Chelsea Flower Show garden opens on Hull estate
"We can't quite believe it if we're honest," said Ms Weichardt. "It is such a beautiful space. We come into the garden and we look at it and we're like, oh my god, this is just amazing."There's nothing like this around here and we're just really excited to open the gates to the community."The garden is part of a wider project at the site to overhaul the existing outdoor space for the local community, previously described by Ms Carew as a "concrete jungle".
After appearing at the show in May, the garden was relocated plant-by-plant to Hull where it was reassembled in a space more than double what it had at Chelsea. Designer Nicola Oakey hoped to highlight the plight of the UK songbird and help return the most at risk birds back into our gardens.The garden was inspired by the movement and perspective of a bird, featuring paths winding though layers of bird-friendly plants, which are aimed at helping them feed, shelter and nest. There is a pond to provide water for bathing.
The garden will host a further community day on Tuesday 22 June between 13:00 and 15:00 BST so local residents can "see what all the fuss is about", Ms Carew said."We've been busy planting and building things within the garden, but now we want to open the gates and let everyone enjoy it and get involved. "We're looking for people to make this garden their own as well, to help plan and grow things and be a part of the story."
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Times
21 minutes ago
- Times
Jacquie Davis: ‘The most I've made as a bodyguard is £1m'
Jacquie Davis, 66, has been a close protection officer for 35 years and is widely regarded as the world's top female bodyguard. She spent four years as JK Rowling's bodyguard at the height of Harry Potter mania, and has guarded Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Gerard Butler, Nicole Kidman, Bradley Cooper, Sarah, Duchess of York, Justin Bieber and the Beckhams. Her 1998 book, The Circuit, described her life rescuing children and vulnerable adults, hostage rescue, and protecting Middle Eastern royalty around the world, which was the inspiration for the 2019 Netflix thriller Close. £30. I sometimes use cash; black cabs in London much prefer it. I won't use nail bars that only take cash because to me it's probably about trafficking, avoiding VAT and probably a front for money laundering, like barbers who are cash-only. It's likely to be a scam. For work I use Amex, which is a pain because in eastern Europe you're hard-pushed to get them to take it, but it's great in the States. I also use Capital One. It depends what country I'm going to and what I'm doing. Some don't take certain credit cards. I get health insurance and points with Amex, so for booking flights and things it's useful. I worked for British Leyland as a secretary. I went to college, did all the typing courses then went to catering college just in case. I joined the police force at 18 in 1976 and left in 1990 to become a bodyguard after I was badly injured. My father said: 'If you get injured in the police you have to have something to fall back on.' I was a chef for a year while writing The Circuit, which Penguin commissioned me to write. Neither because the cost of living takes up most of your salary. I'm so busy jetting round the world, I don't have time to spend money anyway. Yes, because I don't have children. I grew up in Hertfordshire, one of four. My parents were savers, didn't believe in hire purchase and it was, 'if you can't afford it, you can't have it. So save up for it'. When I had £2,000 in the bank, 30-odd years ago, I paid cash for a car and didn't have to have it on finance. I've been given £10,000 in tips by Middle Eastern royalty at the end of a job. When you're travelling with stars you're normally in a private jet or first class, staying in 5 or 6-star hotels and eating in Michelin-starred restaurants — that's what they do, so you have to do the same. • John Lydon: 'When I was ten I ran a minicab firm — I was very good at it' I've stayed in nearly all the top hotels around the world. It's lovely: you get a private butler, somebody hangs your stuff up in the wardrobe — the stupid things you get used to. There's much hotel snobbery among our teams. Six years ago if you had clients staying at the Savoy, the team would look at you with disdain and say, 'Please don't tell us we've got to spend six weeks in the Savoy.' Now it's all beautifully done up they go, 'Oh, six weeks in the Savoy, how fabulous!' Very often. When I've done hostage rescues with women and children, the