Whodunit? A $6 million toilet is stolen from Churchill’s ancestral home

By Stuart Heritage

When the artist Maurizio Cattelan heard that his solid-gold toilet, valued by some at nearly $6 million, had been ripped from the floor and stolen from the ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill, he reacted much the same as you would if your $6 million solid-gold toilet had been ripped from the floor and stolen from the ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill: with a sort of stunned whimsy.

“I thought it was a prank and it took me a while, after a few checks, to come to the conclusion that it was true and it wasn’t a surreal READ ON

The author recalls an inspiring English teacher—and recounts the gruesome gaslighting that ended with his murder

By George Pendle

When the body of Peter Farquhar was found in October 2015, slumped on his couch with a bottle of whiskey beside him, those who knew him were saddened but few were surprised. An inspirational English teacher to generations of pupils, the 69-year-old had grown noticeably feeble. His usually sharp mind had been blunted by age and, it was said, perhaps a little too much drink. The coroner agreed and blamed his death on “acute alcohol intoxication.” His funeral was attended by former colleagues and students and was a sad but affectionate affair. There was talk of his eloquence, his wit, and his glorious passion for teaching. His young partner of recent years, Ben Field, read the eulogy. READ ON

Leon Black and the other investors and philanthropists who want to unfriend Jeffrey Epstein

By William D. Cohan

It seems every day brings a fresh revelation of another Jeffrey Epstein “friend.” Just this week, old photos emerged showing Sarah Ferguson and Chris Tucker and even Hilary Swank posing with Epstein’s maid or her husband. From Wall Street to Park Avenue, from M.I.T. to Windsor Castle, those at or near the top are holding their breath, wondering what new piece of evidence will bubble up and pull them, rightfully or not, into the Epstein morass.

One of them must surely be private-equity billionaire Leon Black. He’s not a bold-faced name like Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton. But he’s READ ON

A tale of mysterious airline upgrades, bounced checks, and a fembot named Sophia

By Edward Jay Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein was only a would-be Master of the Universe when I first met him in 1987, at movie producer Coco Brown’s annual Halloween party in New York. I was standing with Isabel Goldsmith, the eldest daughter of the financier Jimmy Goldsmith, when Epstein and his brother, Mark, joined us. “A surfeit of Epsteins,” Isabel remarked. It turned out she had once met Epstein in London.

The next day Epstein called me and said there was something he would like to talk to me about. We met for tea at the Mayfair Hotel on 65th Street the following Thursday. He asked at the outset if I would be interested in writing a story about his business for my monthly “Wall Street Babylon” column in READ ON

The royal family trips over Prince Andrew’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein

By Tony Allen-Mills and Roya Nikkhah

In the days when a stricter etiquette applied to the public behaviour of members of the royal family, British princesses were reputedly taught to keep their chins up when walking downstairs. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been any rule requiring British princes to stay away from convicted paedophiles.

The sorry saga of Prince Andrew’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, the New York multimillionaire accused of devoting much of his adult life to sexually abusing children, has presented the monarchy with a challenge that no arbiter of etiquette can ever have envisaged.

How did a son of the Queen of READ ON

When migrant women disappeared on the island of Cyprus, no one went looking for them

By Sarah Souli

The drive from the Cypriot capital of Nicosia to Kokkinopezoula (Red Lake) is bucolic for the most part, passing through rolling green hills and empty pastures. But as you approach the lake—a man-made remnant of a mining history that dates back 6,000 years on the Mediterranean island—appearances start to shift; tiered layers of clay rise up, the soil turning dramatically red. Google lists Red Lake and the nearby mine as a tourist attraction (both are part of a UNESCO geopark), so it wasn’t particularly surprising to locals that it would be a tourist who found the first body, bound in a sheet and bobbing at the top of one of the mine’s flooded shafts, READ ON

Billionaires vs. millionaires in the Hamptons of England

By Harry Mount

The natives are revolting. Across England, particularly in the gilt-edged Cotswolds in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, locals are rising up against the rich and their expensive, loud toys—from car museums to airstrips, from racetracks to showy country clubs. Sleepy pockets of sheep-farming country—unchanged for centuries—have been rudely disturbed by the roar of combustion engines and the earsplitting guffaws of well-heeled D.F.L.’s—Down From London types.

The Cotswolds have become England’s Hamptons, a ritzy enclave within easy reach of London, where you need never socialize with a low-net-worth individual. And just like the spats over beach rights and helicopter noise on Georgica Pond, there’s a feeling that the rich are carving out gated enclaves for themselves. READ ON

The former star of K-pop’s biggest band is under investigation for running a prostitution ring, among other indecorous charges

By Amelia Lester

In February 2018, one of the biggest celebrities in South Korea opened a nightclub in Gangnam, Seoul’s most exclusive neighborhood. It was the kind of club that didn’t bother with a sign; a pedestrian would have no idea of the bacchanalia inside. But even though entrance fees on a Friday night started at 10 million won (about $8,245), with an auction determining who would gain access to the most coveted private rooms, business was brisk. Nearby lesser clubs—where customers had to line up and paid cover charges with single bank notes, and pretty girls weren’t literally showered with vintage Champagne Armand de Brignac—soon shut down. READ ON