The Steeple Times

Tag: W1

  • Elvira Mullens Barney (1904 – 1936)

    Elvira Mullens Barney (1904 – 1936)

    Though considered one of society’s “Bright Young Things,” the “morally dubious” daughter of Sir John and Lady Mullens was just a tempestuous coke addict who got away with murder.

     

    Separated from her supposedly violent American singer husband, John Sterling Barney, and living with an “extravagant, bisexual waster” named Michael Scott Stephen in 1932, Elvira Mullens Barney gave a dinner party at her “prodigally furnished” Knightsbridge home – known as the ‘Love Hut’ – at 21 William Mews on the 30th May that year. Early the next morning, shouts of: “Get out, get out! I will shoot you! I will shoot you!” were heard in the mews followed by: “Chicken, chicken, come back to me. I will do anything you want me to.”

     

    Undoubtedly the inspiration for Eveleyn Waugh’s character Agatha Runcible in Vile Bodies and possibly also Elvira in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, Mullens Barney’s single shot at close range with a .32 Smith & Wesson revolver killed her lover in the doorway of their bedroom. On her arrest, she launched into an “uncontrollable violent outburst and paroxysm of rage” and “slapped a policeman in the face when he suggested she put on a warmer fur coat.” She is said to have then added: “I’ll teach you to say you will take me to a police station. Now you know who my mother is you’ll be a little more careful in what you say and do to me!”

     

    Placed in a private cell at Holloway Prison with a “telephone, powder-puffs and a grand tea-gown” whilst awaiting trial at the Old Bailey, Mullens Barney was ultimately surprisingly cleared of both murder and manslaughter on 5th July 1932. As he left court, the judge at the trial, Mr Justice Humphreys exclaimed: “Most extraordinary! Apparently we should have given her a pat on the back” whilst Mullens Barney was said to have headed to a celebration party and shouted: “I am the one who shot her lover – so take a good look at me” as she took to the dance floor.

     

    To escape public and press outrage, “spoilt child of fortune” Mullens Barney moved to France. She was found dead on Christmas Day 1936 after “a typical long night of drinking and taking cocaine” in a hotel room in Paris with signs of haemorrhage around her mouth. Her sister, Avril, meanwhile made her third husband divorcé Ernest Simpson (whose ex-wife Wallis had become wife to Edward VIII in 1937) in 1948 and was killed in a car crash in Mexico in 1978.

     

  • McMoneya

    McMoneya

    London has simply become a money park for dodgy money and though ‘McMafia’ reflected elements of that, the truth is far more depressing

     

    Since the 1st January, the nation was engrossed (though many were also totally bored) by the BBC’s eight-part drama series McMafia.

     

    Based on a fictional – though plainly inspired by the likes of the late Boris Berezovsky – Russian mafia family relocated to London, the TV adaptation of this thriller was filmed primarily in Knightsbridge, Mayfair and South Kensington. It showcased what many might consider the extreme wealth of Central London, but, in fact, was presented a little bit amateurishly.

     

    Of the show, Carol Midgley in The Times summed it up well. She remarked: “If this is how miserably the super-rich live, I’d take a semi in Swindon any day” and equally now, if you wander the streets of SW1, SW3, SW7 and W1, you’d not disagree with her.

     

    Recent news that the Fine Art Society is closing in Bond Street after 140 years due to “soaring rents” and “an influx of wealthy international fashion houses” illustrates the effect of the arrival of uncultivated new wealth in that sector, but equally sad is the demise of local restaurants and shops that actually provide things that genuine, full-time residents actually need.

     

    Boarded up in Belgravia this month, after 44 years in operation, the Ebury Wine Bar closed supposedly due to the retirement of its owner, Nigel Windridge. Also gone – aside from the key loss of the much loved La Brasserie in Brompton Cross – are restaurants like Itsu in Walton Street and Racine in Brompton Road. Replaced by shisha bars and other businesses aimed at wealthy Gulfies and oligarchs, the streets of Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea are increasingly becoming utterly devoid of character.

     

    Follow The Steeple Times on Twitter at @SteepleTimes.

