A 20-question interview with Lebanese-American actor Haaz Sleiman; he has starred in ‘24’, ‘ER’, ‘Killing Jesus’, ‘NCIS’, ‘Nurse Jackie’ and ‘Person of Interest’
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
Love.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
“If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?”
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2018?
Who is she?
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
Definitely not him. I hate politics. I’d say: My future husband. Where is he?
What might you swap all your wealth for?
To be adopted by Madonna.
Donald Trump was once a case of: “If you owe the bank a thousand, they close you down; but if you owe the bank a billion, you own the bank”. What’s your view on the state of the financial system?
It is terrible. We have a vanishing middle class.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
‘Retard’.
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home”. What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
I support anything to do with homeless LGBTQ youth and animals.
The judge in Law Abiding Citizen states: “I can pretty much do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?
I’m sorry but I don’t understand the question.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
My parents and all my siblings with their families.
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
In the most lush and exotic natural habitat with tonnes of trees and waterfalls or by the ocean. I’d have the best steak and fries with the most expensive bottle of red wine possible.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
I don’t drink much really.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
Tea.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
I enjoy concerts because I love seeing how music makes the people come together. Thank you Madonna.
Who is the most positive person you know?
E-Jay Randolph, my mentor.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
RuPual’s Drag Race.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
A cross with a naked Jesus hanging on it wearing a Star of David pendant around his neck. Jesus would have a tattoo in Arabic on his left pec of the most important line in the Quran, the line that you would need to say to become Muslim. I am interested in inclusion.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
A Tesla.
Cilla Black presented Surprise, Surprise. Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
I’m a baby in a grown ass man’s body. It’s a good thing.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
A framed picture of my beautiful mother.
Haaz Sleiman is a Lebanese-American television and film actor. He starred as Jesus in the TV series ‘Killing Jesus’ and has also appeared in series such as ‘24’, ‘CSI: Miami’, ‘ER’, ‘NCIS’, ‘Nurse Jackie’ and ‘Person of Interest’. He describes himself as: “A lost soul finding its way back home.”
As Knightsbridge’s Brompton Road is invaded by Arabs, The Steeple Times finds that there is both good and bad in their number
Last night, it was a party of two halves on Knightsbridge’s Brompton Road.
At one end, close to the Caramel restaurant, a gaggle of vulgar Chanel handbag wielding Arab women (pictured top right) showed their low class ways when approached by an Englishwoman who simply asked them to let her pass. One remarked: “We have more money than you and we do what we want, whenever we want. You walk in the road. This pavement is our space.”
Elsewhere, closer to the Brompton Road hoards of young Saudis and Kuwaitis gathered on the pavements. Asked why they were there, two Qatari men (pictured top left) politely explained that they would actually like to integrate with locals. They claimed they didn’t know where to find such but apologised profusely for others in their number blocking the streets.
As is often the case, here was illustration that generalisations are never fair. There is good and bad in every part of society and we would all do well to remember that.
Bizarrely largely overlooked by the mainstream media, the son of the ousted ex-MP for Kensington Lady ‘Call Me Victoria’ Borwick is an extremely well connected man who keeps himself under the radar on social media. The 31-year old has just 500 followers on Twitter – a surprisingly low number given he has been described as a “computer specialist” – and was put in a position of huge power as Vote Leave’s chief technology officer from August 2015 to July 2016.
Educated at the University of Richmond, Virginia from 2006 to 2010, with a period studying law courses at Cambridge briefly during 2008, Borwick subsequently worked in IT for the financial services company Killik & Co in 2012 and simultaneously “developed music technology for interactive lessons.”
More interestingly, this youngster’s move into political data profiling came also in 2012 when he founded a company named Kanto Systems with an aim of “bring[ing] UK Campaigning into the 21st century.” Here, Borwick developed a “mobile canvassing app” and came into contact with Cambridge Analytica in order to provide them with “digital services,” according to The Huffington Post. In turn, he sold an app to Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL, and now, in March this year, his firm was brought in by Ireland’s Save The 8th anti-abortion campaign group as part of their efforts “to persuade Irish voters to keep the country’s strict anti-abortion laws.”
