Margaret Burke, a former Neo-Nazi supporting HMP Holloway jailbird turned one-time Labour Party councillor, happily hung around with hypocrites Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and Caroline Flint; will she get a ‘photo op’ with the drippy dope Sir Keir Starmer during General Election 2024?
Elected as a councillor in Milton Keynes in 2012 in spite of having previously dressed in Nazi-style uniforms and also having recruited youths to daub buildings with swastikas, Margaret Burke – pictured above with fellow hypocrite, gypsy basher Diane Abbott MP – was a member of a repugnant group known as the November 9th Society in the early 1980s. Today, instead, this wicked wastrel claims to “look after hedgehogs and birds and anything else that comes her way.”
Whilst a councillor, this anything but innocent “bit of a berk” also neglected to mention her time in Her Majesty’s Prison Holloway for vandalising a butcher’s shop whilst a member of the Animal Liberation Front. Bombastic bore Burke, however, was prepared to share that she “held surgeries for one hour per week for her constituents every Friday evening.”
In the context of this Labour loon, don’t mention the war and don’t mention her friendliness with not only Abbott, but also her disgraceful ex-lover, Jeremy Corbyn. He was happy to pose for a picture with her in 2016 even.
One now has to ask: “Will the super fan of the bombastic bigot ‘Nasty Nat’ Natalie Elphicke and all-round drippy dope Sir Keir Starmer be seeking out Margaret Burke for a ‘photo op’ during the General Election 2024 campaign?” Shame on anyone who associates with this vile piece of toe rag.
Of the one-time Neo Nazi Margaret Burke, the now ex-Labour MP The Right Honourable Caroline Flint once shockingly enthused: “Margaret has been a community activist for some time and also runs a wildlife hospital and as you can imagine is very well known. Relatively new to the Labour Party she has taken to knocking on doors like a duck to water. Out in groups but also alone, Margaret is clocking up her target vote. She is an inspiration to those who avoid the doorstep.” If she’d been around when they were in power, might Caroline Flint – a woman bizarrely endorsed in 2019 as “first rate” by Boris Johnson – have lauded Stalin, Mussolini or Hitler perhaps also?Two mental maniacs come together… Dimwitted dunce Diane Abbott was happy to be snapped with the ex-Neo Nazi and since ex-Labour councillor in April 2012 in Milton Keynes. Excusing her previous antics, another Milton Keynes Labour councillor, Kevin Wilson, pathetically bleated of a woman who, along with her [then] husband [Terry Flynn], “wore Nazi-style uniforms and recruited gangs of local youths to hand out racist leaflets and daub buildings with swastikas”: “We were aware of Margaret’s past and we questioned her at length. We had no doubt at all that her misdemeanours of 20 or 30 years ago were serious matters but I do not believe that somebody should be punished or penalised for what they did such a long time ago.”The ex-jailbird Margaret Burke grinned like a Cheshire cat when she got herself into a snap with Jeremy Corbyn in 2016. At the time, according to ‘Guido Fawkes,’ the then Labour leader was quoted as telling her: “Thank you very much for all the hard work you have done.” One can only wonder if this wicked woman gifted him a swastika in return.
Tardis-like hidden house in Knightsbridge once home to ‘airhead’ Donna Air – who once amusingly asked The Corrs: “Where did you all meet?” – for sale for £14.5 million (or 383% more than it was ‘worth’ in 2003)
Update, Thursday 4th April 2024 – Internal images removed at insistence of Annabel Edney, associate PR, Savills.
The ‘cheap wing’ of one of Knightsbridge’s landmark churches, St Saviour’s, has gone on sale for a not-insubstantial sum of £14.5 million after the more ‘expensive wing’ was marketed for the very punchy sum of £55 million in 2019 and the still somewhat punchy sum of £44 million in 2020.
The deceptively Tardis-like Hastings House in Walton Street is a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ home from the pavement. It is entered through a small door to the side of a church that was reduced in size to accommodate the vast 12,102 square foot St Saviour’s House and the new-build in 1999 property of 5,261 square foot now offered by agents Savills.
Actress and presenter Donna Air – who once hilariously asked the siblings that formed The Corrs: “Where did you all meet?” during an interview – numbers amongst the well-known ‘names’ to have lived in the house. This likeable lady shared the property with her wealthy conservationist then partner Damian Aspinall and even operated her even more hilariously named company (since dissolved) Airhead And Money Limited from the address.
Occupied also variously by a fast-living, Bugatti driving oil trader named Pierre Andurand and the controversial Italian sports manager Pierandrea Semeraro, the three-storey residence is centred around a “serene” private courtyard and includes 2 reception rooms, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a rather impressive roof terrace.
Savills describe the freehold house as “opulent” and laud “one of the crowning jewels of the residence,” its underground pool, as a “hidden gem” in the basement; perhaps Sharon Corr and her siblings could hold a reunion there.
Actress and presenter Donna Air and conservationist Damian Aspinall with James Middleton – Air’s partner between 2013 and 2018 – and Victoria Fisher – whom Aspinall married in 2016. Aspinall and Air were an item between 2000 and 2007. Donna Air’s most famous moment on the telly box was summed up in an interview with Sharon Corr of the Celtic pop band The Corrs. Of the encounter, Corr stated: “We did a live television interview with Donna Air. Her opening question was: ‘So, where did you all meet?’ I looked at my brother and sisters and our hearts sank. If that was the opening question, it could only go downhill from there. It was clear that she knew absolutely nothing about us.”Oil trading tycoon Pierre Andurand and sports tycoon Pierandrea Semeraro have also both been listed at the address in Companies House records. How long each of the men lived at the property is unknown.
The Names & Numbers – Hastings House, Walton Place, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 1SA, United Kingdom
March 2024 – Offered for sale as an “ultra-cool freehold house” by William Duckworth-Chad and Alex Christian of Savills for £14.5 million ($18.3 million, €17 million or درهم67.2 million) – an asking price 123% higher than the asking price 20 years ago in March 2004 and 383% higher than the quoted worth in May 2003 – and described by Robb Report’s Abigail Montanez as a “stately London home hiding in plain sight… in the affluent Knightsbridge neighbourhood.”
April 2012 – Richard Compton Miller for The Standard bizarrely contradicts previous evidence and suggests Damian Aspinall and Donna Air “recently moved into [the] converted church.” It can only be assumed he was regurgitating somewhat outdated parish news.
April 2010 – Listed as the address of French “entrepreneur” Pierre Andurand on his appointment as a director of Andurand Events Limited company. The company ultimately was dissolved on 28th June 2011 after a compulsory strike-off.
Aixe-en-Provence born Mr Andurand is listed on Wikipedia as a “businessman and hedge fund manager” who was educated at the University of Oxford. This twice married “leader” of Andurand Capital has variously been listed as a “star trader,” an “oil trading wildcard” and someone who operates with “no set risk limits.” World Top Investors list this kickboxing enthusiast as “the comeback kid, the hotshot trader living the jock-bro dream, driving a Bugatti supercar, a Knightsbridge townhouse, and a trophy wife Russian model.”
23rd January 2007 – A planning application submitted by the Italian sports manager Pierandrea Semeraro concerning the property is approved.
Mr Semeraro is listed on Wikipedia as having been the president of the Sports Union Lecce from 2006 to 2010. He was subsequently banned and disqualified after an investigation into a football betting scandal.
November 2006 – Planning application submitted to make various alterations to Hastings House by a firm named Stanhope Gate including the addition of skylights.
April 2004 – Described by the Daily Mail’s Adam Helliker as being the “weekday… converted church” home where “daughter of a bus mechanic from Newcastle” who “has, by all accounts, rather taken to the life of luxury” Donna Air “busies herself with acting lessons, acupuncture, shiatsu and stints with her personal trainer.”
March 2004 – Featured once again by The Observer’s Ben Flanagan after going on sale for the far higher than he’d previously mentioned sum of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.6 million or درهم30.1 million) through the rather ritzy realtors Aylesford.
Of it, Flanagan enthused:
“Behind a discreet doorway on an exclusive Knightsbridge street lies this 5,250 sq ft home, which the estate agent describes as ‘one of London’s hidden gems.’”
“You’d never guess the house was built in the 1990s as you wander through its elegant Italianate central courtyard to the neo-classical cloisters and drawing room. One clue, however, is the basement swimming pool and bar, which has a more modern – if a little Footballers’ Wives – look… ‘There’s an amazing ‘party pad’ feel to it,’ says a spokesman.”
May 2003 – Described by The Observer’s Ben Flanagan as worth £3 million ($3.8 million, €3.5 million or درهم13.9 million) in a feature that mentions it being the home of actress Donna Air and zoo owning tycoon Damian Aspinall.
