Matthew Steeples reviews “The Middle Class ABC” by Zebedee Helm and Fi Cotter Craig
Described as “indispensable and entirely charming” by Stephen Fry, The Middle Class ABC captions itself “a toilet loo book” and is an ideal Christmas present for anyone you know who winters in Norfolk and summers in Cornwall.
“The Middle Class ABC” by Fi Cotter Craig and Zebedee Helm
“Middlings” is the term Helm, a contributor to both Private Eye and The Lady, and Cotter Craig, a television producer, use for this book which covers all manner of the affectations and afflictions of the middle-classes. It’s all about The Archers and AGAs and Zoopla and Ziplock Bags here and frankly it is a spiffingly light-hearted, jolly good read.
Kirsty Allsopp and Kevin McCloud better watch out. The Middle Class ABC could make for a great television mini-series.
The Middle Class ABC is published by John Murray and priced at £14.99. ISBN: 978-1-8454-6820.
The Steeple Times asks model and personality Nicholas Gruber: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom.” What’s your guiding force?
I try to learn something from everyone I meet.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
Life is short so enjoy a part of every day, even the shitty ones.
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2012?
Picking on anyone less fortunate than you. That’s why the Republicans lost the election in the US.
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
My grandmother, Judy Bolduc. She was the first lesbian in California to adopt a child, my dad.
What might you swap all your wealth for?
Honey, pick up a paper: I did that already for some freedom.
Donald Trump was once a case of: “If you owe the bank a thousand, they close you down; but if you owe the bank a billion, you own the bank.” What’s your view on the banking crisis?
Greed is never good in any way, shape or form.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
“Thank you so much.” It seems insincere whereas just “thank you” seems genuine.
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home.” What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
Toys for Tots because I know first hand what it feels like to be a kid with nothing under the tree.
The judge in “Law Abiding Citizen” states: “I can pretty do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?
It is only appropriate to blow up terrorists.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
My new boyfriend, John Luciano, and my former one, Calvin Klein. Now, that would be one hell of a ride.
Nicholas Gruber
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
Pasta from Bar Pitti. Two helpings. Plus a slice of German chocolate cake.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
I’m sober so for me that would be noon. Joking. I don’t drink but I also don’t judge.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
None of the above. I will take a coconut water please.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
Calvin Klein. He might be three times my age but he can party like a rock star.
Who is the most positive person you know?
A tie between Calvin and John. They both believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
Having a mob related boyfriend who allows me to have girlfriends.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
A glass that was half full because that’s how I roll.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
A smiley face.
Cilla Black presented “Surprise, Surprise.” Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
The Steeple Times asks the magician and musician Daniel Rosenfeldt: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom.” What’s your guiding force?
Stephen Fry.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
Madonna has a great one: “Don’t cheat”. You can do what you like in life but you have to put in the work.
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2012?
The fighting happening in the Middle East. People in this day and age killing each other over religious beliefs. How thick do you have to be to kill another person because they choose to believe in something different to you? It blows my mind.
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
Tony Blair being Prime Minister… Not. ”Me?” Nothing at all. I’m rocking a fairy tale. Great childhood, great friends and family, I live in Copenhagen and I play guitar and perform magic for a living. What’s to miss?
What might you swap all your wealth for?
Peace of mind is priceless stuff.
Donald Trump was once a case of: “If you owe the bank a thousand, they close you down; but if you owe the bank a billion, you own the bank.” What’s your view on the banking crisis?
If this is the case, then the Greeks would be laughing, but they don’t look so happy to me so maybe Donald got it wrong. And it wouldn’t be the first time: he also backed Romney.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
When people say: “To be honest”. It implies that they lie most other times.
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home.” What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
I think we should help where we can. I perform magic in hospitals and for charity events. Everyone loves magic. Please look on my website to book me for this. I do it for free and it’s a big part of the reason I do what I do. I’m planning a tour through the hospitals in Copenhagen which starts in February.
The judge in “Law Abiding Citizen” states: “I can pretty much do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?
That judge had it coming. Anyone against Gerard Butler is toast! Have you seen 300?
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
The entire cast of QI, Rune Klan and his dog Balthazar, Benjamin Earl, Klaus Mulbjerg and Roland Rudd who would naturally start the speeches.
Daniel Rosenfeldt
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
Steak béarnaise at home with my parents and brothers.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
I put beer in pancake batter and it’s never too early for pancakes 🙂
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
An ice cold beer, please.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
I like the ones that sneak up on you, you’re busy having fun and then all of a sudden Dario is dancing on the couch with a sheepskin and a lampshade on his head, air drumming.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
I don’t feel guilty about things that please me. Except maybe Dario dancing on the couch with a sheep skin and a lamp shade on his head…
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
Dario dancing on the couch… Nah!
Who is the most positive person you know?
