Table of Contents
Here’s a twist: The King’s grocer, Fortnum & Mason, is embroiled in a furious fight with a graffiti artist.
James Goldcrown became famous thanks to his repeating hearts, which he sprayed on walls in London, Los Angeles and New York, before winning commissions from brands including L’Oreal, MTV and shoemaker Skechers.
However, the 43-year-old Londoner was surprised to see Fortnum’s using a similar design for its Valentine’s Day display at its Piccadilly store.
Accusing her of “ripping off” his designs, he says: “You’d think by now larger companies like Fortnum’s would know better than to hire lazy designers who studied scamming skills online during the pandemic.” Nowadays there is not much that is original.
A spokesperson for Fortnum & Mason acknowledges that its exhibition was inspired by graffiti artists, but denies that it plagiarized Goldcrown. “The whole design of this packaging was inspired by street art,” he said. “There are many different versions of graffiti hearts.”
Graffiti artist James Goldcrown became famous thanks to his repeating hearts, which he painted on the walls of London.
However, the 43-year-old Londoner was surprised to see Fortnum and Mason using a similar design for their Valentine’s Day display (above right) in their Piccadilly store.
(Very) modern manners
Roxie Nafousi, who has dated the pop superstar Harry styles and artist Damien Hirst, has joined a dating app for the first time in five years.
“I’m a have-sex-on-the-first-date kind of girl, to be honest,” she tells me.
‘I don’t think there are rules. If you meet someone and the chemistry is amazing, and you feel comfortable and safe with them, and you have that feeling of being at home, and with that comes this lust, then do it.’
Roxie Nafousi joins a dating app for the first time in five years
Roxie, 33, a “self-development coach” known as the “manifestation queen,” says, “I’m newly single.” I’m not joining the app because I want to meet someone right now, but because I want to put myself out there strongly and feel open to it. Self-help is not sexy.
‘On the app someone called me bad. I don’t know what a bad guy is, but my assistant saw the message and was howling.
A bad guy is someone considered “hot and sexy,” according to my reliable information.
The smart ones talk about… the ‘looting’ of Oxford students in its rival Cambridge
Known as the Corpus Challenge, the annual sports day between the Corpus Christi universities of Oxford and Cambridge is a cornerstone of university social life, with students competing in football, hockey, frisbee and even darts.
However, I learned that this year’s challenge was canceled after Oxford students went on a rampage in Cambridge, pinching a photograph of Boris Johnson’s son Theodore.
They also ransacked a youth common room, taking pool cues, light bulbs and a teddy bear.
On Cambridge University’s confessions page, distraught students paid tribute to the teddy bear who was allegedly dismembered, describing it as “loved forever”.
The looting of the common room was described as “savage” by one student, who told the Varsity newspaper that “they took everything they could.”
A spokesperson for Corpus Christi College Cambridge confirms: ‘By agreement of the deans of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Corpus Challenge 2024 has been cancelled.
Deans and universities will review the 2025 Challenge in due course.” Tut tut. It wouldn’t have happened in Boris’s time, would it?
Anya’s tactic to confront Gwynnie
Peaky Blinders star Anya Taylor-Joy appears to be taking a leaf from Gwyneth Paltrow’s book and launching her own lifestyle business.
I can reveal that the ambitious actress, 27, who played gangster’s wife Gina Gray in hit BBC gangster drama Brummie, has applied to the Intellectual Property Office to register the name ‘Anya’ for a wide range of goods and services.
According to newly released documents, they range from cosmetic bags and phone cases to stockings and suspenders.
Interestingly, her application also covers games, so Taylor-Joy, who played prodigy Beth Harmon in the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, could bring out her own chess set.
Anya Taylor-Joy appears to be following Gwyneth Paltrow’s lead and launching her own lifestyle business.
Taylor-Joy played chess player Beth Harmon in the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit
She has talked about how her fans often “want to play chess with me.” She said: ‘I don’t wear one [a chess board] with me, but the thing about jumping from project to project is that you gain skills from that particular project.’
Last year, Anya, a dual US-British citizen, married American musician and actor Malcolm McRae, 29, in Venice, Italy.
SamCam’s brother poses with his new erotic artist girlfriend
Samantha Cameron’s brother, Robert Sheffield, appears to be the picture of contentment with his new girlfriend, Athena Lemanska, an artist who specializes in sexually explicit paintings of women.
Last month, I revealed that the baronet’s son and heir, 39, was enjoying a new and blossoming friendship with the American. He has now posed for a photo with the erotic artist in California, where she lives.
Samantha Cameron’s brother Robert Sheffield posed for a photo with his new girlfriend Athena Lemanska
The brother-in-law of Foreign Secretary Lord (David) Cameron broke up with the mother of his three-year-old daughter last year.
The old Harrovian Sheffield had lived with Gucci model and actress Ellen Francis Gibbons at Sutton Park, their family residence in North Yorkshire.
King Charles’ goddaughter India Hicks admits she left cabin crew bewildered on a recent flight after bursting into tears when offered ice cream.
The granddaughter of the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma was returning from a visit to Ukraine, where she was helping to deliver vital aid through the Global Empowerment Mission (GEM).
“I felt like I was getting used to life in a war zone,” Hicks, 56, tells British Airways magazine Executive Club. ‘I thought I would be able to handle it better emotionally. And then, when he flew from Warsaw, his cabin crew started handing out ice cream in a box.
‘With GEM I distribute food boxes, warm blankets, phone batteries and similar things. When the cabin crew handed me the box of ice cream, I burst into tears in my seat. They were terribly confused as to how the ice cream had made me so hysterical.’
It is one of the most beautiful stately homes in England and the resting place of Princess Diana; However, Althorp has become a victim of the modern scourge of rural tippers. Adey Greeno, conservation director at the 13,000-acre Northamptonshire estate, reveals the staggering scale of illegal dumping.
“So far, 183 tonnes of fly-tipping rubbish has been removed from Althorp in the last two weeks,” he says. ‘All at a great cost. The countryside is degrading at an alarming rate. “It is a national shame.”
If only Diana’s formidable stepmother, Raine, was still around to chase them away.
Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly are two of Sir Elton John’s most avid fans, but have so far failed to persuade him to sing on their long-running ITV1 show Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, which is leaving after 20 series on April.
“We always wanted Sir Elton to turn up and open with Saturday night’s Alright For Fighting, but he always very politely told us to stall,” admits Ant. “But you never know, we’ll keep trying.”
The inseparable duo were in the audience at Sir Elton’s concert in Paris last summer.
Ant and Dec on ITV’s This Morning on February 23
Bridget Skelton was the toast of punters when she landed the County Hurdle on Faivoir at the Cheltenham Festival last March.
But I can reveal she will not be riding at the Cheltenham Festival next month as she and her husband Harry, the 2021 champion jump jockey, are expecting their first baby in April.
They have just returned from a short holiday in Florida to visit Harry’s father, Olympic gold medalist Nick Skelton, who has a training base there for his jumpers.