28th July 2000 – Listed as the correspondence address of “presenter” Donna Air’s amusingly named “radio and television activities” company, Airhead And Money Limited. The company ultimately was dissolved on 1st March 2011 after a compulsory strike-off.
4th September 1998 – Full planning permission granted for the construction of Hastings House by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. Of the planning history of the unlisted property then to be constructed, the council noted separately: “The subject site was formerly included within the ground of the St Saviour’s Church, which is a listed building, however following planning permission which was granted in August 1997 for the erection of the subject building, the subject site has been formally renumbered in 2001 as Hastings House and is considered as a separate planning unit to St Saviours Church.”
Matthew Steeples takes a look at a £36 million Kensington mansion formerly owned by disgraced business tycoons Alan Bond and Lord Black; its former chatelaine was known for stating “I have an extravagance that know no bounds”
Sir Winston Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames once described the buccaneering businessman and media tycoon Lord Black of Crossharbour as “London’s biggest bore unhung” whilst his wife, Lady Black – better known as the author and journalist Barbara Amiel – was suggested to be just a “rich bitch” by Sarah Sands in a “case for the defence” article in the Independent in October 2006.
“Poster boy for the 80s” turned fraudster and jailbird Alan Bond (1938 – 2015) was an English-Australian businessman equally Marmite-like in being liked or loathed and now a Kensington mansion owned for a time by both subsequently disgraced businessmen is once again for sale.
14 Cottesmore Gardens, formerly known as 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens, was purchased by Alan Bond’s Satellite Group for £7 million in the 1980s and sold by administrators of that business to Conrad Black and his wife for the knockdown sum of just £3.5 million in 1992.
Plain old Mr and Mrs Black (as they then were) lavished further millions – some of which came from the company Hollinger International, Inc., which ultimately resulted in their downfall – on the double fronted 19th century mansion and used it for entertaining on a lavish scale. Guests, including the likes of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Joan Collins, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair, were said to flock to the parties they gave there, but in 2005 these gatherings of upto 400 people at a time came to an almighty end.
Forced to sell at a bargain basement price of just £13.1 million on an ask of £17.5 million as the Canadian born billionaire faced jail time in America, Lord and Lady Black’s tenure was over and the residence saw its “arriviste torch” passed to Juan and Adriana Villalonga, a couple described as “a Mexican telecom czar and his beauty-queen wife.” Of what came next, The Globe And Mail’s Paul Waldie pointedly penned in February 2007: “[They] quickly erased many of the features that the Blacks prized.”
Once again for sale as of April 2023, the value of 14 Cottesmore Gardens has again been deemed to have substantially risen. Knight Frank offer the 12,310 square foot, five-storey residence at a punchy price of £36 million and laud it as “imposing” and “presented in good order throughout.” They add that a “pre-planning consultation” has found that further accommodation could be added that would take the internal space to more than 15,000 square feet; business barons with deep pockets only need apply.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
Pictured Top – 54-foot wide 14 Cottesmore Gardens is described by selling agents Knight Frank as “offering lateral living so often requested but so hard to find in central London.” They neglect to mention that with its hedges cut back to the minimum, the place actually looks extremely forlorn.
Flamboyant Lord and Lady Black dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette for a party at Kensington Palace in 2000. For a time, the couple employed 17 butlers (if Tom Bower is to be believed) and had two private jets and homes – aside from the 19th Cottesmore Gardens mansion – in New York, Palm Beach and Toronto. “Guests packed into their parties at Cottesmore Gardens,” Bower remarked in his 2006 book the couple, adding: “Amiel was a big spender… Under the control of senior butler Andrew Lightwood, second butler Peter Wilson and a succession of third butlers, Amiel’s life in Kensington had become what her constantly changing staff called ‘bizarre.’ Each recruit was taken by Lightwood on an introductory tour of the house, ending on the roof. ‘Make sure the landing lights are on at all times,’ instructed Lightwood solemnly, ‘because Madame takes off from here on her broomstick looking for cats. She needs the lights to guide her return.’ His face would crack into a smile. ‘Most important, take care that she never sees you. She hates seeing any of us.’ Amiel’s eccentricity demanded that her staff hid whenever she approached, diving into cupboards if necessary, and never entered her quarters when she was present. Every day, all the bed linen was changed and subjected to ‘the penny test.’ A coin was dropped onto the sheets. If it failed to bounce they were not drawn sufficiently tight. Every cushion was arranged to a precise pre-ordained position, and each towel placed exactly as Amiel had predetermined. ‘Andrew!’ she screamed down the telephone on one memorable occasion, ‘the towels are in the wrong place!’ Lightwood, as Amiel knew, was in New York, but he was expected to telephone the staff in the house in London to rectify the error. ‘You f**king pillock!’ she yelled at another member of staff for reading her ‘Daily Mail’ before it was delivered to her.”Barbara Amiel Black (or ‘Lady Black’ as she prefers to be known) in her drawing room at Cottesmore Gardens (pictured). Of her, Sarah Sands on Lord and Lady Black in the ‘Independent’ in October 2006 opined: “Conrad and Barbara in their monstrous, glamorous way, knew how to throw parties. The talk was of geo-politics and hemlines. Nowadays, we scorn their extravagance and doubt the source of their wealth with prune-faced hindsight. Meanwhile, everyone is sucking up to Russians…. Barbara would disingenuously begin her midnight calls to me by saying in her low, breathy voice: ‘I hope I am not disturbing you.’ She would then offer little glimpses of her own home life. I remember her mentioning that Conrad Black was upstairs playing with his fleet of toy gun ships in the bath… I remember her examining an exhibition of doll’s houses at the Chelsea Flower Show and sighing how restful it would be to live in this cosy little home. How she envied people in small houses. The burden of wealth was one of her more dangerous fantasies. At one of her Gatsby-style parties in Kensington, she flinched at the elaborate canapés on offer: ‘Really, all I want is a sausage,’ she said, piteously. Then, she ran a hand down her inconceivably expensive dress and whispered: ‘I hate these parties, I am so shy.’ Later, I was invited to her boudoir, where she lay on cushion surrounded by her women friends. She was Kensington’s Cleopatra, surrounded by maidens such as the designer and Forte daughter Olga Polizzi, the political thinker Tessa Keswick and the writer Miriam Gross.”The very same drawing room at 14 Cottesmore Gardens today. The décor is now somewhat more modern and less ‘classical country house-ified.’ It’s certainly more Soho Farmhouse than Alberto Pinto in style; it is currently a space that the former Meghan Markle would feel more at home than say, perhaps, the likes of Lord and Lady Black’s chum Ghislaine Maxwell and her fellow noxious nonce Ponzi scheming paedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Pinto was responsible, it should be noted, for the designs of most of Epstein’s residences.The front elevation of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens during the era it was owned by Lord and Lady Black.Multiple entries for Lord and Lady Black during the time they owned 14 Cottesmore Gardens appeared in the ‘Little Black Book’ address book often attributed as being that of the friends and associates of Jeffrey Epstein, but that featured more of the contacts of Ghislaine Maxwell in fact. In October 2020, Barbara Amiel took revenge on the pension pot plunderer’s padeophile sex trafficker daughter by featuring her in her “score-settling” memoir ‘Friends & Enemies: A Life in Vogue, Prison, & Park Avenue.” Maxwell had “dumped” Lady Black when Lord Black was being investigated for fraud. She wrote of their last meeting: “We were friends – so putting on my ‘So good to see you’ face, I headed for her. She bolted. Turned that sharp tight little turn when you really want to get away. And that was it.” Of the clear lover of plastic surgery Lady Black, in October 2020, Sarah Sands remarked in ‘The Mail on Sunday’: “She had a bohemian, almost masculine, view of opportunistic sex. She describes, for instance, accompanying an early love in his white Triumph sports car ‘in which once or twice I had performed fellatio to the fascination of passing truck drivers, all for fun.’”After getting out of the clink in 2012, Lord and Lady Black decided to go back on the ‘razzle-dazzle’ and posed for photographers before heading back to London to party with friends. In May 2019, the rambunctious peer arrogantly announced he’d be returning to the House of Lords after President Donald Trump pardoned and praised him. Commenting, of this pardon, Lord Black declared: “I’m not bitter… Officially in the United States, I’ve never been charged and I won in the end. It was a war and there are casualties in wars. I lost the time, I lost a lot of money, but as you can see my standards of living isn’t bad… The truth is, these, last 15 years, I haven’t been as interested in British politics as I was before – in the Thatcher years. It could be quite interesting again, in fact it is as of right now – it’s very interesting… It’s my good fortune that at a time when it is feasible, it happens – by happy coincidence – that it is a time of great fermentation in British public affairs.” Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem to have turned up on occasions since.The previous owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens, Alan Bond (1938 – 2015), will forever be remembered as “Australia’s most notorious corporate criminal.” Born in Hammersmith, London, Bond’s first crime occurred when he was charged with theft aged 14 in Fremantle in Australia and whilst he is remembered for bankrolling the successful challenge for the 1983 America’s Cup, it is for causing the then biggest corporate collapse in Australian history that he will be go down in history. Former Miss Mexico Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros (at the time Adriana Villalonga) bought the house in 2005. She divorced the Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga in 2009 and married the French businessman Emmanuel Schreder in Ibiza in June 2013. In August 2014, the magazine ‘Quién’ featured the model and television presenter on its cover and at that time she described her new husband as “the love of my life.”Madrid born Juan Villalonga became the joint owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens with his then wife Adriana Abascal – the couple were married between 2000 and 2009 – in 2005. He is listed on Companies House as being a director of the now dissolved Medikidz Foundation at the address between August 2009 and November 2013. Married since 2011 to a photographer named Vanessa Von Zitewitz, Mr Villalonga was a partner at McKinsey & Company in the 1980s, CEO for Credit Suisse First Boston and Bankers Trust in Spain in the early 1990s and CEO of Telefónica from 1996 to 2000. He was named as one of the best performing chief executive officers in the world by ‘Harvard Business Review’ in 2010 and is also linked to addresses in Monaco.