Rune Klan.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
I would like to imagine myself as a vintage Rolls but I think I’m more of a husky drawn sledge.
Cilla Black presented “Surprise, Surprise.” Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
I’m constantly surprised that I surprise people for a living. My parents are even more surprised!
Watch a YouTube video of Daniel Roesenfeldt’s “A Christmas in South Africa” at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxvK7ZYn69I and an example of his magical talents at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUydpcbb_lo
The Steeple Times asks the financier turned fashion designer Jax Martin: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom.” What’s your guiding force?
Love.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
“If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.”
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2012?
Reality TV personalities are unacceptable in any year (but to be clear Kerry Katona is still unacceptable).
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
Sleep.
What might you swap all your wealth for?
High quality education for all children.
Donald Trump was once a case of: “If you owe the bank a thousand, they close you down; but if you owe the bank a billion, you own the bank.” What’s your view on the banking crisis?
Bankers who created complex financial instruments should not receive the brunt of the blame. Let us not forget the inept regulators who permitted these activities to flourish, causing the crisis to become much worse than it might have been.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
“Reaching out.”
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home.” What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.” Plato. I anonymously support several charitable causes related to: education, medical research, the arts and women’s and children’s issues.
The judge in “Law Abiding Citizen” states: “I can pretty do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?
You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. But, I have no interest in listening to other people’s loud conversations on their mobiles.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
Oscar de La Renta, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mao Tse Tung, Madonna and Ronald McDonald.
Fashion designer Jax Martin
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
I LOVE to eat; I would have a very large meal comprised of chateaubriand with shallot sauce, Cajun chicken and fries from Le Bilboquet and a bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions from Corner Bistro. All of the aforementioned would be served with a bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin. For dessert, I would have a slice of mille-feuille with fresh cut strawberries on the side. If I were allowed to dine outside of death row, I would have the meal served in either Trancoso in Bahia, Brazil or José Ignacio in Punta del Este, Uruguay.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
This question makes the assumption that somehow one has stopped partying from the previous evening.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
A martini.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
It doesn’t matter who throws the party, it’s the company you carry that makes the party.
Who is the most positive person you know?
Lucy.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
Can’t say.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
A phoenix.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
A Koenigsegg Agera R.
Cilla Black presented “Surprise, Surprise.” Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
While I was in engineering school, I was also a professional dancer.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
An antique Buddha, candles and a couple of black and white family photographs.
British designer Jax Martin is a former financier and professional dancer. A graduate of Columbia University, Martin also has an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and began her career in the hedge fund business. She now creates “chic clothing for today’s woman” and states: “I live to make women feel great and look fabulous”.
This mouthpiece was born in Rettendon, Essex in 1958 and vents bile on all manner of subjects. Articles such as: “Why don’t more women moan like me?” and “Liz Jones’ baby craving drove her to steal husband’s sperm in ultimate deception” are frankly illustrative of why she’s so unpopular. After she got banned from the majority of fashion shows and her husband left her, she quit London for Somerset in 2007 to feed organic muesli to the rats in the barns of a 47-acre farm she purchased as her “rural idyll.” That misadventure came to a sticky end in November 2012 after she’d alienated the whole county by calling them, amongst other things, “smelly” and “faintly Amish.” Goodness knows whom she’ll choose to offend next. Phillip Schofield sums her up best: “She is inconsistent, bitter, nasty and unhinged.” Our advice: Just steer well clear of this acid tongued poison pen.
The rise and fall of the “wealthiest divorcee in history” has been extraordinary. A former nude model for her first husband’s Knave magazine and star of adult films such as “The Nine Acres of Nakedness,” Patricia Kluge is the daughter of an Englishman and a Scots-Iraqi. She married her second husband, the late John Kluge, chairman of Metromedia and once the richest man in America, in 1981 after belly dancing for him at a dinner party in New York. As part of her plan to dovetail herself into the top drawer of American society, the couple built a 24,000 square foot mock 18th century English-style mansion, Albermarle, in Virginia and stuffed it full of Chippendale furniture. She got this as part of her $100 million divorce settlement in 1990 and wisely invested part of the payoff in a highly successful business trading football cards but then vanity struck. The Kluge Estate Winery project that she started with her third husband, William Moses, bankrupted the pair in June 2011 and the Bank of America foreclosed on her properties. A lifeline came from “longtime friend” Donald Trump who purchased the vineyard and employed her, but even he’s now uttered the words: “You’re fired!” and sent her packing. Of her newfound predicament Kluge commented: “What did we lose? Material things, nothing too important. When something like this happens you really see who your friends are, those you can rely on, and we have many friends.” Here is a lady with fortitude that can only be described as admirable. It’s probably best, however, to keep her away from the cash register.
