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Tag: Waterfly

  • Waterfly on King Charles, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stephen Hawking

    The Waterfly sees the reflection in the water. It takes note as the water shifts. Here’s the latest gossip from the education and employability sectors.

     

    Racking up the Royalties

     

    As we move towards the coronation of a new King, Waterfly hears that Finito’s CEO Ronel Lehmann has had the opportunity to meet His Majesty on multiple occasions when the current King was the Prince of Wales. The first meeting was facilitated by Lady Nourse, who enjoyed her superior position perhaps a little too much. “The first time that I met HRH The Prince of Wales was thanks to Lady Nourse who was chairing a charity event at a West End theatre,” Lehmann recalls. “We all had to be seated half an hour before Charles arrived. Lady Nourse took great pleasure in marching into the Royal box and immediately chastising us for not standing up quickly,” he recalls. It’s not recorded how Charles reacted to this: at least it didn’t involve a rogue pen.

     

    But the future King’s humour comes through in Lehmann’s recollections. After a lifetime of service, charity, and championing the environment, His Majesty took particular pride in another accomplishment of his when he and Camilla visited The Jewish Museum to mark its Camden Town expansion. Among the refreshments were Duchy Original Biscuits, which the then-Prince of Wales began production of in 1990. Now they are a Waitrose product, though to their credit the royalties still go to charity. At the museum’s grand opening, His Majesty was seen to relish picking up biscuits, placing them in his jacket pocket, and excitedly telling guests “these were mine!”

     

    Lehmann also recalls a meeting at the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which he attended through an invitation from Marianne Fredericks CC. Lehmann and the future King spoke of his own long-standing association with Sylvia Darley OBE, who founded The Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children. “I told His Royal Highness that I was trying to get the Royal Albert Hall to honour Sir Malcolm on one of their stars located under the canopy of the building. These are dedicated to key players in the building’s history, from its opening in 1871 to the present day,” Lehmann says. “Most young people have no idea of his impact on classical music or Sir Malcolm’s importance to the survival of The Royal Albert Hall. I felt that I was beating a Royal path for common sense to prevail!” We feel another black spider memo coming on.

     

    Baised and Confused

     

    Waterfly hears that the world of snooker is a place where journalists experience a variety of welcomes. According to Finito staff writer Patrick Crowder, Australian champion Neil Robertson exuded quiet confidence and kindness, asking nearly as many questions about Crowder’s life during the interview as Crowder was asking him. Eventually the expats connected over the question of homesickness – and even swapped mobiles.

     

    But when Crowder approached Ronnie O’Sullivan after a match, the legend was initially closed off. O’Sullivan generally has little patience for the media, preferring to focus on his play. He asked which publication Crowder was writing for, and as he began to explain, O’Sullivan cut him off with, “I don’t give a f**k mate, how much time have we got?” But O’Sullivan warmed up when he picked up on Crowder’s Californian accent – an unusual nationality on the snooker circuit. Eventually the pair bonded over their shared love of scones and clotted cream from ‘Marksies’, which O’Sullivan was surprised Crowder had even heard of. From expletives to cream – the true trajectory of a Rocket.

     

    Our Mole in TV

     

    The author Tim Robinson recalls what it was like directing and producing Reading the Eighties for BBC2. He recalls: “Sue Townsend of Adrian Mole fame was perhaps the most amiable, although she couldn’t stand Beryl Reid who played Adrian’s grandmother in the TV adaptation. ‘She was a mad pain in the neck,’ said Sue, ‘who, unable to do a Sheffield accent, did an awful Brummie caricature and then tried to force the rest of the cast to imitate her.’ I confessed to her my terrible fear of aging and losing my looks, and she, who was close to death, replied, laughingly: ‘Because of my diabetes, I’m completely blind and can’t see you at all, but I’ll tell you how lovely you look if that helps.’