The Names & Numbers – 14 Cottesmore Gardens (formerly known as ’12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens’), Kensington, London, W8 5PR, United Kingdom
April 2023 – Offered for sale for £36 million ($44.4 million, €40.9 million or درهم163.2 million) through Knight Frank. Valued on Homipi at an upper sum of £28.558 million ($35.250 million, €32.440 million or درهم129.456 million).
2009 – Mr and Mrs Villalonga divorce and subsequently Adriana Abascal married Emmanuel Schreder, a French businessman, in Ibiza in June 2013.
2005 – Sold by Lord and Lady Black for £13.1 million ($16.2 million, €14.9 million or درهم59.4 million) to Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga Navarro and Mexican model, Miss Mexico winner and television presenter Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros Villalonga.
October 2004 – Placed for sale for £17.5 million ($21.6 million, €19.9 million or درهم79.3 million) according to NZ Herald.
January 2004 – Valued at £14 million ($17.3 million, €15.9 million or درهم63.5 million) according to The Globe And Mail. At the time, the “mansion” in “the upscale Kensington neighbourhood” was described as having “10 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a swimming pool.”
Featured also in The Guardian in an article by Chris Tryhorn. Quoting Lord Black, he shared: “At a certain price, anything is for sale. [It has] been shown to people in the not-too-distant-past.”
Going further, Tryhorn added: “Artwork from the 18th and 19th centuries lines the walls, and there is plenty of storage space for the extensive wardrobe and shoe collection of Lord Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel, who famously declared once that her ‘extravagence knows no bounds.’ … It was originally two homes and one of the two original front doors is now a ‘deliveries’ entrance. He has used it in the past to host dinners with butler and maid service that was part-paid by Hollinger.”
Also in 2004, in a profile in The Spectator, Peter Oborne wrote:
“Every year the Blacks threw two parties, one at Christmas and one summer event, at their double-fronted 11-bedroom mansion in Cottesmore Gardens. Everybody who mattered at the time went: Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, royalty, the playwright Tom Stoppard.”
“Some of these, injudiciously as it turned out, agreed to join the main Hollinger board. The luckier ones – Peter Carrington, Robert Salisbury – got away with being made directors of TheTelegraph. As the Tories faded out, Labour ministers started to arrive, the indefatigable Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett and other ministers eager to ingratiate themselves with the Tory press. Prince and Princess Michael of Kent were assiduous in attendance. In London, the Nineties belonged to the Blacks. They were London’s most glamorous power couple.”
“There had been a time when both Blacks had kept their feet on the ground. This ceased to be the case. One evening Barbara Black rang Charles Moore panic-stricken from her Kensington home. There had been a last-minute drop-out from one of the famous Black dinner parties. ‘I’m short of a woman,’ she told Moore. Moore surveyed the newsroom. His gaze alighted on the journalist Eleanor Mills, by chance the stepdaughter of the Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell.”
“An hour later, hastily groomed, made-up and brushed, Mills was sipping pre-dinner drinks in Cottesmore Gardens. Then disaster struck. A male guest, Max Fisher, dropped out. Mills was approached by Conrad Black. ‘Finish your drink and skedaddle,’ he told her. Barbara Black then told her to go to the kitchen and out through the servants’ door, where the driver would pick her up and take her home.”
2001 – Conrad Black is elevated to a life peerage in the United Kingdom at the suggestion of Tony Blair. He sat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords until 2007 as The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG, but took a “leave of absence” between 2012 and 2019.
28th May 1996 – The Royal Borough of Kensington And Chelsea ordered that 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens “shall be known and described” simply instead as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
Mid 1990s – The Blacks set about renovating 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens with the help of J. E. Evans Associates. Of the work in October 2006, The Sunday Times shared a segment of Tom Bower’s 2006 hatchet job Conrad and Lady Black that read: “Amiel vowed to create a palace that would attract celebrity worshipers of a power couple. Part of the first floor was to be removed to create a huge ground floor reception area.”
1992 – 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens sold by the administrators of the affairs of Alan Bond through estate agents Savills to media tycoon Conrad Black and his Watford born journalist wife Barbara Amiel Black for “well under the asking price” for a sum of £3.5 million ($4.3 million, €4 million or درهم15.9 million).
Mr Bond had been granted mortgages valued at £16.2 million ($20 million, €18.4 million or درهم73.5 million) on the property by Bell Satellite Services on the property along with two others at 4 and 16 Belgrave Mews in London, SW1 previously according to a report published by Financial Review in March 1990.
1991 – Rented to an American businessman for £6,000 per week ($7,400, €6,800 or درهم27,200 per week).
1990 – Placed in the hands of administrators of Mr Bond’s and placed for sale through Savills for a bargain basement sum of £3.8 million ($4.7 million, €4.3 million or درهم17.2 million) according to Financial Review.
1980s – Sold to Alan Bond’s Bell Satellite Group for £7 million ($8.6 million, €8 million or درهم31.7 million).
Circa 1905 – Walter Tapper is said to have “designed a library with handsome Arts and Crafts plasterwork (now removed) at the rear of the building.”
1869 – In their current marketing blurb, Knight Frank suggest: “There has been a house on the site of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens since at least 1869. The current house has been altered, extended and most notably joined over the subsequent century and a half. With the local planning department strongly opposed to further amalgamation of homes, opportunities to acquire a house of this width will be rarer still in the future.”
1850s to 1860s – Built “under the direction of David Howell, of Serjeants Inn, Fleet Street.” Mr Howell was described in 1853 as an “articled clerk to a solicitor, lately carrying on business as a solicitor.” The architecture was lauded as: “Designed in a bold classical manner, with rather fleshy consoles and modillions… and bands of Vitruvian scroll between the bases of the ground-floor windows.”
