, but as a counterpoint, one Dr Richard O’Brien, who had travelled on one of Branson’s aircraft, provided an entirely different take. The good doctor remarked:
SIR – Is Marina Hyde being a little harsh on Richard Branson? On a Virgin flight home from Los Angeles several years ago I answered the call for a doctor (the third call, actually, as hardened medics wait for somebody more gung-ho to respond) and saved the life of a businessman who had swooned during his in-flight massage (no, please, it was nothing).
The crew were so relieved when I spared them the expensive inconvenience of an unscheduled landing that they gave me a free orange juice as they ushered me past the empty business seats and back to steerage. It was followed up by a letter of gratitude and a promise of 10% off my next trip. I later found out that anybody could get 10% off by booking online.
So don’t tell me Branson seems to feel entitled to the free benefit of others’ generosity – I already know.
Dr Richard O’Brien
Highbridge, Somerset
Elsewhere, an online petition on Change.org to strip Branson of his knighthood continues to garner support. Justifying it someone named ‘Duna Stays Mad’ calls the billionaire businessman a “disgrace to his country” and a “traitor” and suggests he is “milking the system.” Today, we urge our readers to join the 27,000 who have already signed it by clicking here.
Pictured top: Sir Richard Branson getting his filthy mitts into a blonde.
“Hard head – healing hands” Welsh businessman looks to sell his £18 million Irish estate complete with a James Wyatt mansion and 1,120 acres; Sir David Davies became an Irish citizen after Brexit and has no time for Boris Johnson
Designed by Robert Adam’s rival James Wyatt in 1773 and “clothed in the Italiante manner” in 1859 to 1860, “grand and beautifully executed” Abbey Leix in County Laois is considered “one of Ireland’s most important country houses.”
Placed for sale last June for £17.8 million ($22 million, €20 million or درهم81 million), the main house on the 1,120-acre estate, Abbey Leix House – also known as ‘Abbeyleix House’ and’ Abbeyleix Castle’) – is vast and includes 26,910 square foot of accommodation. Aside from 9 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, the classical building has amongst other things 3 major rooms on the park front, a deep hall, a music room with original Wyatt plasterwork, a library and a conservatory.
Sir David Davies (born in Wales in 1940) at Abbey Leix.
Renovated and remodeled since being sold to the Welsh born, twice divorced, father of five Sir David Davies in 1995 by its previous owners of the 250 years, the de Vesci family, Abbey Leix is described by agents Sotheby’s International Realty as a “21st century family home with an appropriate balance between comfort and informality on the one hand and grandeur for entertaining and the display of art on the other.”
As well as Ireland’s oldest oak tree being within the grounds, the property also includes some of the “last surviving remnants of Ireland’s ancient woodland” and frontage to the River Nore. There is also a stud farm with 24 loose boxes, a separate farmyard with many outbuildings and 10 lodges and cottages on the estate. The present owner’s private airstrip was created because he wanted to be able to “fly from wherever in the UK straight into the estate.”
Of why he is selling Abbey Leix, “superstar banker and businessman” Sir David – who has variously held senior posts at Chase Manhattan Bank, Hill Samuel, MEPC, Hardine Matheson, Hong Kong Land, Johnson Matthey and EFG Private Bank – told the Business Post:
“I’m organising my whole estate for the benefit of my children… Although the children all love this place very much, none of them wanted to take it on… The typical refrain is ‘Dad, this is your project,’ and I’m lucky enough to have Killoughter House, the home of my childhood, to return to.”
Though born in Wales, Sir David – whom was knighted “for his work as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment” in 1999 – has maintained a home in Ireland throughout his adulthood. He “proudly” became an Irish citizen after Brexit and described “inept” Theresa May as “going from one catastrophe to that leads to the next catastrophe.” Of her successor, the opera loving son of a South Wales steel mill owner went further and recently remarked: “I have no time for Boris Johnson: he doesn’t do his homework, and can’t be trusted.”
In giving “every single penny he makes” from his online P.E. lessons to the NHS during the coronavirus lockdown of schools, Joe Wicks has shown himself as a hero of the hour
On Sunday, the Guardianreported that the fitness coach Joe Wicks – a man who has shot to fame whilst teaching online P.E. sessions during the coronavirus lockdown of schools – will donate “every single penny” he makes to the NHS.
Posting on his Instagram page in the wake of becoming a “national hero,” ‘The Body Coach’ Wicks announced:
“So I’ve decided that as long as I’m the nation’s P.E, teacher, every single penny of the money generated on these videos is going to the place where we need it the most right now. All of it is going straight to the NHS, to support the real heroes right now.”
“Thank you for watching, joining in and sharing … I’m loving being your P.E. Teacher and now you can watch again, knowing you’re not only staying fit, you’re also helping raise money for the NHS.”