team of five or six can be in, say, Pakistan or Saudi for six weeks. They'll do it for nothing but I have to pay for the whole rescue: surveillance, flights, hotels, food and all expenses. The person kidnapped — especially if it's a child — their mum hasn't got any money. Many times I've racked up all my credit cards, come back and lived on baked beans for six weeks. You can't leave a kid in a foreign country who's going to be sold off or married aged ten, for the sake of £200,000 that I don't have. So everybody pulls together: we do what we can and end up with nothing but you've got a child home. The most I've had to outlay is £250,000 but others like me have spent millions doing it. More times than I care to remember, I've had to bribe officials on rescuing jobs because you want to cross borders without being seen. You're having to pay customs people, bent policemen, taxi drivers; honestly I couldn't count how many I've paid but you have to budget for bribes. The ultra-high net worth people you're protecting have no idea what you've done to get them safely from A to B. You're only allowed to leave the country with less than £10,000; so you share it among your team and have to get more sent out to you later. I've never bribed anyone in the UK or Europe because there's never a need to. We do a lot of corporate work on the surveillance, close protection and fraud investigation side — the most I've made from a close protection job is about £1 million. The most that Middle Eastern royalty pay for a job, if it's in London and I've got 15 people out, could be £12,000 a day. The team can be one or two or up to 18 people and you have to pay them well. It depends who you're looking after. The risk — is it political, blackmail, stalking, kidnapping? — determines how many people you'll need. We do pro bono work for domestic violence and hostage rescue. But we've also had journalists that have been kidnapped where the newspaper has paid us to get them back. Oil executives and the oil companies do as well. When such clients pay their bills, it helps cover the pro bono work. Yes, a two-bedroom 17th-century cottage. • Danny Robins: Basil Brush paid for the deposit on my first flat No. I'm just not interested. Money isn't the be-all and end-all, even if some people do think money buys everything. It can make you miserable in comfort. I do play online bingo. I've played it with the same ladies for the past 25 years. We've never met, but online we've seen each other through births, deaths and marriages. You might win a few hundred pounds but really it's about doing something completely different from what I do at work. There's a high-ranking officer in the navy, an accountant, a doctor. It's quite amusing, we're in highly stressful jobs and that's how we get away from the stress, for the cost of £2 or £20 to play. Amalgamating with Optimal Risk 20-odd years ago because business insurance was going up and I thought it was getting ridiculous. You share the cost of premises, business insurance, corporation tax and everything else. We employ ten people; everybody else is self-employed and you sub-contract them. Say I've got a client who wants to go skiing, then the close protection operators have to be skiers. I've got 100 people with different skill sets I can pull from: they can ski, drive, speak foreign languages, ride horses. With the Middle East if you've got females, they've got to have female close protection officers; if it's a guy, you've got to have males. So it's all to do with culture, religion and what people are comfortable with. To employ a friend. They thought they were entitled to more money, position and power, and thought they'd never get sacked. 'Oh, I'm your friend,' you know. 'Well, no, you're not in business.' In the end I had to get rid of them. It cost me a friendship. Feeding the local cats. I'm a bit of a cat hotel round here. My cats have died and I refuse to get any more, but all the local cats come and visit me so it costs me a fortune in cat food. They stay for a couple of days then go home again. It's lovely because I haven't got the vet bills. Me. My skills, the courses I've done to enhance them. You have to invest in yourself. I'm the operations director of Optimal Risk Group now. • James Constantinou: I'm a pawnbroker, but I don't use credit Don't let it rule your life. I've seen so many people ruined by money ruling their life, having to have a bigger house or car: something goes wrong and they're back to living in a two-bedroom flat with a Ford Fiesta and they're miserable. A billionaire client once said to me: 'I was