More photographs of the £36 million mansion…
An entrance hall where power and privilege have most certainly mingled previously.The 54-foot wide drawing is lauded by selling realtors Knight Frank as “arguably the best room in the house” and “double aspect.” They add: “[It has] six windows overlooking the street and additional views over the private garden to the rear.”The columns where Barbara Amiel Black once posed for photographs remain, but the subsequent owners eliminated much of the 1990s ‘brash’ that had been installed by a Watford born woman whose excess clearly offended so many.This dining room, where Conrad Black hosted presidents and prime ministers, is now somewhat diminished. The table for eight looks completely out of place and a future owner would do well to install something a little grander.A double height entertaining space was installed at the insistence of the loftier-than-lofty Lady Black in the 1990s and it remains today. However, it is now currently being used for more casual affairs such as Netflix viewing rather than being the scene of something that you’d more likely find in the ‘House of Cards’ in fact.A new owner might reinstate the grandeur of the past; sadly, however, this seems unlikely and the purchaser is more likely to be a footballer or Internet tycoon than a super-connected business tycoon.This currently very dark and very depressing study would most certainly not appeal to the very clearly very, very bright yet very, very pompous The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG – a man who is said to count Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte as “his military heroes.” Of him in July 1997, Mark Honigsbaum in the ‘Independent’ remarked: “Although Black’s grandfather had briefly been a business partner of Harold Harmsworth, the original Viscount Rothermere, it was from his father, George Montegu Black Jr, that Black learned the art of corporate warfare, the importance of historical perspective and that gambling provides a disappointing rate of return compared to the Dow Jones index… The young Conrad was precocious. At the age of eight he sank his life savings of $60 into a single share of General Motors. He also became obsessed with Napoleon, and would astound his father’s friends by reeling off details of campaigns. Another story has him washing dollar bills and hanging them out to dry on a line outside his father’s home in Toronto. The last is apocryphal – Black says he slipped in the mud and was cleaning his change – but the image of the young capitalist, wise beyond his years, is accurate. His childhood tutor, the historian Laurier LaPierre, once asked Black why he always seemed to have the air of someone waiting for something to happen… A few years ago, for instance, the rumour went round Fleet Street that Black had bought Napoleon’s preserved penis at an auction. Black denied it, but many remain convinced that Bonaparte’s body part sits in Black’s collection of military curios… Black is no philanderer and is devoted to his second wife, the former ‘Sunday Times’ columnist Barbara Amiel. They are said to be intellectual soul mates and the parties at their four-storey mansion in Kensington are famous for bringing together a cross-section of the great and good.”One could not imagine the likes of the late great Baroness Thatcher, for example, liking the idea of sitting in this extremely depressing and dark waiting area. A new owner would do well to obliterate a décor scheme that could have only been favoured by a completely colour blind banker.A room currently described as a ‘cinema room’ measures 28’6” by 21’6” and is situated at the rear of the house. One can imagine Conrad Black having sat here for hour upon hour watching historical dramas about Napoleon with the likes of chums such as the acclaimed historian Andrew Roberts, the gambling tycoon John Aspinall and the politician and diarist Alan Clark, but a new owner will be more likely next showing episodes of ‘Succession’ – based on ‘The Telegraph’ tycoon’s rival Rupert Murdoch – than viewing historical works one most definitely suspects.Dining whilst the staff cook would NEVER have been on the agenda in the era that pomposity reigned whilst Lady Black was chatelaine of 14 Cottesmore Gardens.A 2,000 square foot entire floor fit for a tycoon… The master bedroom suite of the house takes up the entirety of the second floor of the building. It incorporates not only the principal bedroom, but also a “his” dressing room and a “her” dressing room as well as a sitting area, a bathroom, a shower room and storage rooms. It has direct lift access and is bigger than the average Brit’s entire house.A dressing room in the house where Barbara Black opened up to ‘Vogue’ and displayed “closets overflowing with dazzling evening gowns, designer handbags and 100 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes. ‘I have an extravagance that knows no bounds,’ she famously declared. Unfortunately for Lady Black, the article was closely perused at investment company Tweedy, Browne, a Hollinger International shareholder.”This playroom certainly did not exist in the era that Lord and Lady Black owned the property. It would be more likely crammed with books or stuffed with Manolo Blahnik shoes than toys from Toys ‘R Us. A new owner may likely reinstate it as an additional bedroom or office or games room perhaps.The pool room measures 43’9” by 26’9” and is no doubt where Lady Black spent many an hour relaxing.The garden to the rear was where Lord and Lady Black hosted their annual summer party (with guests “spilling” into their drawing room also). In surprisingly Tardis-like fashion, the duo were able to supposedly squeeze in upto 400 guests at such occasions. Amongst those said to have enjoyed hospitality there were Joan Collins and of such, magazine publisher Nicholas Coleridge wrote: “If you get a kick out of milling about with present and former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, minor royals, dukes, editors, vastly rich Americans, distinguished historians, gossip columnists, playboys and lots of pretty ‘it’ girls, then this was the place to be.”The existing floor plan of the property illustrates the vast scale of the building offered. A buyer, Knight Frank observe, has additional options and “a pre-planning consultation has been carried out with RBKC by leading architects Studio Indigo.” They add: “[It] would completely reconfigure the house adding an additional basement floor and taking the internal space to more than 15,000 square foot. The resulting house would have a 40-foot by 41-foot south-facing rear garden.”A plan of the site as presented in 1996 when 12 and 14 became known just as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
As ‘MeGain’s’ bestie Omid Scobie claims Sadie Quinlan (AKA ‘Yankee Wally’) is “on a watch list” with the “good folk at South Wales Police and Scotland Yard” and the “Fixated Threat Assessment Centre” also, the popular YouTuber reports him to the police herself
Whilst the Duchess of Sussex was quite rightly forced to apologise to the Appeal Court in London for making a misleading statement – which the BBC described as her (rather conveniently) having “forgotten events” – in December, it seems her number one PR peddler, the wretch that is Omid Scobie has turned his attention to the popular ‘Yankee Wally’ YouTuber Sadie Quinlan and isn’t allowing her to forget her own past.
Yesterday, in an 11:09-minute YouTube upload that has been watched over 17,700 times and ‘liked’ by 3,500 already, Quinlan shared a tweet from Scobie that described her as a “racist” and “deranged criminal.” He went further and claimed: “Don’t even waste a second on what that deranged, racist criminal thinks. Leave it to the good folk at South Wales Police and Scotland Yard, whose Fixated Threat Assessment Centre have [Sadie Quinlan] on a watch list.”
Understandably upset by the harsh words of this so-called “royal editor” for Harpers Bazaar and self-proclaimed New York Times “bestselling author,” Quinlan – who made clear she had no prior knowledge of how Scobie could know of such a listing – decided to respond by herself calling the Metropolitan Police.
She remarked: “The last thing you need Omid Scobie is somebody calling you ‘deranged’” and added: “I am not a criminal. I shall take this absolutely all the way I can. When that lovely police officer rings me back next week from the Fixated Threat department, I am going to take it to the highest level.”
Of two others she believes have connections to such matters, Quinlan added: “Let’s have the bloody lot. I’m watching you and I’m going to make charges against you if I can… I’m coming for you… I am absolutely tamping [Welsh adjective meaning ‘extremely angry’] mad.”
The lesson to mouse-not-a-man Omid Scobie and his associates here should be laid clear: If you give it out, expect it back – especially when you take on the force to be reckoned with that is ‘Yankee Wally.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvOmZpLg0wY
The tweet by Omid Scobie, posted on Twitter on 19th February 2022 at 7:11pm, in which he described Sadie Quinlan as a “deranged, racist criminal.”In August 2020, the ‘Daily Mail’ shared that plastic-not-fantastic Omid previously worked at gossip magazine ‘Heat’ and partied with the ‘glamour model’ Jodie Marsh. They mentioned how somebody had “airbrushed” Meghan Markle’s “entry on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia… to include more flattering details days before her romance with Prince Harry became public” and illustrated the ‘Finding Freedom’ author’s “drastic transformation” in two very different photographs. Mr Scobie is someone who most definitely would like his past forgotten, but curiously he doesn’t want to allow Sadie Quinlan to have hers forgotten.Illustrating himself to be anything but a real journalist, “influencer” Scobie told the ‘Women in Leadership Publication’: “A casual follower be forgiven for thinking that royal news is just fizzy commentary on the pomp and soap opera of The Firm” in their spring 2021 edition. He self-importantly added: “Reaching millions on Twitter has also enabled my own views and advocacy to travel further” and concluded: “I want to do everything I can to ensure that individuals from every background can get a seat at the table.” Here is someone far from a journalist; here, in fact, is someone who should just be called out as the Duchess of Sussex’s PR peddler.An analysis of Omid Scobie’s Twitter feed clearly shows that a large proportion of his followers are a bit like himself: FAKE.The Duchess of Sussex – pictured giving the clearly far more dignified by far Duchess of Cambridge a right old glare – likes to stir the pot. One of her chief pot stirrers is most definitely Omid Scobie – a poison pen pest described by Nikolay Kalinin in ‘The Steeple Times’ in July 2021 as “a washed-up, childish clot” and someone with “no legitimacy in the media industry.”
When he’s not bragging about wearing Balenciaga, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior or sharing photos of his dog, Yoshi, on his Instagram account, the ‘Finding Freedom’ author constantly bangs on about how he believes the royal family to have racist elements. His speculation is rarely supported by anything other than unnamed sources that give his suggestions little to no credibility.
Sadie Quinlan (AKA ‘Yankee Wally’ responds to Omid Scobie calling her a “deranged, racist criminal”
“All my content is found on the public domain with just my own views and opinions and I do follow the fair use and the fair dealing guidelines”
“I think this tripped me over the edge… They can get their just deserts. Scobie wrote this in reply to whatever her name is, Amanda @MattaOfFact.”
“I like it Amanda I thought you did a fabulous spiff of me and if gets you a bit of extra money after your ten grand from your gopher Lee and whatever money you manage to scrape from your Patreon. You’ve got every begging bowl on the Internet opening and waiting for the money, haven’t you? So, make a bit of money off me, my pleasure, fill your boots.”