     

  • Taking out the Toxic

    Taking out the Toxic

    Matthew Steeples suggests the era of PR’s who’ll represent anyone and promote anything ought to end

     

    In Britain, the PR firm Bell Pottinger collapsed ultimately because of its willingness to “represent almost anyone but Robert Mugabe” but in a perfectly put analysis for The Cut on Friday, Kaitlin Menza highlighted a duo with morals even lower.

     

    Referencing the relationship between the crisis management firm Sitrick and Company and Harvey Weinstein, Menza quoted the firm’s founder, Michael Sitrick, as having told the Financial Times in 2010: “I love journalism but I’d rather eat.” His clients, tellingly, thus, have numbered “the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles [over] accusations of sexual assault” and the likes of Chris Brown and Hulk Hogan in similar regards.

     

    Sitrick and Company’s executive handling Weinstein’s account, Sallie Hofmeister, Menza pointed out also, took on the alleged sex offender because: “It’s not about a new public image, but rather to make sure that the facts are as accurately reported as possible… Mr Weinstein has a different recollection of the events [to the women he supposedly abused].”

     

    Here in Mr Sitrick and Ms Hofmeister is a duo with utterly no grasp of right and wrong and a pair with only money on the mind. It is time that the press and public realised enough is enough and bit off the toxic hands that for so long have just fed us all lies, lies and more damned lies.

     

    Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

     

    Pictured above: Sallie Hofmeister of Sitrick and Company and James Henderson, former CEO of Bell Pottinger.

     

  • Exposing Traditional Britain

    Exposing Traditional Britain

    After far-right Traditional Britain Group is exposed in an ITV documentary, oddball founder and ex-jailbird Gregory Lauder-Frost responds

     

    Last night ITV screened an hour long documentary that “examined the resurgence of the far right in Britain; its expansion on and use of the Internet and social media; the internationalization of the far right with cooperation and contact between groups and individuals on a scale not seen before; the recruiting of more women and young people to different groups, and the impact that this is having on British society.”

     

    In Exposure’s Undercover – Inside Britain’s New Far Right, produced by David Henshaw, not only did several courageous journalists go undercover within far right organisations but one also managed to infiltrate a meeting of the crackpot Traditional Britain Group in Mayfair, London. At that gathering, the compere was heard to suggest that there are “10 million aliens in this country who are ‘producing children all the time’” and referenced the group’s policy of seeking “voluntary repatriation of aliens to their natural homelands.”

     

    In response, Gregory MacLennan Scholey Lauder-Frost (or ‘GLF’ to his mates) – a previous The Steeple Times ‘Moron of the Moment’, a man jailed in 1992 for theft and an individual prone to such remarks as describing Baroness Lawrence OBE, the community relations campaigner and mother of the late Stephen Lawrence, as “no friend of the English people” and “a complete nobody” – issued a statement defending the ragbag organisation he founded in 2001. In it, he branded Hope Not Hate as “far left… communists” and claimed “the TBG does not hate anyone… [but] we would prefer it if they remained at home.”

     

    Elsewhere, in a video shared on YouTube, another farcical fool named Martin Sellner – the leader of the Austrian New Right movement – referenced the Traditional Britain Group’s members as “very British characters” and “patriots.” Plainly, he’s never met the likes of Lauder-Frost and the ‘Half Biscuit’ Viscount St Davids fan Benjamin Duncan.

     

    Watch Exposure’s Undercover – Inside Britain’s New Far Right on the ITV Hub by clicking here.

     

  • Pleading for Police

    Pleading for Police

    London set to see number of police stations reduced from 149 in 2010 to just 32 by 2020; we urge readers to support a petition to stop this

     

    In 2010, London had 149 police stations; there are now just 73 and if Conservative plans go ahead there’ll be just 32 – or one per borough, except for Westminster – by 2020.

     

    Theresa May as Home Secretary focused on flogging off places where the public could report crime and now as Prime Minister, her government is determined to remove community assets in favour of encouraging people to report crime online, to the 101 telephone number and in cafés and retail shops.

     

    Finding a bobby on the beat, another suggested alternative, is nigh on impossible in many areas and here we urge readers to sign the Kensington Society’s petition to save Notting Hill Police Station. Their ‘Police Campaign’ is a revelation and makes for utterly shocking reading. Shame on our government for not providing the resources to properly protect its citizens.