“Hiring Thomas Borwick to create and manage a website is like employing the SAS to run security at a school hop or bringing in Einstein to tot up your shopping bill,” comments journalist Fintan O’Toole in The Irish Times, and in further revelations in the Evening Standard late March, Borwick himself admitted to also having worked with the equally controversial Canadian data firm Aggregate IQ – an operation that earned £3.5 million working for Vote Leave during the 2016 referendum campaign.
The public and press need to wake up and smell the coffee. The manipulation of politics in America, Britain, Ireland and elsewhere runs far deeper than even the most avid viewer of the Daily Politics could imagine. Figures like Thomas Borwick may well operate in the backrooms but it is increasingly becoming apparent that with doorstep canvassing all but irrelevant, such people are worryingly our new political powerhouses.
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Spectacular hacienda near Seville for sale for £3 million
Anyone who has watched the somewhat cringeworthy television programme A Place In The Sun expects a Spanish holiday home to be somewhat beyond vulgar, but in The Palacio, near Seville, a buyer could purchase something truly spectacular.
Restored over the last five years, this traditional hacienda or small estate stands on nine acres of Andalusian olive groves and centres around a 12,900 square foot traditional house with seven large bedroom suites. It is approached by a tree-lined avenue, has two swimming pools and is situated in a part of Spain that “enjoys over 300 sunny days a year and mild, frost-free night-time temperatures.”
Aylesford International seek £3 million ($4.3 million, €3.5 million or درهم15.9 million) for the property and advise buyers to factor in a further 10% to 15% for “additional fees and taxes.”
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“Playboy” turned lawyer Alexander van der Zwaan had it all but destroyed his reputation after being jailed for 30 days for lying to the FBI in April 2018 over Russia’s links to President Trump’s election campaign. Aside from receiving positive publicity in Tatler after marrying Eva Khan, daughter of a Ukrainian-Russian billionaire named German Khan, in a “lavish society ceremony” at Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire in June 2017, this “ostentatious” Belgian-born, Notting Hill based attorney might now realise that telling the truth is generally for the best.
Alexander van der Zwaan with his art critic wife Eva Khan at their 2017 wedding; ‘Tatler’ lauded it as one of the “seven big weddings” of that year
Quirky 1995 Rolls-Royce estate car for sale for just shy of £100,000; it’s perfect for picnics and conveying posh pooches
A 1995 special edition Rolls-Royce Flying Spur converted to an estate car in recent years from a Silver Spur III with just 25,000 miles on the clock is currently for sale for £99,000 ($138,000, €112,000 or درهم508,000).
Redesigned by West Coast Customs for an American music company executive circa 2011 for use in California, the vehicle offered features a “raked roof-line” and is finished in British Racing Green with light green over. It has just 25,000 miles on the clock, a tan leather interior and a boot with acres of space for dogs, picnics and goodness knows what else.
The 6.8-litre, turbocharged V8 engine, automatic, right-hand drive car – one of just 134 Silver Spur III’s – is offered by Desmond J. Smail of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.
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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.
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The richest self-made woman in the UK paid herself £217 million in 2016 and is said to have a personal fortune of circa £3.17 billion. A former betting shop cashier, Denise Coates purchased the domain Bet365.com in 2000 and has since grown the operation into one of the world’s largest online gambling companies. A Sheffield University graduate and the daughter of the chairman of Stoke City F.C., this incredibly successful business titan is nicknamed ‘The Patron of the Potteries’ for employing a large number of people in Stoke-on-Trent. She lives surprisingly modestly with her husband and five children in a farmhouse in Cheshire.
Neglected Georgian mansion that has been home to Sir Dirk Bogarde, Basil Dearden, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, Matt Aitken and Robert Kilroy-Silk for sale for 39% less than it sold for in 2014
A dilapidated Grade II* listed country house whose extensive roster of owners numbers aristocrats, rock and film stars and politicians is on sale for £3.95 million or 39% less from the £6.5 million sum it sold for in 2014.
