The Steeple Times examines Archilochus’ concept of ‘foxes’ and ‘hedgehogs and applies such to modern day personalities
According to the Greek poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing.” Isaiah Berlin explored this premise in greater detail in his 1953 essay The Hedgehog and the Fox and identified ‘hedgehogs’ as those that “view the world through the lens of a single defining idea” and ‘foxes’ as those that “draw on a wide variety of experiences and for whom the world cannot be boiled down to a single idea.”
Berlin’s examples of ‘hedgehogs’ numbered Friedrich Nietzsche, Henrik Ibsen and Marcel Proust whilst for ‘foxes’ he chose such individuals as James Joyce, Aleksandr Pushkin and William Shakespeare.
Here, below, we apply the same analysis and chose fifteen modern day figures that are representative of each characteristic and curiously reveal a ‘third way’ that for once isn’t connected to Tony Blair: ‘The Neither Nors’ that sadly dominate our society.
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1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III drophead coupé used by Colin Farrell in 2010 crime noir film ‘London Boulevard’ to be auctioned
A 1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III drophead coupé first owned by the Malaysian royal family and more recently used in the 2010 crime noir motion picture London Boulevard – starring Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley and Ray Winstone – is to be auctioned in London in December.
Professionally restored and featuring ‘Chinese Eye’ slanting headlamp nacelles, the car offered was the last off the production line to be registered and delivered new to Malaysia in June 1966. It remained there until the 2000s and was then registered in the UK by the managing director of the official Bentley dealership in Exeter in June 2009.
The 6.2-litre V8 car – chassis number CSC81C – will be sold by Bonhams at their Collector’s Motor Cars and Automobilia sale on 6th December at London Olympia. It will be offered with an estimate of £300,000 to £350,000 ($397,000 to $463,000, €338,000 to €395,000 or درهم1.5 million to درهم1.7 million).
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Former Wiltshire home of ‘Lord of the Flies’ author Sir William Golding for sale for 562% more than he sold it for in 1985
The one-time home of the author and Nobel Prize in Literature and Booker Prize winner Sir William Golding, CBE (1911 – 1993) has gone on sale for £795,000 ($1.1 million, €891,000 or درهم3.9 million) in spite of needing modernisation.
Ebble Thatch at Mead End, Bowerchalke, near Salisbury was the residence of the Lord of the Flies author in 1940 and between 1958 and 1985 and it was here that he met his fellow villager, the scientist James Lovelock CH, CBE, FRS. He sold the house in 1985 on deciding to move to a Georgian mansion in Cornwall for £120,000 (the equivalent of £334,000, $441,000, €374,000 or درهم1.6 million today).
Consisting of 4 reception rooms, a kitchen with AGA, a conservatory, 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms the main house is described as “flexible” and “well-configured” and in addition there is a detached 1 bedroom cottage on the property’s 0.7 acre plot.
Featuring 9 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, ‘The Owlwood Estate’ or more simply 141 South Carolwood Drive is described as “easily one of the city’s most iconic and historically significant properties.” Built in 1937 to the designs of Robert D. Farquhar in a “classic European Italian Renaissance” style, the estate was owned by Tony Curtis and Sonny Bono and Cher in the 1960s and has also been home to Joe Schenck, the first president of United Artists and a chairman of 20th Century Fox.
Now offered with designs for redevelopment by Bob Shapiro, the head of Sturmer Pippin Investments and CEO of Woodbridge Luxury Homes, the property offered also includes a sunken tennis court, a swimming pool and two guest houses.
Adam Rosenfeld of Mercer Vine is the realtor handling the sale.
The Owlwood Estate – The Numbers
July 2017 – Placed on the market for £136 million ($180 million, €153 million or درهم661 million).
September 2016 – Sold for £68 million ($90 million, €76 million or درهم331 million) to developer Bob Shapiro.
July 2012 – Placed on the market for £114 million ($150 million, €127 million or درهم551 million) by Dawn Arnall, “the widow of subprime mortgage profiteer Roland Arnall.”
2002 – Sold for £25 million ($33 million, €28 million or درهم121 million).
1999 – Listed for sale for £44 million ($58 million, €49 million or دره213 million) by Ghazi Aita complete with an adjacent property.
1978 – Sold to a “shadowy businessman” named Ghazi Aita for £3.2 million ($4.2 million, €3.6 million or درهم15 million).
1970 – Sold to Sonny and Cher for £568,000 ($750,000, €636,000 or درهم2.8 million).
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Previously publicity shy Menéndez brothers both speak publicly about killing their parents in the wake of the success of NBC’s ‘Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders’
Erik and Lyle Menéndez, the brothers convicted of murdering their allegedly abusive multi-millionaire parents José and Mary ‘Kitty’ Menéndez at their home in Beverly Hills, California in 1989, have generally been pretty quiet in the years since their conviction at their second trial in 1994.