“But anyway, Scobie replied to this and this is what he said: ‘Oh dear. Don’t even waste a second on what that deranged, racist criminal thinks. Leave it to the good folk at South Wales Police and Scotland Yard, whose Fixated Threat Assessment Centre have her on a watch list.’”
“Right, OK, so I thought to myself it’s got to be done. Now, you know what I say and I’ll say it again and I’m an absolute manic about it. Do not waste police time. Don’t do it. If you’ve got a little problem, your neighbour is giving you gyp, banging on a wall, wait until the next day and ring 101. Don’t dial 999. Don’t ring the police unless it’s urgent.”
“Having said that, who am I to judge what is urgent and what’s not, but you’ll find that yours truly will take an awful lot of s**t before I ring the police. Because, well, well this is the way I was taught.”
“I even apologised to the police officer today saying that somebody could be needing them a lot more than me. He said, erm, in his London accent: ‘Well, don’t worry about it Sadie,” erh.”
“Anyway, let me tell you what happened. So I see this and I’m thinking: ‘One step too far, one step too far.’ So, then I go looking online for whatever the Fixated Person’s thing is and I found all this information.”
“So, I’m thinking, I don’t wanna [sic] ring the police. I do not want to ring the police. So, yes, I can give them that [sharing a screenshot of what information is required], I can give that, I can give that, I’ve got a passport, I’ve got a licence, so I will do that, I do that.”
“Right ‘o. OK and then I got the number for Scotland Yard so I thought maybe I’ll ring them and ask them because I couldn’t find a number for the Fixated Threat people and I didn’t, at the time, see where I could fill in a form.”
“So, I’m on the phone waiting now. This is Scotland Yard. I took a screenshot the minute that they answered at 11:43am. You can see the time at the top there [sharing another screenshot], 16:36 so it is not even an hour ago now and then I found a form that you could fill in on that webpage that I just showed you and so I wrote down everything that I could.”
“Meanwhile, 25 minutes on the phone to Scotland Yard. ‘I’ve been told I’m on your list. It’s all over Twitter and also it has been claimed by Omid Scobie, a journalist, that I am on your ‘watch list.’ I am horrified.” I couldn’t put it all in one, so I scrolled.”
“’Please can you confirm this as a matter of urgency, if this is true? And if it is, why? This has upset me beyond words and I am also extremely cross at the insulting nature of Mr Omid Scobie’s claim. I look forward to your reply ASAP.” Then I said: “Regards.”
“Now, while I was in the middle of filling all this form in, though it didn’t take me long, Scotland Yard answered the phone to me, so then I am on the phone to Scotland Yard and, erm, they answered at around about 4:30pm and I was on the phone to them until about quarter to five.”
“And I spoke to an absolutely, and I’m not just saying this, he was so kind to me because I was almost crying. I was beside myself, I have to be honest because, I mean, erm, I’m not trying to get sympathy here, but I can’t bloody walk. How am I going to stalk anybody? And if I can’t walk, do you know how hard it is for me to post a letter? I’ve got to beg the postman, if I catch him when he delivers a letter. I can’t get out to the postbox, so as far as malicious letters and stuff, everything I do is online.”
“So, they answered the phone and I spoke to him and I explained and he said: ‘Well, you’ve hit lucky today, Sadie.’ I said: “Oh, why’s that?’ He said: ‘Well, because I’m covering here on the main switchboard, but my main job is in the Fixated Threat department.’ Ha ha ha… On my life, on my life, that’s his job. Ha ha ha…”
“So, he asks for my name, my date of birth and all the other things, my address and off he went and he came back and he said, and by now I am crying and I said: ‘Look, I’m worried sick about this.’ I said: ‘I’m not a stalker’ and he said: ‘We’re going to ring you back about this, Sadie,’ he said: ‘And who was the person that made this complaint?’”
“I said: ‘I believe it is Omid Scobie, but it could be somebody else. It’s on Twitter.’ He said: ‘Here’s a reference number.’ Here we are. He gave me his number, the policeman’s number and a reference number and there’s the ‘umpty’ [sic] form and that’s where you can get it if you want to fill it in.”
“So, erm, I’ve haven’t rung South Wales Police yet because I think Scotland Yard is all I need because I’ve looked at this Fixated Threat thing and it’s all based in London Metropolitan Police. So, I thought no, I’m not saying that the Welsh are organ grinders. Not the monkey, the organ grinder. Yeah, Metropolitan Police will be the organ grinder and we are the monkeys, I know that.”
“So, I’m waiting now to hear from them, probably next week and, erm, that’s that. So, I’m not letting this go because, what, what I don’t like, I’ll tell you what I don’t like: I’m not a racist, I can make jokes about people with black skin if I want to. Like, Ricky Gervais. If you don’t like it, don’t bloody listen to me.”
“I am not a criminal anymore. I am an ex-criminal. I’ve paid my price to society twenty bloody years ago.”
“Scobie, you, don’t throw stones unless your own house is clean and what’s the other one, er, ‘deranged.’ Now that, now that hurts because when you’ve been to a psychiatrist for the best part of ten years after you’ve been made homeless and God knows what and you are antidepressants and you’re doing OK thank you very much. And I can hold, I can string a sentence together, I can think coherently and there’s been times, and I don’t mind telling you, I wasn’t able to do that.”
“So, when somebody calls me ‘deranged,’ it kind of, it kind of trips a switch and it’s an angry switch because when you’ve worked hard on your mental health, when you’ve worked bloody hard to get your mental health back to normal, the last thing you need Omid Scobie is somebody calling you ‘deranged.’ That is very, very harmful and to call me a ‘racist’ is wrong. I’ve told you: My son-in-law is the same colour as you.”
“I am not a criminal. I shall take this absolutely all the way I can. When that lovely police officer rings me back next week from the Fixated Threat department, I am going to take it to the highest level.”
“And there’s two other people I’m after too. I’ll tell you who they are now. You [sharing a screenshot of the Twitter handle of Unstoppable-Chi, @dumielauxepices], Lorenzo, I know, you. I know it’s you that busted me in the beginning. It’s you that got into the ‘me-we’ group and it’s you that exposed my criminal past for all to see.”
“You hide in the shadows, you little creep. You hide in the shadows and you pop up with some really cruel things. You have been stalking me because you know more about me than what I know myself. I’m watching you, I’ve been watching you for two years, but now been as we’re going to bring it all out in the open, let’s have the bloody lot. I’m watching you and I’m going to make charges against you if I can.”
“And you [sharing a screenshot of the Twitter handle of Gin Perdide, @GPerdide], you little bastard. Who are you? You were watching me. Everytime you talk about me, you put the word ‘criminal,’ ‘convict,’ ‘madam.’ You’ve got a, I don’t even know who you are, but I’ll tell you what, I will get Twitter to find out who you are and anybody else who keeps calling me a ‘criminal’ or a ‘racist’ or ‘deranged.’”
“Those three things are like red rags to a bull and my birth sign is Taurus the bull and my birthday is the same day as the Queen. We are built with the same steel backbone. I’m thirty years younger than her. God bless her and I will come for all of you, but meanwhile, meanwhile, you can just sit there and s**t yourself quietly and I’ll be coming for you.”
“Thanks for listening everybody. I’ll be back later. Honestly, this will wash over me. It’s just right now, I am absolutely tamping [Welsh adjective meaning ‘extremely angry’] mad.”
In her uniquely chirpy ‘Yankee Wally’ style, in the description box, Quinlan added
“Sorry, I forgot to say Cheerio!”
“Now you’ve seen me at my worst…. Or, have you?”
“It’s very hard for me to keep an even keel when someone’s upset me so badly.”
“People that have mental health problems, never ever get them totally ‘fixed.’ They are usually suppressed with antidepressants and antipsychotics. I’m on huge doses of both.”
“But, when Scobie has the audacity to call me ‘deranged’ … It triggered me in a way only other sufferers can understand. “
“Heck, I have not worked with therapy counselling psychiatrists and drugs for 20 years to be diagnosed as DERANGED!”
“#omidscobie said a very very bad thing. and he will learn not to verbally abuse those who are not as strong as him
“And everybody else whose insulted me. You will all be made accountable.”
“I LOVE MY ONLINE FRIENDS DEARLY and I will defend you too.”
“CHEERIO!”
Responses to Omid Scobie’s vexatious tweet about Sadie Quinlan
An examination of the true character traits of the Duchess of Sussex’s PR peddling biased ‘bestie’ Omid Scobie by Nikolay Kalinin
Apart from being a royal editor for Harper’s Bazaar, Omid Scobie claims to be “an authoritative voice on the lives and philanthropic endeavors of the royal family’s younger members.” Strangely though, very little is actually known about this mysterious meddler and given his supposed “fame,” isn’t it strange that there isn’t even a Wikipedia page about him?