Built for the Duke of Buckingham in the 1600s and extending to 10,743 square foot, Beel House in Little Chalfont, near Amersham in Buckinghamshire stands in 13.5 acres of land. It comprises of a 7 reception room, 8 bedroom, 6 bathroom main house and also comes with an indoor swimming pool complex, a tennis court and garaging for 5 cars.
Home to The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish in the 1830s and Colonel Abram ‘Arthur’ Lyle of the Tate & Lyle dynasty from 1909 to 1920, Beel House was bought by the actor Sir Dirk Bogarde in a “dilapidated state” in 1954. Of discovering it, Bogarde, who had been renting a cottage in the close vicinity on the Bendrose Estate, stated:
“[The actress Kay Kendall and I] walked across muddy fields from my rented home to look at Beel House. It was a horror. Bleak and empty, few of its twenty-six rooms caught the sun, and the garden surrounding it was a tangle of overgrown rosebeds. Inside it seemed a labyrinth of corridors and stone passages. It was painted throughout in dejected yellow and brown and each room had a rusty gas fire in it.”
Bogarde made significant changes to the building and pulled down a wing of 11 rooms. In their place, he built a swimming pool and a 30-foot long conservatory in the grounds – which Kay Kendall later described as looking like “an out patients’ department” – and it seems he spent several happy years there. He moved to another property nearby named Drummer’s Yard in 1960 and sold Beel House to Basil Dearden, the director of The Assassination Bureau, Khartoum and The Man Who Haunted Himself.
An aerial photo of Beel House, Little Chalfont, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP7 9QP, United KingdomImages of the exterior of Beel House in the 1950sActor Anthony Forwood, Sir Dirk Bogarde’s eventual “life partner,” at Beel House with his dogs Sinuhe and Bogie; Sir Dirk Bogarde in his study at the houseSir Dirk Bogarde outside Beel House with one of many Rolls-Royces he owned and inside on the house’s main staircaseFilm director Basil Dearden, owner of Beel House between 1960 and 1966, worked with Sir Dirk Bogarde on the controversial film ‘Victim’ in 1961; it was the first English language film to use the word “homosexual” and of it one Italian critic remarked: “At last the British have stopped being hypocrites”
Dearden sold up in 1966 and the next famous owners were Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne in the early 1980s. It was whilst here that Mr Osbourne “decided to murder his wife” and of the ensuing incident on 3rd September 1989, the Amersham Museum’s website reports:
“Ozzy Osbourne put the house up for sale after he had been arrested for the attempted murder of his wife whilst living at Beel House. After taking a cocktail of drugs and drinking heavily during a family meal at the Chinese restaurant at Nightingales Corner he attacked his wife and was subsequently arrested. He had no memory of the attack but the conditions of his bail were that he entered a rehab centre, did not contact his wife and did not return to Beel House.”
Marketed for £1.75 million in 1991, unsurprisingly Sharon Osbourne, herself, did not have much positive to say about her time at Beel House either. In her 2006 autobiography, Extreme, she remarked:
“I decided I wanted to go back to England. By this time we had already sold Beel House. I had enough bad memories not to be too sorry to see it go. Also it had reached what the builder called the domino point: mending one thing only triggered something else that needed to be done.”
Ozzy Osbourne, photographed by Conrad Rickenbacker, sitting on his four poster bed at Beel House in the 1980sImages of Beel House during the ownership of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne (photographs by Conrad Rickenbacker)Robert Kilroy-Silk at Beel House prior to his appearance on ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here’ in November 2008The house as furnished by Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife Jan Beech, circa 2014
Matt Aitken, the composer of chart toppers for Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Rick Astley and Bananarama, supposedly lived at Beel House for a period subsequently and in the 1990s, the property was sold to the “exotically handsome man, with a very un-English facial glow and ice blue eyes” Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife, Jan Beech.
