Tuesday, November 26, 2013

The Duke and his Duchess crawl out of the muck


Marcus Scriven has a new website, Black Sheep Aristocrats.  We eagerly await more of Marcus's delightful insights on the life of Alexander, Duke of Manchester and his wife, Laura, Duchess of Manchester, which are, doubtless, in the offing. 

On a more pathetic note, Laura, again, attempts to slander but fails because she has no credibility and cannot spell, punctuate or think effectively. 



Splendour & Squalor: Marcus Scriven
In as far as they developed talents, it was to misapply them; in as far as they were aware of their own deficiencies, it was to ignore them…Theirs was, in consequence, a journey of dynastic destruction, completed in single or successive generations. There would be no return, no temporal redemption.
Splendour & Squalour book cover
A bleak day in January 1999…an unexpected guest at dinner…an hour of equally unexpected reminiscence about John Bristol [the 7th Marquess of Bristol].
So a seed was sown. It would, in due course, lead to an attempt to resurrect the lives of a number of twentieth century aristocrats who took the down-escalator of life - an attempt made not via the opinions of those who had heard things said about them, but via those who knew them, lived with them, loved them (and frequently despaired of them too).
Splendour & Squalor scrutinises four such lives (two from the same family): these were men who kept monkeys in West End hotels, and rent-boys in Deauville and Kensington; who used firearms with convincing disregard for their own and others’ safety, who drove Rollses and Bentleys with apparently suicidal intent, acquired yachts and helicopters whilst shipping the family silver to California and disposing of Old Masters at auction; who married frequently and unsatisfactorily, and sought consolation in narcotics and alcohol, whilst experimenting with burglary, shop-lifting, vagrancy and fraud.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

The Ducal Digs Move Again, via Home Depot



It has been a busy several weeks.  We received information from reliable sources, some of these located in Las Vegas, who affirmed to us the Duke and Duchess of Manchester were evicted from the apartment in Sky Las Vegas, a high end high rise there, where they had been squatting for some time.  

The hearing took place on September 11th, the actual eviction on the 18th.  

In parallel, Duchess Laura was texting Wendy, the Duke's former wife and the mother of his two children, that the dauntless duo was planning a posh wedding to reaffirm their vows, the ceremony to be attended by 300 close friends.  

From this  we conclude nothing much has changed in their alternate reality.  

The couple was seen driving into their storage facility at this time with a Home Depot Moving Van, which Wendy confirmed was the method preferred by Alex when forced to again shift his possessions.