Now, however, in the wake of the immense success of NBC’s eight-part series, Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, about the case Erik Menéndez has given his first interview since 2005 to A&E. Set to be screened in America on 30th November, The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All will also include previously unseen photographs and new interviews with family and friends.
In two trailers for the show, Erik, now 46, speaks through the phone from the Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California and states:
“I’m Erik Menéndez… I’m serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. I’ve heard many different versions of my life told in the media, and those stories are fictional. I think it’s time people hear the truth in my own words without the restrictions of a courtroom.”
“From the moment after, I wanted to go back in time. It was so wrong. I didn’t want my parents dead – I just wanted the abuse to stop. Years and years of pain exploded that night in an unimaginable violence. It is my own personal hell.”
“My only hope in speaking out is that people have a more complete understanding of the events that led up to my actions on the night of 20th August and really a fuller picture of what happened in my life.”
“All I can hope for is that people will come to realise that the truth is not a simple one-line explanation that many people have tried to make it out to be. That really, that my life was unfolding of a complicated life that I lived that had all of these things that came into being and that led up to what is an ongoing and enduring family tragedy.”
“The tragedy didn’t end on that night, as devastating as that night was. It didn’t end there for my family, and it continues on to this day, and that sadness is something that I am trying to make up for them and with my parents for the rest of my life. It will never end.”
A photograph of José Menéndez with his sons Erik and Lyle on his knee; references have been made to the situation of José Menéndez’s right hand to be evidence of his highly inappropriate relationship with his children
Elsewhere, on the @MenendezBrothers Facebook page this weekend, through an intermediary seemingly in his presence at the Mule Creek State Prison where he is housed in Ione, California, Lyle Menéndez participated in what appeared to be a live Facebook chat.
Aside from sounding quite upbeat and referencing how his second wife (he has married twice since being imprisoned) had visited him earlier in the day, Lyle answered a question about which Spice Girl he liked most with the answer “Posh, of course!” and stated that “no one is good enough to play [me] for it be enjoyable” of “paddle tennis” in the prison. He shared news that he is “currently re-reading Shogun” as it is “a book centered [sic] around great patience and spirit under terrible circumstances” and in response to a question about what music he likes most added: “I like the stories that country music tells so for me it is most uplifting to listen to country music. It puts me in touch with my emotions. But I do like all sorts of music.”
More tellingly, especially given he is likely never to leave prison during his lifetime, Lyle, in referencing a question about the unauthorised @FreetheMenendezBrothers Facebook page stated:
“People have filled me in. We are not affiliated with it in any way. We have told people that writing letters to the governor right now is not helpful to our release and could actually be a detriment. We know that it is frustrating to people but these are serious legal matters that have very specific avenues that require serious legal planning. I know it is frustrating and that we cannot stop people, but what I am saying now are my wishes.”
Plainly this statement shows that Lyle still has hope that he could actually be released and given that the allegations of appalling abuse and sexual assault by their parents seem to be finally attracting worthy examination also, it does indeed seem time that the severity of the duo’s sentences again be looked at.
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Referencing the relationship between the crisis management firm Sitrick and Company and Harvey Weinstein, Menza quoted the firm’s founder, Michael Sitrick, as having told the Financial Times in 2010: “I love journalism but I’d rather eat.” His clients, tellingly, thus, have numbered “the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles [over] accusations of sexual assault” and the likes of Chris Brown and Hulk Hogan in similar regards.
Sitrick and Company’s executive handling Weinstein’s account, Sallie Hofmeister, Menza pointed out also, took on the alleged sex offender because: “It’s not about a new public image, but rather to make sure that the facts are as accurately reported as possible… Mr Weinstein has a different recollection of the events [to the women he supposedly abused].”
Here in Mr Sitrick and Ms Hofmeister is a duo with utterly no grasp of right and wrong and a pair with only money on the mind. It is time that the press and public realised enough is enough and bit off the toxic hands that for so long have just fed us all lies, lies and more damned lies.
Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
Pictured above: Sallie Hofmeister of Sitrick and Company and James Henderson, former CEO of Bell Pottinger.
“One of Britain’s finest 20th-century country houses” has been placed for sale for £20 million; it comes with 530 acres and was built by the late businessman Sebastian de Ferranti in the 1980s
One could imagine being in the early 18th century or in Italy even on first taking a look at the Palladian style Henbury Hall, near Macclesfield in Cheshire. However, as Moliere said: “One is easily fooled by that one loves” and in reality this 12,496 square foot beauty was actually constructed between 1980 and 1986.