On his Twitter feed, Scobie does pompously announce that he’s written a “Sunday Times bestseller” called Finding Freedom about Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and their subsequent marriage and defection from the royal family to contradictorily being “private” in the commercial sector. He doesn’t, however, add that said tosh filled tome went to half-price, bargain basement in most bookstores.
In August 2020, the ‘Daily Mail’ shared that plastic-not-fantastic Omid previously worked at gossip magazine ‘Heat’ and partied with the ‘glamour model’ Jodie Marsh. They mentioned how somebody had “airbrushed” Meghan Markle’s “entry on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia… to include more flattering details days before her romance with Prince Harry became public” and illustrated the ‘Finding Freedom’ author’s “drastic transformation” in two very different photographs.Illustrating himself to be anything but a real journalist, “influencer” Scobie told the ‘Women in Leadership Publication’: “A casual follower be forgiven for thinking that royal news is just fizzy commentary on the pomp and soap opera of The Firm” in their spring 2021 edition. He self-importantly added: “Reaching millions on Twitter has also enabled my own views and advocacy to travel further” and concluded: “I want to do everything I can to ensure that individuals from every background can get a seat at the table.” Here is someone far from a journalist; here, in fact, is someone who should just be called out as the Duchess of Sussex’s PR peddler.
According to HITC, Scobie was born in Oxfordshire to an Iranian mother and a Scottish father. His papa, Bill Scobie, runs a marketing group called Lingo; it has only one Twitter follower and he purports also to be a musician.
Scobie’s journalistic career began when he worked as a reporter for the gossip go-to Heat. He quit the magazine after he claimed that an executive called him a “P**i” in an email. Whether he was compensated or got an apology for this unproven allegation remains unknown.
Meanwhile, WaliKali suggests that Scobie’s net worth is $800k. It is not only mysterious as to how they managed to calculate that, but it’s also impossible because this means that his net worth is more than that of say LBC host Nick Ferrari – even though the latter has a bigger audience than Scobie and is certainly a far better-known figure.
Scobie’s circle of associates is just as curious; for example, Markus Anderson – a man who mysteriously went from a waiter at Soho House to become one of their top consultants – supposedly introduced Scobie to Markle and was the one who led him on the path of becoming an unofficial spin doctor for the Sussexes. Not much is known about Anderson in general; he was born in Canada and according to Town & Country, “his upbringing has influenced his taste in beverages.”
Scobie has a verified Twitter account with over 70,000 followers, which sounds legitimate, except for the fact that in reality 26% – almost 19,000 – of those followers are fake. If you’re the kind of person who uses fake followers, that means you are the kind of person who has no legitimacy in the media industry.
Things are no better for Scobie’s associate Carolyn Durand, who co-wrote Finding Freedom. She has over 12,000 followers on Twitter, of whom almost 44% – in other words 5,293 followers – are fake. It’s surprising how she is also verified on Twitter.
The “Sunday Times bestseller” Finding Freedom has 4/5 stars on Amazon.co.uk, which gives the impression that it was well-liked by readers. It is true that the book did top the charts in the UK, selling 31,000 copies in almost a week. However, what many forget is that a group of people called “Sussex Squad” – which sounds like a battalion of people who could execute anyone who dare criticise the Duchess of Sussex – had been leaving fake 5-star reviews on Amazon on purpose, until Amazon stopped that by limiting reviews to “verified purchases.”
The analysis of the book from esteemed media outlets were no better; whereas on Amazon the book is listed as being described by the Daily Telegraph as “utterly gripping,” the actual review references it as “a one massive moanathon – a one-sided, highly biased, self-pitying account of the relationship (between Harry and Meghan).”
What’s even worse is that both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex actually disowned the biography before it was even published; as the Daily Express reports, the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyer had claimed that the book is “either extremely anodyne and/or I understand are the product of creative licence and/or are inaccurate.” Bizarrely, later, her representative argued that she contributed to the book, but did not provide the authors with the contents of the letter sent to her estranged father.
Scobie’s unreliability can also be evidenced by the fact that he accused the Duke of Cambridge’s aides of planting reports that the latter was “worried about Harry’s mental health,” while not providing evidence that this was the case. Honestly, if you want some-one to believe your side of the story regarding the affair, you have to provide solid evidence, and that goes for both sides.
It seems that ITV too have become suspicious of ‘Spin Doctor Scobie’ as his comments about “planted reports” were cut at the last minute from their documentary Harry & William: What Went Wrong? It aired last night and told opinions on the story about Princes Harry and William’s supposed “rift.”
Scobie is also advertised on the HarperCollins website as the host of ABC’s “popular” podcast The Heir Pod, yet the podcast is anything but popular. If you go to Chartable, a service which provides statistics on podcasts, the podcast does have a rating of 4.7 stars out of 5, but only on the basis of 735 reviews. Meanwhile, popular podcasts within the news category – of which The Heir Pod is listed in – such as the BBC’s Global News podcast and The Ben Shapiro Show have thousands of reviews, which demonstrates that there is practically no engagement with Scobie’s podcast.
Another piece evidence of the podcast being anything but “popular” is the fact that it doesn’t chart in any of the big markets such as the US, UK, Canada or Australia. At the time of writing, The Heir Pod charts in Argentina (160th place), Kyrgyzstan (248th place), Antigua and Barbuda (125th place) and Bhutan (138th place). It thus seems to me like ABC is pointlessly wasting millions on a podcast which its target audience doesn’t even want to listen to.
Similarly, Scobie and other members of the sanctimoniously sinsister “Sussex Squad” have silenced and attacked Kate Robertson, a youth organisation leader who criticised the Duchess of Sussex on Twitter for not resolving her grievances with the royal family in private. Eventually, they forced her to delete the tweet and apologise.
Later, Scobie went on Good Morning Britain and justified what happened by saying: “Everyone’s allowed the right to have an opinion on this,” but then also stated: “It stands out when someone speaks so against the couple.” To me, this sounds like pure reinforcement of double standards. Honestly, if you have to rely on ‘cancel culture’ and suppression of freedom of speech in order to defeat your opponent, you don’t deserve to be called a journalist and you certainly should be seen as a threat to society rather than a respected public figure.
What all of this demonstrates is that Omid Scobie is not a genuinely honest reporter and most certainly not the “authoritative voice on the lives and philanthropic endeavors of the royal family’s younger members” that he claims to be. The truth, instead, is that Omid Scobie is a washed-up, childish clot who tries yet fails to portray himself as someone with legitimacy and it’s about time that he got exposed for being nothing but ‘MeGain’s’ number one PR peddler.
Whilst Omid Scobie’s podcast, #TheHeirPod, was “downgraded from ‘a real chore’ to ‘unlistenable’” according to ‘Royal Analysis,’ the true revelation is that it isn’t even popular in the places where it surely should be most relevant, Britain and America.An analysis of Omid Scobie’s Twitter feed clearly shows that a large proportion of his followers are a bit like himself: FAKE.
When he’s not bragging about wearing Balenciaga, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior or sharing photos of his dog, Yoshi, on his Instagram account, the ‘Finding Freedom’ author constantly bangs on about how he believes the royal family to have racist elements. His speculation is rarely supported by anything other than unnamed sources that give his suggestions little to no credibility.Markus Anderson with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and her mother, Doria Ragland.
Canadian waiter turned Soho House director Markus Anderson was allegedly the person to have introduced Prince Harry and the then Meghan Markle. This “champagne partial” individual has been repeatedly linked also to Omid Scobie online on sites such as Quora whilst the site ‘Royal Analysis’ has reported: “Well, apparently, Omid and Markus used to be very close. I don’t think it’s out of the question for Markus to have facilitated Meghan and Omid getting together to strategize about what positive press coverage Omid could give to Meghan.”
‘The Devil’s Advocate’ Giovanni Di Stefano’s life is set to be made into a film following his forthcoming release from jail (and deportation from Britain)
In March 2014, the incarcerated conman Giovanni Di StefanotweetedThe Steeple Times to claim he had cheated “no one” before adding: “Who did I kill?” In spite of the fact that this po-faced prattler and all-round prick had been convicted and jailed for 14 years for “tricking people into thinking he was a bona fide legal professional” when he was anything but in 2013, he’s shortly about to get out of jail and after deportation from Britain will be participating in a film about his life and lies.
For plainly extremely intelligent but completely lacking in any kind of moral compass Di Stefano’s victims – whom include Tricia Walsh-Smith, a lady best known for making a video that went viral after it was published on YouTube during her especially acrimonious divorce from the then president of The Shubert Organization – this film will pile yet more misery on their already substantial losses. The film, which is to be made by six Academy Award nominated director Jim Sheridan, is based on a biography written by this “one of life’s great swindler’s” plainly anything but impartial son, Michael Di Stefano.