born a Bedouin so if we lost everything tomorrow, I could go back to living in the desert. But my children, who went to Eton, wouldn't know how to cope.' About £100,000, I suppose. A Range Rover I bought for £45,000 when my book, The Circuit, came out in 1998. No. I cashed them in to do rescues. I'd start a foundation to help people, but not by giving them money. There was a documentary where John Prescott spoke to women on a council estate who said: 'All we want is a job so we can buy some paint for the walls or get our kids a decent bed.' All he did was invite them to parliament for champagne and strawberries. I thought, 'what an arsehole'. All you're doing is going, 'look what I've got and you still haven't got anything'. I'd help them get skill sets to get back on their feet. Jacquie Davis is available for speaking engagements via
The Guardian
21 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘People lashed out because she wasn't a guy': Linkin Park on nu-metal, nostalgia and their new frontwoman
It's been almost 25 years since Linkin Park released their debut album, Hybrid Theory. An irresistible fusion of metal, hip-hop, electronica, industrial rock and infectious pop melody, it established the Californian sextet as instant nu-metal icons and laid the groundwork for the group to become, by many metrics, the biggest US rock band of this millennium: Hybrid Theory ended up the bestselling album of 2001; its follow-up, Meteora, would also go on to rank as one of the bestselling albums of the 21st century. It's been just 36 hours, however, since the band played their biggest headline gig to date, at a steamy and rapturous Wembley stadium. Outside, it's still scorching, but in an icily air-conditioned hotel overlooking the Thames, Linkin Park's co-founder, co-vocalist and chief songwriter, Mike Shinoda, is reflecting on the show. 'For any band that's been around a long time, it's really easy to start heading into heritage territory,' says the 48-year-old. 'You're just playing that old stuff.' Linkin Park did of course play the old stuff, crescendoing with a stone-cold triad of belt-along hits – Numb, In the End and Faint – that have 6bn Spotify streams between them. But this was no greatest hits showcase. The band's eighth album, From Zero – which reached No 1 in 13 countries (including the UK) last November – also received an ecstatic response, and its lead single was one of the very rare hard rock songs to reach the UK Top 5. 'This tour and this album are one of our most successful of all time. That, for me, is insane,' marvels Shinoda. 'That is way beyond my hopes and dreams for what this whole thing could be.' This triumphant second act is all the more miraculous considering Linkin Park are not the band they used to be. In 2017, the group's lead vocalist, Chester Bennington, took his own life, having struggled with depression and addiction for decades. Sitting next to Shinoda today is 39-year-old Emily Armstrong, who now fronts Linkin Park alongside him (she sings, Shinoda raps). Bleach-blond hair, dark shades, an acid yellow oversized jersey and a voice that travels from pop croon to gruff, guttural scream: on stage, Armstrong appeared every inch the nu-metal maven. Yet while performing to 75,000 adoring fans would be the ego trip of a lifetime for most rock stars, as Bennington's replacement, it's not quite the same. On songs such as the Grammy-winning Crawling, Armstrong's role was more singalong facilitator than central attraction. 'There's so many fans that have been wanting to see Linkin Park for so long, you know?' she says, brandishing an enormous bottle of electrolyte-orange water. 'So I look at it as: this is your moment to sing. And you sing it better than I do at this point!' After Bennington's death, Shinoda paused Linkin Park and found refuge in Post Traumatic, a raw and emotional solo album that detailed his struggle to process his grief. Bennington died two months after the release of the band's seventh album, One More Light, which they were about to take on tour. Shinoda partly 'wanted to make Post Traumatic as a diary of how I felt for myself', but also had the urge to play live 'to provide an area for fans to commune and go: 'Oh, Mike is still here. We didn't lose everybody.'' The Post Traumatic tour was cathartic 'in the beginning', he says. 'And then towards the end it was exhausting. I had started to … I don't want to say move on. 