The vision of the buccaneer businessman and patron of the arts Sebastian de Ferranti (1927 – 2015) and based upon Palladio’s Villa Rotunda at Vizenza, the 6-bedroomed main residence stands on the site of an earlier mansion demolished in the 1950s. It was designed by the architect Julian Bicknell in conjunction with Felix Kelly and David Mlinaric, was constructed by Tarmac Construction and is faced with warm-toned limestone from north east France. The estate also includes a Grade II listed dower house, five further houses and cottages, a Grade II listed and stable block and courtyard.
The late Sebastian de FerrantiHenbury Hall during constructionA depiction of the original Henbury Hall in 1707The front elevation of the current Henbury Hall with parkland beyond
Aside from 12 acres of immaculate gardens with a series of lakes, there is a 200 year old landscaped park, woodland, agricultural land, a beautifully designed swimming pool, a tennis court and a polo field.
Selling agents Savills offer the Henbury Hall Estate as a whole for a guide price of £20 million – a world away from the £9,000 sum the estate sold for in 1872 (the equivalent of £934,000 today).
After far-right Traditional Britain Group is exposed in an ITV documentary, oddball founder and ex-jailbird Gregory Lauder-Frost responds
Last night ITV screened an hour long documentary that “examined the resurgence of the far right in Britain; its expansion on and use of the Internet and social media; the internationalization of the far right with cooperation and contact between groups and individuals on a scale not seen before; the recruiting of more women and young people to different groups, and the impact that this is having on British society.”
In Exposure’s Undercover – Inside Britain’s New Far Right, produced by David Henshaw, not only did several courageous journalists go undercover within far right organisations but one also managed to infiltrate a meeting of the crackpot Traditional Britain Group in Mayfair, London. At that gathering, the compere was heard to suggest that there are “10 million aliens in this country who are ‘producing children all the time’” and referenced the group’s policy of seeking “voluntary repatriation of aliens to their natural homelands.”
In response, Gregory MacLennan Scholey Lauder-Frost (or ‘GLF’ to his mates) – a previous The Steeple Times ‘Moron of the Moment’, a man jailed in 1992 for theft and an individual prone to such remarks as describing Baroness Lawrence OBE, the community relations campaigner and mother of the late Stephen Lawrence, as “no friend of the English people” and “a complete nobody” – issued a statement defending the ragbag organisation he founded in 2001. In it, he branded Hope Not Hate as “far left… communists” and claimed “the TBG does not hate anyone… [but] we would prefer it if they remained at home.”
Elsewhere, in a video shared on YouTube, another farcical fool named Martin Sellner – the leader of the Austrian New Right movement – referenced the Traditional Britain Group’s members as “very British characters” and “patriots.” Plainly, he’s never met the likes of Lauder-Frost and the ‘Half Biscuit’ Viscount St Davids fanBenjamin Duncan.
Watch Exposure’s Undercover – Inside Britain’s New Far Right on the ITV Hub by clicking here.
Grade I listed Tudor open hall house in West Yorkshire for sale; it comes complete with a replica cabin from a 1920s ocean liner and an ‘apple and pear wheel window’
Situated in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty near the Rochdale Canal in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, Wood Lane Hall is a Grade I listed Tudor open hall house that has recently gone of sale for £750,000 ($980,000, €842,000 or درهم3.6 million).
Centred around a two-storey open hall with a gallery over, the 7,950 square foot property also includes 5 reception rooms, a study, a bespoke pine kitchen with an AGA, 6 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, cellars and a double garage.
Aside from such things as embattled parapets, gargoyles, decorative plasterwork and paneling, the building – which dates to 1649 – features an unusual circular window known as a ‘rose wheel’ or ‘apple and pear’ window. One of the bedrooms was decorated in the 1940s with the insertion of the contents of a 1920s ship’s cabin and though described “in need of remedial work,” this fine building could easily be crafted back into a very fine residence.
The house was marketed some time ago with 3 acres of land and in better condition; this land is not mentioned in the current marketing materialThe undoubted star feature of Wood Lane Hall is its ‘rose wheel’ or ‘apple and pear’ windowThe insertion of the contents of a 1920s ship’s cabin makes this a most unusual bedroomWood Lane Hall in times past (date unknown)A drawing of the propertyA floor plan of the house
Directed by Lee H. Katzin and produced by Jack N. Reedish, the 106-minute the 1971 fictional Indie film cost some £5.8 million ($7.6 million, €6.5 million or درهم27.9 million) to make but surprisingly took just £4.2 million ($5.5 million, €4.7 million or درهم20.2 million) at the North American box office.
The suit will be offered with no reserve with an estimate of £303,000 to £380,000 ($400,000 to $500,000, €344,000 to €430,000 or درهم1.5 million to درهم1.8 million).