     

  • A Cheap Cottage

    A Cheap Cottage

    Detached Grade II listed Georgian cottage in London, E13 for sale for just £180,000

     

    What could be one of London’s cheapest detached Georgian houses is headed to auction.

     

    Built in 1836 as the gate lodge to a now demolished mansion known as Bedfords and later The Willows, Grade II listed Willow Lodge in Willow Grove, Plaistow, E13 was itself originally thatched but now has a slate roof.

     

    The rendered and whitewashed single storey freehold cottage, which provides one reception room, a kitchen, one bedroom and a bathroom, looks idyllic in close-up pictures but actually, sadly, adjoins a rather grim looking 1950s/1960s housing estate to the rear and a playground named the Valetta Grove open space to the front. It comes with a private rear garden and is described as “in need of modernisation.”

     

    Plaistow London Underground Station is just two minutes away and a guide price of £180,000+ ($237,000+, €198,000+ or درهم871,000+) has been set by auctioneers Savills. They will sell the property on Monday 25th September at the Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, W1.

     

    A Cheap Cottage – Grade II listed Willow Lodge, 2 Willow Grove, Plaistow, London, E13 0JH – Guide price of £180,000+ ($237,000+, €198,000+ or درهم871,000+) through Savills on Monday 25th September 2017 at The Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, W1.A Cheap Cottage – Grade II listed Willow Lodge, 2 Willow Grove, Plaistow, London, E13 0JH – Guide price of £180,000+ ($237,000+, €198,000+ or درهم871,000+) through Savills on Monday 25th September 2017 at The Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, W1. A Cheap Cottage – Grade II listed Willow Lodge, 2 Willow Grove, Plaistow, London, E13 0JH – Guide price of £180,000+ ($237,000+, €198,000+ or درهم871,000+) through Savills on Monday 25th September 2017 at The Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, W1.

     

  • Little Nigella

    Little Nigella

    Clubbable sorts will love the opportunity to live like Nigella Lawson above Little House Mayfair

     

    When the flatform trainer loving cook Nigella Lawson first split up with Charles ‘The Throttler’ Saatchi back in 2013, she took up residence in an apartment above the Little House private members’ club in Mayfair’s Queen Street.

     

    Little Nigella – Club Apartments at Little House Mayfair, 2 Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5PA, United Kingdom – Clubbable sorts will love the opportunity to live like Nigella Lawson. £28,600 per month through Savills.
    Nigella Lawson arriving at her apartment at Little House Mayfair in 2013

     

    Now, one of the club’s four apartments has recently become available to rent at price of £6,600 per week ($8,600, €7,200 or درهم31,800 per week) or £28,600 per month ($37,500, €31,100 or درهم137,600 per month). Featuring two bedroom suites and a third ‘bunk room’ that could be converted to provide a gym, the second floor space on offer also has a double aspect reception room, is accessed by lift and comes with full club access.

     

    Savills have the listing and the website for the apartment complex and club – which was previously used as a bank – notes it comes with a “fully stocked kitchen or we’ll do it for you.” No wonder Nigella felt at home.

     

    Little Nigella – Club Apartments at Little House Mayfair, 2 Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5PA, United Kingdom – Clubbable sorts will love the opportunity to live like Nigella Lawson. £28,600 per month through Savills.Little Nigella – Club Apartments at Little House Mayfair, 2 Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5PA, United Kingdom – Clubbable sorts will love the opportunity to live like Nigella Lawson. £28,600 per month through Savills.Little Nigella – Club Apartments at Little House Mayfair, 2 Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5PA, United Kingdom – Clubbable sorts will love the opportunity to live like Nigella Lawson. £28,600 per month through Savills. Little Nigella – Club Apartments at Little House Mayfair, 2 Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5PA, United Kingdom – Clubbable sorts will love the opportunity to live like Nigella Lawson. £28,600 per month through Savills.Little Nigella – Club Apartments at Little House Mayfair, 2 Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5PA, United Kingdom – Clubbable sorts will love the opportunity to live like Nigella Lawson. £28,600 per month through Savills. Little Nigella – Club Apartments at Little House Mayfair, 2 Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5PA, United Kingdom – Clubbable sorts will love the opportunity to live like Nigella Lawson. £28,600 per month through Savills.