Currently titled The Devil’s Advocate – How to Win Fiends and Influence Despots in a plain nod to Dale Carnegie and Toby Young also, Sheridan commented of it: “It’s very easy to see this as a dramatic feature, but I think for now – the documentary form will suit the story better. This is an intriguing story and truly unique. The lead character is simply unbelievable, and we are delighted to have the exclusive co-operation of Giovanni, his family, his long-term assistant and his personal lawyer to tell the story.”
Going further, executive producer Jezz Vernon of Port Royal Media added: “The subject material is jaw dropping, we’re excited to bring Jim’s vision of the story to the screen. It’s a huge coup that Giovanni and his family have chosen to work exclusively with us.”
Summing rotten ratbag “defender of the indefensibles” Di Stefano – whose supposed clients in spite of him having no legal qualifications whatsoever up allegedly numbered ‘Moors Murderer’ Ian Brady, paedo pop singer Gary Glitter, slum lord Nicholas van Hoogstraten, deranged dictator Saddam Hussein, warped war criminal Slobodan Milošević and pensioner slayer Dr Harold Shipman – up in March 2013 before sending him down, Judge Alistair McCreath, the Recorder of Westminster, stated:
“Your victims in this case were all desperate people and people who, because of their desperation, were vulnerable… It is also about something different and great – it is about the real distress you caused to so many people… You had no regard for them nor for their anguish… Your only concern was to line your own pockets.”
Any film that suggests anything to the contrary will be nothing but claptrap.
On 11th May, Michael Di Stefano tweeted complaing his father’s prison sentence to be “arbitrary and unlawful.”In spite of being incarcerated, in April, Giovanni Di Stefano was able to tweet his views on MI5 whilst his son claimed the “UK breaks the rules to hold him.”Also in April, Di Stefano tweeted his sorrow about the death of the Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff and claimed he’d written to President Trump to ask him to put him “on his pardon list.”In February, this prisoner was able to post nonsense on his blog about predictions also.In January, Di Stefano tweeted about his sadness on the passing of the murderer Phil Spector.
After ‘Bingate’ comes ‘Custard Cream Gate’ in ritzy Henley-on-Thames with a red kite attacking a toddler for a custard cream
It’s all go in posh, leafy Henley-on-Thames: Aside from a binman spotting a wallaby bounding in its vicinity in 2017 and the ongoing battle about bins – as featured in The Steeple Times in January and February this year – the latest drama in the locality comes in the form of a red kite attacking a toddler for a sweet treat.
According to Sky News, 2-year-old Frankie Bird – a little lad with a surname clearly suited to this story – was given a biscuit by his granny outside the town’s Valley Road primary school on 10th May and was then swooped upon by a bird of prey for it.
Speaking to the news channel, the child’s mother, Hannah Bird, remarked:
“My mother-in-law gave Frankie a snack – which was a custard cream – and a red kite came down and took it out of his hand, flinging it to the ground.”
“The bird kept coming at Frankie to try and find the biscuit, not realising it was on the floor, which was quite scary, it just kept coming.”
“We had to take him to the local hospital just to get it checked, because the birds eat all sorts, so we wondered whether we needed to get it cleaned properly. It was quite a shock”
Going further Sky sensibly added: “Hannah added that her son has made a full recovery and that she doesn’t want red kites to get a bad reputation,” before she then continued:
“You know, you need to be able to eat in your garden in peace and my son should be able to have a biscuit snack in his pushchair.”
“I think part of me worries for the birds – if they’re this brazen and they’re not frightened anymore, they are not wild anymore. And what does that mean for them, really?”
Referencing the red kites of Henley-on-Thames in a more humorous manner yesterday, the Guardian’s ‘Pass Note’ column provided further examples of them swooping to share snacks. They reported:
“Ouch! Local resident Anna Howell was eating a salad in her back garden when a kite swooped down and helped itself to a bit of smoked mackerel.”
“There have also been local reports of stolen sausage rolls and hot cross buns, and even steaks lifted off barbecues.”
“The birds were well known as opportunistic thieves in Shakespeare’s time, but in between they were hunted to near extinction.”
“Do say: “Red kite at morning, get under the awning!”
“Don’t say: “Red kite at regatta, talons off my piccata.”
Elsewhere previously, indicating the propensity of red kites to go for sweet treats in June 2016, the Mirror reported on another raptor attempting to steal a cupcake from a 3-year-old, Ava Edgar-Francis, at her outdoor birthday party at Watlington Park, near Stokenchurch.
Speaking of the incident, the girl’s hysterical mother, Debbie Francis, blubbed: “It was such a shock and she is now petrified every time she sees a big bird in the sky.”
Little Frankie Bird poses for Sky News and shows his injured hand.Frankie Bird suffered scratches as a result of the bird’s attack.According to the RSPB, “magnificently graceful” red kites mainly eat “carrion and worms, but opportunistic and will occasionally take small mammals.” They estimate there to be 4,600 breeding pairs in the UK and of them stealing domestic food, Wikipedia observe: “In the United Kingdom, there have been several unusual instances of red kites stealing food from people in a similar manner to gulls. One such occurrence took place in Marlow, Buckinghamshire (a town near a major reintroduction site for the species in the UK in the nearby village of Stokenchurch), in which Red Kites swooped down to steal sandwiches from people in one of the town’s parks.”The BBC reported on Henley-on-Thames’ roaming wallabies in 2017. Plainly this is a place where wildlife does as it wishes.
‘The Steeple Times’s’ Matthew Steeples to answer questions live during 2-hour YouTube premiere of his ‘Maxwell, McCann & Menendez’ interview with Shaun Attwood on Saturday 8th May
Filmed late last month, a 2 hour, 15-minute interview between Shaun Attwood of Shaun Attwood’s True Crime Channel and Matthew Steeples of The Steeple Times will premiere on YouTube tomorrow, Saturday 8th May 2021 at 10am.
Touching also on other topics including the paedophile Rolf Harris and the potentially unsafe conviction of Mark Alexander, a man campaigning with the support of Terry Waite CBE to clear his name in connection with the 2010 murder of his decidedly deviant father in Buckinghamshire, Steeples comments of the interview:
“I have followed Shaun Attwood’s honest to its core YouTube channel – which most deservedly already has 669,000 subscribers – for some time. For me, what piqued my interest was when Attwood got someone to answer the door at Ghislaine Maxwell’s Kinnerton Street mews house in September 2019 and in doing so proved that the setting of that infamous photograph with Prince Andrew with his ‘chubby fingers’ around Virginia Roberts remained still in-situ.”
“Attwood’s interviews with abuse victims such as The Lost Boys actor Corey Feldman and crusading author Kirby Sommers have repeatedly allowed viewers to be presented with previously unheard narratives about truly shocking cases. His attention to detail and dedication to presenting facts rather than gossip is impressive and his own experiences in the justice system clearly have clearly guided his ability to understand what lies beyond what is fed to the public by the mainstream media.”
“It was thus an honour and a pleasure to be interviewed by a man whose own past plainly has resulted in a quest for a juster justice system and I hope viewers will gain some insights into angles about cases that remain very much of the moment when watching tomorrow.”
“I will be present in the ‘live chat’ on the YouTube channel on Saturday 8th May 2021 between 10am and 12:15pm and look forward to exploring the thoughts of viewers regarding the cases that Shaun Attwood and I discussed.”
Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – The full podcast will be available to view tomorrow, Saturday 8th May 2021, via YouTube from 10am. A live Q&A with Matthew Steeples will be available during from 10am to 12:15pm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSqCX44DGWk
Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – A trailer for the forthcoming show can be viewed online before then.Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “As Terry Lubbock faces certain death from terminal cancer, it is right that finally Essex Police are making progress in the investigation into his son’s rape and murder on 10th March 2001,” observes Matthew Steeples. Pictured: Michael Barrymore rolling around on the floor drunk with convicted racist bigot Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben (left) and Terry Lubbock bed-bound next to a picture of his late son, Stuart, as he begs the others present at Barrymore’s pool party to finally tell the truth about what happened that fateful night.Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “Ghislaine Maxwell (pictured left on a throne in Buckingham Palace), if she had half a brain, would now seek a plea bargain,” argues Matthew Steeples. “Instead, because she’s so arrogant, this mendacious minx and all-round mucky madam will likely continue to keep quiet about what really went on with her, her ‘bestie’ Prince Andrew and his ‘Lolita Express club coat’ wearing chum, the now deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.”Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “I believe it is correct that the victims of parental abuse Erik and Lyle Menendez were finally able to be brought together again after 22 years of incarceration without a sight of one another in February 2018,” shares Matthew Steeples. “I also believe that the fine work of crusading individuals including the journalist Robert Rand (pictured left with Lyle Menendez) and the juror in one of the cases, Hazel Thornton, will help them on a path to what they deserve given the truth of what they endured at the hands of their plainly wicked parents: Freedom.”Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “I will forever continue to question why the case of ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann has been allocated nigh on £13 million in public money,” comments Matthew Steeples. “Why don’t the families of other missing people, such as Martin Allen, Luke Durbin and Ben Needham get that level of state-funded assistance also?” Pictured: Kate McCann with then Home Secretary Theresa May MP at a party in Downing Street, London hosted by the latter for associates of the former in July 2016.Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “Rolf Harris (pictured right) may have served his time,” shares Matthew Steeples, “but the legacy of him and the links of this clearly evil ex-public figure to other high profile sexual abusers such as the ex-TV anchor Stuart Hall (pictured left with Prince Edward dressed as a ‘Joker’) deserves to continue to be highlighted.”Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “Doubts about so much of the evidence submitted by Essex Police in the case of Jeremy Bamber make me believe that his conviction for the murders at White House Farm deserves at the very least reinvestigation,” shares Matthew Steeples. Speaking of his “fresh hope” for a referral to the Court of Appeal in March 2021, Bamber himself stated: “The lack of disclosure by Essex Police has been at the heart of my case from the outset, and is still a feature today in an attempt by the Essex Police to maintain my wrongful conviction. I feel confident however that the CCRC will do their utmost to achieve disclosure of vital material in order to obtain my justice.”Maxwell, McCann & Menendez… And Matthew Steeples – “‘Could Mark Alexander have actually been wrongly convicted of the murder of his father Samuel Alexander?’ is a question I think deserves exploring,” shares Matthew Steeples. Speaking of the case, greatly respected humanitarian Terry Waite CBE commented: “I am disturbed by the conviction of Mark as I find it difficult to believe that a complete forensic examination was conducted before the jury found him guilty by a majority verdict. It was pointed out by the judge in his summing-up that the evidence was circumstantial, but even so he was convicted and sentenced. A forensic investigation of the site was conducted by a chartered engineer and chartered geologist in 2017. This examination ought to have been conducted before the trial, but for reasons unknown to me it was not. Given that the site had been excavated by the police when searching for the body and afterwards refilled it was not possible for the expert to be totally certain about the dates when the different levels of concrete were laid. However, his conclusions, which are fully recorded in his report, suggest that the top level of concrete could not have been laid by Mark Alexander as he was not in that location at that time and can prove this. The report raises in my mind a reasonable doubt as to the safety of this conviction.”
Crumbling stone-built seaside cottage in Welsh foodie destination and royal town of Caernarfon goes on sale for just £1
The Royal Town of Caernarfon sits on the eastern shore of the Menai Strait in North Wales and as a result of its proximity to Snowdonia and history dating back to Roman times is a “major tourist centre,” according to Wikipedia. It has a marina, award winning arts centre, a maritime museum and numerous popular pubs, bars and restaurants.
Though clearly in need of total renovation, the space offered is just a three minute walk from the seafront and directly adjoins the town’s revamped shopping district where the annual food festival attracts around 30,000 visitors each May.
Of the property offered, the Mirror last week observed: “It now needs a total makeover to become a dream seaside cottage in the heart of the holiday town” and could instead be converted to a studio space even.
In their very brief marketing literature, Doorsteps, however, add: “Terms and conditions apply,” but when contacted for comment were somewhat curiously not able to elaborate further.
Bidding for the cottage to the rear of 72 Pool Street, Caernarfon is scheduled to commence online on 6th May 2021 at 12 noon and will conclude at 1pm on the same day. Interestingly, a bidding deposit of £500 is required to participate – some £499 or 49,900% more than the property’s guide price.
The interior of the cottage is nothing but an empty shack currently, but there is plenty of character that could be incorporated into its potential reuse as a home.The space could be used as a holiday cottage, permanent residence or a studio even – subject to any necessary planning consents being granted.The currently derelict cottage is behind an also currently derelict bakery that had been in business for over 50 years and accessed via a somewhat unappealing alleyway.The annual Caernarfon Food Festival is not happening in 2021 due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, but it is normally a popular event and attended by around 30,000 people.The festival occurs throughout the town and on the sea wall even.Previously in February 2017, ‘The Steeple Times’ featured the sale of a far grander residence in Caernarfon, The Old Court House, at a price reduced from £650,000 to just £525,000. The building’s then owner, an English property developer named Aaron Hill, told ‘Wales Online’ he was selling after “vandals had smashed his windows 46 times, daubed graffiti across doors, attacked his car and urinated through his letterbox.” He told the paper “he had reported about 26 incidents to North Wales Police and remarked: ‘They said: ‘You need to f**k off where you belong. We don’t want you here. We’ll burn the place down.’” The building was subsequently converted into a bar, bistro, restaurant and event venue in 2018.In June 2014, ‘The Steeple Times’ featured another property once sold for £1, the Grade I listed Palladian gem Barlaston Hall in Staffordshire. It was saved from near collapse in 1981 by former ‘Country Life’ editor Marcus Binney and sold on for £300,000in 1992 and offered for sale again in 2014 for £2.3 million after renovations were completed. After its asking price was reduced to £2 million, it subsequently sold for £2 million through agents Fisher German in April 2019.In the very same article in June 2014 in ‘The Steeple Times,’ we also included another £1 property, Old Whitehall House in Chirnside, Berwickshire, Scotland. Derelict since 2007, this B-listed Georgian mansion required at least £1.2 million spent on its refurbishment, but came complete with an ornate music room decorated in Italian plasterwork and 7 bedrooms.
Gerry and Kate McCann rake in £773,600 of private money in spite of admitting there is “nothing much to report” 14 years into the fast approaching £13 million public funded investigation into the dubious ‘disappearance’ of their daughter Madeleine
Not content with having garnered over £12.5 million in public funding for the police investigation with a further £300,000 top-up likely to come soon, it has this week been revealed that Gerry and Kate McCann’s privately administered fund now has an astonishing net worth of £773,629.
Whilst last week, Dr and Mrs McCann told the Mirror that they “still believe in miracles,” in a post on the ‘Official Find Madeleine Campaign’ Facebook page the particularly pugnacious pair also had to admit of the investigation: “Nothing much to report.”
Previously, a ‘friend’ (‘unnamed,’ of course, as is so often the case with anyone speaking on behalf of those close to the case of missing Madeleine McCann) of Dr and Mrs McCann remarked:
“Kate and Gerry know the police investigation cannot go on forever.”
“When [the police investigation] is shelved, and if there is no result, Kate and Gerry will use money in the fund to continue the hunt.”
“That is what it is there for. They paid for their own team of private investigators initially and when the official inquiry ends they will do so again although in the past it has proven to be extremely costly.”
Today, again, we ask: “Why does so much public money continue to be wasted on an investigation that has achieved nothing in 14 years and why is another £300,000 about to be given from the public purse when other missing person searches get little to nothing? Why is this disproportionate allocation of taxpayer funded resources allowed to go on?”
The Money of McCann – Ben Needham, then aged just 1, disappeared on the Greek island of Kos on 24th July 1991. He has been missing for over 29 year and in the time since his mother, Kerry Needham, has shockingly come under attack from supporters of the family of Madeleine McCann. Of this in October 2015, she commented: “It feels like a personal attack on me. It is deeply, deeply hurtful. I have myself had massive amounts of slanderous abuse from supporters of the McCann campaign in the past but I have never taken that personally. It’s freedom of speech. But it is getting the names of two missing children out there which is really important.”The Money of McCann – Luke Durbin disappeared aged just 19 in Suffolk in May 2006. In spite of his mother’s tireless campaign to attempt to find her vanished son, why don’t the police devote more resources to the search for him?The Money of McCann – Martin Allen vanished without a trace in London on 5th November 1979 aged just 15. Though his brother, Kevin Allen, has kept the case in the public eye as much as he can, he gets little to no help from the Metropolitan Police. Again today, we ask: “Why isn’t money from the public purse allocated to solving this case and thousands like it and why, instead, has fast approaching £13 million been allocated to a case that has not been solved in 14 years?”
The Money of McCann – In September 2018, Ben Needham’s mother Kerry quite rightly told ITV1’s ‘Loose Women’ that “it hurts” that so much money has been allocated to the search for Madeleine McCann whilst so little has been given to aid help other families find their missing relatives. She added: “[Madeleine] deserves to be found, but so does Ben. We haven’t had a fraction, I’ve had to fight alone as a single mum and try to get the help that Ben deserves… I don’t take anything away from anyone who’s got a loved one who is missing, but every single one deserves to be found.”