Matthew Steeples examines the truth behind Liz Jones giving up on her “rural idyll”
The Mail’s Liz Jones is a waspish woman who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Those who’ve paid even a moment’s attention to her bleating, will be familiar with lines such as: “Last week, my brand new £1,300 MacBook Pro broke” and “Phil Spencer wanted his £46,000 and he wanted it now!” She never stops talking about money and the size of what she both owns and owes.
Liz Jones
In today’s Femail, Jones bores on about about how she feels “like a cross-dresser” trying out the Kardashian Kollection of clothing in a pointed attack on Kim Kardashian, but it was for her diatribe yesterday that she truly got the goat of the nation in “[bidding] a ferocious farewell” to life in the country in an article entitled “Goodbye… and good riddance!” 2,151 people have commented so far and most of them have been far from sympathetic.
When Upcott Farm at Brushford, near Dulverton in Somerset came up for sale in 2007 at a price of £1.6 million, it featured in an article by The Telegraph’s Caroline McGhie. The 5-bedroomed farmhouse came with a 2-bedroom annexe, a courtyard of barns and stables and 47 acres of land. McGhie waxed lyrical about the merits of moving to this location: “People come here for the peace and quiet, the night skies, the dramatic coastline, and they work from home,” she stated before adding: “You can find everything here, including butchers, bakers, afternoon tea and cake, fish and chips, an art gallery and a shop selling fishing tackle.” Of Upcott Farm itself, she concluded:
“This would suit a member of the new wave of buyers dubbed Droppies (Disillusioned Relatively Ordinary Professionals Preferring Independent Employment Situations).”
McGhie got it half right: Upcott Farm sold to someone who considers herself far from “relatively ordinary” and someone who is far from “professional.” The purchaser, however, was certainly someone who’d become “disillusioned” with what she’d bought and someone whose desire to be “independent” and create a “situation” just alienated all she encountered. The buyer, you’ve guessed it, was none other than Elizabeth Ann Jones.
Jones was born in Brentwood, Essex in 1958 and studied journalism at the London College of Printing. She became editor of Marie Claire in 1999 but was sacked, she herself suggests, for “listing in the magazine the freebies she had been offered in the previous month.” Here, it seems, began Jones’s obsession with all things material and here she also met an Indian BBC radio journalist named Nirpal Dhaliwal in 2000.
Jones married Dhaliwal but the union was to prove an “utter disaster” as he had affairs with women she terms “younger, dimmer [and] slimmer.” “I’m no racist” Jones was divorced in 2007 and said goodbye to her “3,000 square foot of Islington real estate” and “easy, if super-busy, London life” in favour of the green, green grass of Somerset.
Whoever’s side you see it from, five years of hell followed. Jones baited the locals and they grew to loathe her. She wrote columns and a book, The Exmoor Files, where she attacked them as “faintly Amish… feral, old and smelly” and another hack and neighbour, Jane Alexander of The Telegraph, responded: “Dulverton [was] positively fizzing with fury” after each and every publication.
Of the local restaurants, Jones stated:
“I have given up trying to eat out in restaurants here on Exmoor… It is still stuck in the Seventies, with only things in baskets and rum babas on the menu… If you tell the waiter you are vegetarian, you are stared at, incredulously, as if you are black.”
She whinged about her inability to find love:
”I will never, ever meet a man here in the middle of a moor, where even to be in possession of your own teeth is a bonus.”
And whined about fieldsports:
“I didn’t increase my popularity by being unable to pass a party of men and often children with guns, shooting rabbits and deer, without getting out of my BMW and saying: ‘Do you really have nothing better to do with your Saturday morning?’ The look of shock on their faces that I had the cheek to challenge them was priceless. I would stop, too, and shout at huntsmen on horses, galloping on tarmaced roads, one hand on the reins, the other clamping a mobile phone to their heads. ‘You will ruin your horses’ tendons!’ I would wail.”
Whilst Jones found little to like in her new community, they found nothing positive in her arrival either. Her dog was blamed for worrying lambs, and Jones’s inability to control it, locals say, was an indicator of the chasm between her life and theirs. In 2009, one neighbour went as far as to tell Danny Brierley of The Independent:
“We have got nothing in common with her, really. I think she may find it difficult to make any kind of life here now. She is not a very friendly person and we are all sick to death of talking about Liz Jones. A hatred has been building up for months. She is actually having a go at people and they are not going to tolerate that. She has feelings like all people, of course she has. But everyone wants her to leave and leave now. No one can make her, but we think she will go. I don’t see how you can live in such a small community with people who think that way about you.”
Matters came to a head when Jones’s precious black BMW convertible, “bought in 2005 for £26,000,” was pelted with eggs and teenagers fired shots at her letterbox with an air rifle. A local councilor even dressed up as her in the local carnival and yesterday Jones took revenge on those she blames for her “five-year prison sentence” and deprivation from Space NK, Cath Kidston and Illy coffee.