     

    Hawking his book

     

    Robinson, whose acclaimed new novel The Orphans of Hatham Hall is published by Northside Press, also had other fascinating encounters: “Stephen Hawking wasn’t noticeably more agile than Sue, but still manfully plugging A Brief History of Time which had sold in huge numbers – although, it has been scandalously suggested, a smaller percentage than usual ever reached the end. I was allowed only one unprepared question and as we were featuring ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, asked him about Douglas Adams. For twenty minutes the camera ran while he dutifully programmed his gizmo, and I crossed and uncrossed my legs. But it was well worth the wait as finally everybody’s favourite household dalek began speaking: ‘I once met Douglas Adams in Los Angeles for lunch where he told me about working on scripts for Doctor Who.’ The silence that followed told me the anecdote was complete, so I jumped up, shouting out: ‘Wonderful, that’s simply wonderful!’ Still, it made it to the final cut.

     

    Lowering the Standard

     

    The management team at Stansted Airport aren’t the only ones struggling to find solid ground. A source close to Waterfly tells us of trouble at the Evening Standard. After two years of anticipation and preparation, staff at the Standard were finally ready to move into their new offices, only to find that the WiFi didn’t work. Apparently, staff were told that there was “an 80% chance of WiFi” during their first week in the new digs. On top of that, the Standard faces an £11,847,000 operating loss, and net liabilities totalling £28,998,000, so if you’re on the market for some pre-owned printing presses keep an eye out on Gumtree.

     

    Call a Doctor

     

    Russell T Davies was heard to be quite rude about MP Nadine Dorries over her appearance on Radio 4. “The woman is an idiot – a big f**king idiot. She’s a plain, complete, clearly idiotic woman,” Davies tells Waterfly. Speaking of his return to writing for the nation’s favourite time-travelling doctor, the Welsh screenwriter expressed concern about going back to the BBC, which he believes is coming under fire. “I think it’s under attack all the time. Every single day,” he tells us. His proposal to save the historic broadcast service? “Vote the government out, it’s simple as that. But we won’t, it’s not going to happen, so when your children are sitting watching cartoons it’s your fault for not voting them out.” Call the Paw Patrol.

     

     

  • Waterfly on Liz Truss, Jeremy Clarkson and Boris Johnson

    Our round-up of the latest gossip in the education and work sectors

     

    Emily in Kensington

    Finito World’s own Emily Prescott has had an exciting few months, moving from her role at The Evening Standard, to become diary editor for The Mail on Sunday. At just 25 this is an impressive achievement. But this isn’t all. We also hear that she’s working on a book on the history of gossip. When she recently interviewed Michael Gove about diary journalism – Gove, who used to work as Diary editor at The Times – told Prescott that it was ‘a nice little apprenticeship.’

    But it can be much more than that. Indeed, for Prescott it’s been something of a baptism of fire. When Prescott published a piece about Jeremy Clarkson’s daughter Emily, and reported verbatim her quotes on Instagram about her ignorance of the Russia-Ukraine war, Prescott woke to find her Twitter had blown up after a fiery – and in Waterfly’s opinion, unnecessary – tweet by Clarkson himself calling her both a ‘shit journalist’ and ‘an idiot’. But Prescott’s good nature ensured that she didn’t reply, or even take it too hardly. “He’s just being protective of his daughter – as I’d be in his situation,” she says. Prescott adds with a smile: “I don’t think I’m either of those things, but at least I’ve never punched any of my colleagues.” Clarkson has 7.6 million followers on Twitter; Prescott, around 500. So from punching colleagues to punching down – there’s consistency there. 

    Spectating on Boris

    Talking of punching down, one person who doesn’t do that, according to The Spectator art critic Martin Gayford, is the Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Gayford witnessed Boris up close in his journalism days: “Boris was famous for going up to and over deadline, and certainly did make people quite cross although he probably knew by that stage that he was commanding enough readers to make people put up with it. Charles Moore certainly spiked one or two of his columns and said: ‘If he’s late, use something else’.”

    Gayford explains that he didn’t always have much directly to do with Boris when he was editor – except in one respect. “One thing I’d say about Boris is that he was unusually good at sending messages to lowly people such as those toiling on the factory floor of the arts pages when he was editor. You would get messages saying, “Boris liked that piece” and that sort of thing.” So does Gayford ever see something in Downing Street and think that’s a bit like what used to happen at The Spectator? “I’m not sure if you can compare running a country to running a little magazine in a three-storey building in Doughty Street,’ he says, chuckling. Yes, perhaps not.  