Surbiton born Wicks’ YouTube channel now has nearly 2 million subscribers whilst his Instagram has 3.3 million. Spear’s Wealth Management Survey estimates the 33-year-old’s worth at a staggering £14.5 million.
Sky News’ Lewis Goodall provides not one but two of the best tweets of the week
Sky News political correspondent Lewis Goodall – famous for going round during Theresa May’s disastrous General Election in a truck named the #LewisLorry – is a gent one can rely upon.
In two tweets this week, he excelled himself. They read:
“Quick note on latest Boris Johnson Brexit piece. The United Kingdom is not an “ancient” nation. The UK (rather than Great Britain) as a political entity has existed since 1801. It’s about as ancient as the electric battery.”
“I love the British public. Second putting you in your place selfie story in a fortnight. Man in WHSmith: ‘can I have a photo with you?” Me: ‘of course, my pleasure.’ Man: ‘thank you so much. You just keep doing what you’re doing. One day – you’ll actually make it big.’”
Matthew Steeples suggests the mess that is currently Britain needs a wake-up call and it needs a coup
It’s all David Cameron’s fault: There was no need for him to call a referendum on leaving the EU and all that has resulted – in the wake of him walking away in the most cowardly fashion – has been a tragedy for our once great country.
Stranded now in the land of limbo, Britain faces a situation, as reported today on the Mail Online, of a wishy-washy “Canada-style” deal with Europe. This represents an example of the politics of division and the politics of non-practicalities; it will result in nothing but further mess and nothing but additional chaos.
With the “enfant terrible” and bully boy Arron Banks rightly facing an investigation for effectively having funded the campaign that caused what will basically bankrupt Britain with foreign funds, it is now time for something else. Even he thinks that we should now remain in the EU but what Britain actually really needs is new leadership and it needs it now: It’s no longer time for Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, it’s time to get the tanks on the lawn and it’s time for a coup.
Nigel Farage’s return to “frontline politics” is going to bring nothing but division and diversion suggests Matthew Steeples
Nigel Farage just can’t help himself: A failed candidate seven times in British Parliament elections and leader of UKIP twice, this bombastic brute is now “returning to frontline politics” in order to “challenge Theresa May’s ‘fraudulent’ Brexit plan.”
A man of contradictions, Farage – who is anti-Prince Charles, pro-Vladimir Putin and in favour of the legalisation of handguns in the UK – wrote of his intentions in this morning’s Daily Telegraph in an article titled: “The time has come to teach the political class a lesson: I’m back fighting for a real Brexit.” In the opinion piece, he remarked:
“Over the last few months, and particularly since the Chequers betrayal, scores of people have stopped me in the street to ask: ‘When are you coming back?’ Well now you have your answer: I’m back.”
“Theresa the Appeaser has produced a set of ideas that are nothing more than a cowardly sell-out. With all this in mind, now is the time for action.”
“It is now beyond doubt that the political class in Westminster and many of their media allies do not accept the EU referendum result. It is equally clear to me that, unless challenged, these anti-democrats will succeed in frustrating the result.”
“Well, I’ve had enough of their lies, deceit and treachery. The time has come to teach them a lesson – one that they will never forget.”
In response to this predictable publicity stunt, James McGrory, of the pro-remain People’s Vote campaign group, told The Guardian:
“Nigel Farage has had more comebacks than Frank Sinatra, just without the success. If he was serious about making a return to frontline politics, he would stand to be an MP. I can only hope that Nigel Farage sticks to the promise he made live on TV to have a people’s vote on the final Brexit deal.”
In reality, all this move shows is that Farage is nothing but self-motivated. In the past I’ve termed him a “man of the elite” but now I’ll go further: Nigel Farage is nothing but a self-serving meddler and yet again – mark my words – the insane nightmare he desires serving up to the British public will fall flat on its face.
A dream house for ‘The Wind In The Willows’ character Ratty; Devon boathouse for sale for £2.5 million
A Devon house that could be perfect for anyone sharing Kenneth Grahame’s character Rat’s view that “there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats” has gone on sale for £2.5 million ($3.5 million, €2.9 million or درهم12.9 million).
The Boathouse at Kingswear features “unrivalled views of the River Dart and open sea” beyond and is described by selling agents Savills a “iconic.” It incorporates 2,456 square of internal accommodation over five floors and is built from oak, slate and stone.
Aside from 4 bedrooms, the property also features a 32’ by 19’5” open plan kitchen-dining-reception space and a 24’2” by 23’8” garden room. For the sailor, there is a boat store, private slipway, a DHA licenced running mooring and direct access to the foreshore whilst those simply want to relax, could just idle away the hours in the property’s gardens and on its terraces.
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