Instead, the article just shows the true reality of this bombastic harpy. The lines Jones penned speak for themselves. Country people don’t welcome someone who planned to “hack for miles across the open moorland in my Prada jodhpurs” anymore than the folk of Knightsbridge welcome Arabs treating their roads like racetracks. The gardener who had to endure Jones yelling “walk faster!” at him didn’t deserve such anymore than a bus driver in SW11 deserves abuse from his passengers. Jones concludes:
“I’m now a different person. I became so lonely. I would often get in my car, not just for the warmth, but for the kind voice of the satnav lady. I’ve learned that an amazing view and a pair of nesting grey herons are not enough to make me happy.”
27 acres of land including paddocks and a fishing lake remain on the market through Savills and Strutt & Parker at a price of £200,000 at Upcott Farm
Miss Jones bleats that she’s taken a £500,000 loss on Upcott Farm, which languished on the market at first at £1,900,000 and then £1,750,000 for three years. The “unexpected” sale of the property has given her the ability to “flee back to the city” but the locals and even the “Droopies” should be warned: there’s still 27 acres of the farm unsold and on the market at a price of £200,000. Halloween may have passed but the battleaxe in the Beemer could still call again.
The Steeple Times asks the chef, author and television personality Sophie Michell: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom.” What’s your guiding force?
“Independence and the life choices that come with it.”
“Never regret, never explain, never apologise” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
As Virginia Woolf once said: “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
Kerry Katona was unacceptable in 2007. Who is unacceptable in 2012?
Samantha Brick: She gave women a bad name by writing so many self-serving articles implying that all women are as shallow and as vacuous as she, and that we as a gender make judgements solely on looks.
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
Friends and family who I have loved and lost.
What might you swap all your wealth for?
A simple life living by the sea and working in a job that involved the ocean and it’s stunning environment and creatures.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
I hate the abbreviated text language that people use, it makes people sound very moronic
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home.” What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
I try and support charities as much as possible within my means and I think we should all do the same. Time is also as worth as much as money in many cases. I generally support Breakthrough Breast Cancer, but I am very keen to get involved in a charity that works for abused women and children. It’s a bigger issue than people think, routinely ignored and sadly it’s on our doorstep.
Have you ever been arrested and if so, for what?
Hahaha, nope! But that could just mean that I’ve never been caught… Only joking.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
Definitely Marie Antoinette as she knew how to party and I love the clothes of that era. Cleopatra was a glamorous and formidable woman so she must come too. I’d also like Gregory Peck as he seemed like a real gentleman and my great grandfather Admiral Godfrey, who was head of Naval Intelligence in World War II. Ian Fleming was his PA and apparently the James Bond books were based on Ian Fleming’s time working with him. In fact, the character ‘M’ was based on my great grandfather and I would just love to hear the stories in person. There are many more people too, but those four would make an interesting start.
Sophie Michell
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
It would be a classic seafood platter by the sea somewhere possibly on the French Riviera. I suggest this mainly because with all the shells you have to crack open to extract the tasty morsels taking such a long time to get through, it would give me time to plan my escape.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
Any time after noon if on holiday. Any time after 6pm if at home. Failing those terms, you can always bend the rules by proclaiming loudly that it is always cocktail hour somewhere in the world at any given time. This works for me.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
A dirty martini every time.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
I love private house parties as they are personal and always great fun. I entertain a lot when I can for both work and pleasure. I think it enables one to be quite creative and I love seeing an event come off well. I also love really chilled out beach parties, when everyone is glowing from a day in the sunshine and you can hear the sea.
Who is the most positive person you know?
My darling friend Miss Emma Nettleton. Nothing seems so serious after some dancing and giggles with her.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
Ha ha ha: Guilt is a pointless emotion, so a pleasure should be left at that and basically if you feel guilt creeping in, then just don’t do it.
What was the first bone that you broke?
An ankle bone due to my first foray into ridiculously large platform shoes, aged 14. I haven’t stopped wearing large heels, but I have since mastered the art.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
Probably a dolphin. I am happier in the sea than anywhere else. Although for the record I think tattoos are vile.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
God knows. I don’t drive and have never tried. I am not adverse to beautiful cars, but also not attached to them either.
Cilla Black presented “Surprise, Surprise.” Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
I am actually quite shy and have faint OCD according to my friends. I think it’s otherwise known as being tidy.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
A French antique mirror, a beautiful fluorite crystal, a Dyptique blackberry leaf candle and a couple of out of date invites that will soon be removed.
Sophie Michell is a chef with a true passion for nutrition and healthy eating. She was the private chef for Claudia Schiffer for two years and has cooked for various other famous names including Leonardo DiCaprio and David Cameron. She has presented and appeared on a number of television shows including Cook Yourself Thin, Market Kitchen and Ready Steady Cook.