Controversial television personality Mr Kilroy-Silk, an MP from 1974 to 1986 and an MEP from 2004 to 2009, brought with him a herd of fallow deer as well as Vietnamese pheasants and bantams to Beel House. He lived between there and his home in Spain and then sold up for the staggering sum of £6.5 million in 2014 to an “international buyer” who, according to Country Life’s Penny Churchill, immediately found “it ‘surplus to requirements’ and put it straight back on the market” through Savills.
Of the estate, which by then had been for sale for three years, in October 2017, then selling agent Hugh Maconochie told the Bucks Free Press:
“In many respects Beel House is the archetypal country residence: a Grade II* listed home in the heart of the Chilterns, beautiful grounds and easy access to London by both rail and road. Yet, while it was completely refurbished in the 1980s – new garaging, games block and swimming pool complex included – its current state necessitates a complete restoration project.”
“For those seeking a country residence to move straight into, Beel House is not the home for them. Instead it would appeal to a buyer looking to restore and revive a Georgian gem. A reduction in price over the years reflects the refurbishment that’s required.”
Empty and plainly somewhat neglected, Edward Welton of Knight Frank’s Baker Street office is now marketing the property. His firm describes Beel House as: “An exciting opportunity for a full restoration project, giving someone the chance to create their own style on a private estate, so close to London.”
Beel House – The Names and Numbers
November 2017 – Further reduced to just £3.95 million ($5.29 million, €4.47 million or درهم19.44 million) through Knight Frank.
January 2017 – Reduced to £4.95 million ($6.63 million, €5.61 million or درهم24.37 million) through Savills.
November 2015 – For sale again for £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) through Savills.
2014 – Sold to “an international buyer” by Robert Kilroy-Silk for “close to” the £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) asking price.
June 1991 – For sale for £1.75 million (the equivalent of £3.45 million, $4.62 million, €3.91 million or درهم16.98 million today).
October 1989 – Placed for sale by media personalities Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne.
1966 – Placed on the market by Basil Dearden for £66,000 (the equivalent of £1.1 million, $1.5 million, €1.2 million or درهم5.4 million today).
Circa 1960 – Sold to film director Basil Dearden (1911 – 1971).
January 1954 – Sold to actor Sir Dirk Bogarde (1921 – 1999) for £4,000 (the equivalent of £101,000, $135,000, €114,000 or درهم497,000 today).
1836 to 1954 – Part of the estate of the Lowndes family, largescale landowners in the Chesham, Buckinghamshire area. During this time tenants included The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish and from 1909 to 1920 by Colonel Abram Lyle (of the Tate & Lyle dynasty).
1730 – Valued at £500 (the equivalent of £99,000, $133,000, €112,000 or درهم487,000 today) by Sun Insurance whilst home to Thomas White of Middle Temple.
1672 to 1682 – Home to Mary Pennington, the mother-in-law of the Quaker founder of the State of Pennsylvania, William Penn.
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What first attracted ‘Hot Felon’ Jeremy Meeks to the daughter of the billionaire ‘Sir Shifty’ Philip Green?
One could argue the criminal Jeremy Meeks hit the jackpot when his mugshot went viral and a modeling career as the ‘Hot Felon’ ensued. Not only did he achieve such, but one could argue he had a double whammy next when he struck gold and acquired the daughter of the much loathed billionaire ‘Sir Shifty’ Philip Green as his ‘girlfriend.’
Meeks, however, if what he allegedly said to the Mail on Sunday’s Charlotte Griffiths is true, plainly thinks to the contrary given he supposedly commented:
“The third time we met, designer Philipp Plein threw a dinner for me and Chloe [Green] was there. I didn’t put her on the guest list and I still don’t know who invited her but I am happy she was there, and after that we fell in love.”
Accompanying the article on the Mail Online’s site yesterday was a video of Meeks arriving at an awards ceremony in Monaco with Miss Green and her mother, the pugnacious Lady ‘Don’t Call Me Tina’ Green. In it, whilst Meeks looks at ease in front of the cameras, both Greens career before the flashbulbs and seem nothing but sozzled and out of their depth.
Of this ‘arrangement,’ one can only echo the words of Mrs Merton and ask: “Jeremy, what first attracted you to the daughter of the billionaire Philip Green?”
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