    King Richard

    Sometimes the hurly burly nature of British politics can be glimpsed in a single phone call. When Waterfly called Richard Harrington last year to ask to talk to him, he declined an interview: “You don’t want to talk to me – I’m just not interesting enough,” he said. “The person you really want to talk to is John Bercow.” Since that time, Harrington has become Minister for Refugees and Bercow has not only joined the Labour Party but been the subject of a report into alleged bullying when he was Speaker of the House of Commons. Who’s interesting now?

    An Ignob-el Mistake

    When we spoke with Gayford, we also asked him of his regrets as a journalist. He was decisive in his reply: “The worst thing is when you’re talking to someone interesting, or of historical importance, and you feel you need to contribute something to the conversation – and so you come in with your ten cents. Then you listen to the tape and wish you hadn’t interrupted. You’ve got to keep your mouth shut.”

    Waterfly would add you’ve got to be careful which day you call. Waterfly recalls phoning the Astronomer-Royal Lord Martin Rees last autumn, and found the kindly scientist in an uncharacteristically jittery mood. “I’m so sorry I just have to get off the line,” he said. When Waterfly did so, we went onto the BBC news website, and saw that that morning the Nobel Prize for Physics was being handed out. Rees had wanted us off the line, perhaps having thought we were Stockholm when we phoned. Oops.

    Goldsmiths aggrieved

    Waterfly has been in and out of the House of Lords these past few months, and in addition to receiving different appraisals of the food – Baroness Anne Jenkin holds a higher opinion of the canteen than does Baroness France d’Souza – Waterfly began to get a feel for the place. On one occasion, D’Souza passed Zac Goldsmith smoking a roll-up in the courtyard. “Ooh, I like your cigarette,” she said. “You must be the only one,” he replied, humorously but a little gloomily.

    Waterfly recalled catching up with Ben Goldsmith, who told us: “There are many professions which pay significantly more than an MP earns. I think it is a bit much for the public to expect people working in those professions to take a drastic pay cut in order to enter politics. Some may do it, many more  would not – and why should they?” And you can’t even smoke.

    An Artful Innovation

    Emily Prescott isn’t the only person in the Finito fraternity going places. Our business mentor Angelina Giovani has made an impressive step creating an innovation in the world of art provenance. “There are a lot of odd and funny requests one gets when working as an art researcher, that can be a dead giveaway as to whether someone is familiar with your line of work or not,” Giovani tells Waterfly.

    Two weeks into the first lockdown in London, an art collector rang Giovani to ask whether she could research his client’s 150 artwork collection, which he intended to sell. She tells Waterfly: “We certainly can, I responded: “What’s the time frame? “We’d like for it to be done this week.” I told him that this was like requesting the Pyramids be built in an afternoon.’

    But it was out of this exchange that the Collections Provenance Rating was born. The first of its kind – known as the CPR for short – assesses the state of documentation of a collection and offers recommendations based on the result.

    Giovani explains: “This allows collectors planning to sell, insure, appraise or use the collection as collateral and borrow money against its value, to speed up the process and have a new insight into possible problematic pieces. This does not eliminate the need for proper due diligence: on the contrary, it helps streamline and make the research process more time and cost-effective.” And that’s how they built the Pyramids.

    In Liz We Truss

    To the United and Cecil Club Dinner, an occasion which helps raise funding for marginal Conservative seats. The Guest of Honour was none other than the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who, after being barraged with questions about Putin, recalled her time as Secretary of State for International Trade. Once famous for her remarks about cheese, her attention has now turned to another dairy product. In that role, she found that she disapproved of the way in which yoghurt is always made in France, but not always packaged to let you know that. “What we need is for the English to manufacture yoghurt,” she said. “By the way,” she added, “I don’t like yoghurt.” In politics, as in life, it’s always important to cover your blind spots.