  • Marmalade in Mayfair

    Marmalade in Mayfair

    Matthew Steeples visits Boisdale of Mayfair with restaurateur Nicky Kerman – and samples a marmalade infused gin cocktail (or three)

     

    Though most will recognise Boisdale for its tartan décor, traditional cuisine and fine malt whiskies, this live music restaurant group’s most recent opening, Boisdale of Mayfair, is a place as well suited to afternoon drinking as anywhere in a locality stuffed to the brims with many a salubrious spot.

     

    An afternoon visit late last month with the legendary restaurateur Nicky Kerman – himself involved in Boisdale of Canary Wharf but best known for his involvement in the heydays of both Drones and Scott’s in the era of Nigel Dempster and the late Diana, Princess of Wales – was a revelation. Whilst I rightly anticipated the most civilised of times, Nicky promised something he knew I’d love nearly as much: The email suggesting our meeting place, in red, enlarged capital letters was accompanied by the caption: ‘GIN’.

     

    On arrival, we were guided to a most pleasant terrace outside this converted stable building just off Park Lane and there followed not only gin and tonics made with gins from Scotland and the South Coast but also a cocktail, pictured above, named the ‘Lady Marmalade’ (£9.50). This mix of marmalade infused Beefeater 24, Solerno blood orange liqueur, Mandarine Napoleon liqueur, fresh lemon juice and sugar was described to us as a “belting summer cocktail oozing fruity deliciousness” and boy indeed it was.

     

    Boisdale of Mayfair, 12 North Row, London, W1K 7DF. Telephone: +44 (0) 20 3873 8888.

     

  • Dr Bendor Grosvenor

    Dr Bendor Grosvenor

    Harrow and Cambridge educated Old Masters expert Bendor Grosvenor describes himself as an “occasional ranter” to his 12,000 followers on Twitter. Aside from being amongst the team on the popular BBC One art programme Fake or Fortune?, Grosvenor has co-written a book titled Crap MPs: The 40 Worst Members of Parliament in History and another called Warts and All: The Portrait Miniatures of Samuel Cooper. He edits the extremely informative Arts History News blog, is of British-Swiss heritage and is fourth in line to the Marquessate of Westminster.

     

  • Strictly Come Mayfair

    Strictly Come Mayfair

    Grosvenor Square apartment for sale; it comes with access to a private residents’ ballroom and will appeal to any fan of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’

     

    Built circa 1958 on the site of an earlier house damaged during the war, a ground floor apartment within 17 Grosvenor Square in London’s Mayfair has gone on sale for £3.75 million ($4.9 million, €4.2 million or درهم18.1 million).

     

    Offered on a lease with 40 years remaining, the 1,481 square foot property includes not only an impressive 29-foot by 17-foot drawing room but also two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It does require but modernisation but comes with a bonus in the form of access to a private residents’ ballroom measuring 55-foot by 22-foot.

     

    That space supposedly can accommodate upto 350 people for a cocktail party and though said to be “rarely used,” it certainly could be the perfect space for any fan of BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing to practice the Samba.

     

    Agents Wetherell have the listing.

     

    Pictured above: The ballroom shared by residents of 17 Grosvenor Square.

     

    Strictly Come Mayfair – Flat 2, 17 Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London, W1K 6LB – For sale for £3.75 million ($4.9 million, €4.2 million or درهم18.1 million) through Wetherell complete with access to a private ballroomStrictly Come Mayfair – Flat 2, 17 Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London, W1K 6LB – For sale for £3.75 million ($4.9 million, €4.2 million or درهم18.1 million) through Wetherell complete with access to a private ballroom Strictly Come Mayfair – Flat 2, 17 Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London, W1K 6LB – For sale for £3.75 million ($4.9 million, €4.2 million or درهم18.1 million) through Wetherell complete with access to a private ballroom Strictly Come Mayfair – Flat 2, 17 Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London, W1K 6LB – For sale for £3.75 million ($4.9 million, €4.2 million or درهم18.1 million) through Wetherell complete with access to a private ballroom Strictly Come Mayfair – Flat 2, 17 Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London, W1K 6LB – For sale for £3.75 million ($4.9 million, €4.2 million or درهم18.1 million) through Wetherell complete with access to a private ballroom