'Move on' to some people means not looking back and forgetting – that's completely not how I felt. I felt like I was coping well and I was able to get up in the morning and not think about it, and I was evolving from the terrible stuff that had happened. Then I would go to the show and spend 90 minutes with half the crowd crying. And I'm like, this is fucking exhausting. You know how therapists see patients all day and help them, but then they need therapy themselves? That's how I felt.' Shinoda founded Linkin Park at 19, alongside his schoolmates Rob Bourdon (drums) and Brad Delson (guitar). His college friends Dave 'Phoenix' Farrell (bass) and the turntablist Joe Hahn joined soon after; Bennington was a later addition after a record label executive insisted they recruit a new vocalist. After Post Traumatic, Shinoda spent the next half-decade figuring out how to bring back the band that had defined his entire adult life. 'I sort through information very logically,' he says. He approached the group's future 'from a puzzle-cracking point of view', he explains, entertaining options like hiring a mini choir for live shows or relying on a rotating cast of famous vocalists. To begin with, Shinoda invited a few musicians – including some big names, such as the viral soul singer Teddy Swims – down to the studio to write material. He didn't tell them this was part of a potential Linkin Park comeback, and things could get awkwardly vague. 'Two hours into the session, they'd be like: 'Hey, can I ask you a question? What's going on here? Who are we writing for?' And we'd be like: 'Yeah, we don't know.'' Sometimes it felt like these collaborators were 'angling' to be Linkin Park's new vocalist. 'Like, 'look how good I can sing!' It was such a turn-off.' Armstrong was the tunefully raspy frontwoman of Dead Sara, a bluesy LA punk outfit who were initially hyped (in 2013, Dave Grohl insisted they 'should be the next biggest rock band in the world') but never really made it. She got an invite too. Those sessions never felt like a 'Linkin Park tryout', she says; she was simply 'excited to write with Mike Shinoda'. He laughs: 'I love when you use my full name.' The first time she met the band was in 2019, but it wasn't until she returned to the studio in 2023 that something clicked. Performance and personality-wise, Armstrong – who has sassy little sister energy around Shinoda – seemed like a natural fit. Shinoda also felt reassured that Armstrong and the drummer Colin Brittain – who replaced Bourdon around the same time – weren't just using Linkin Park to grow their profiles. 'There's a lot of people for who it's all about follower count. It's a very greedy way to live. And these guys aren't that way.' He appreciates that the pair never took any 'sneaky pictures' of Shinoda's home studio for clout. 'We had a high level of respect,' nods Armstrong, before stifling a smile. 'We did have a high level of respect.' Shinoda looks mock-wistful. 'Ah, to go back to those days.' Armstrong was never going to turn down the opportunity to front Linkin Park. 'I've been in a band for 20 years and I could only dream of this kind of success,' she says, then makes a face. 'That sounded lame.' But she was scared at the prospect of stepping into such big shoes. 'Why do I think I can do this?' she wondered, telling Shinoda that she didn't want to 'ruin' Linkin Park. 'I'm like, you guys are a legacy band – you guys are so important.' Shinoda drolly encourages the ego massage: 'Oh, go on – tell me more!' Once the new lineup was complete and From Zero finished (much of it was already written when Armstrong joined the band), it was time to tell the world. The response wasn't entirely positive. Bennington's mother said she felt 'betrayed' by Shinoda's decision to reform the band without consulting her, while Bennington's son expressed dismay at Armstrong's links to Scientology and her attendance at a hearing in support of Danny Masterson, an actor and Scientologist who was eventually convicted of rape – something that was also widely reported in the press and discussed by fans. I have been told that Armstrong will not discuss Scientology today. She did, however, release a statement at the time, explaining that she had severed all ties with Masterson and condemned his crimes. Was Armstrong braced for that kind of reaction? 'Not this. No, not this,' she says quietly. 'I was a little bit naive about it, to be honest.' Even pre-Linkin Park, she tended to avoid social media 'for mental-health purposes', and coped with the clamour by getting offline. 'If there was something really, really pressing, I think our PR would talk to us about it. But I'm old enough to know the difference between real life and the internet.' Shinoda takes a different tack to public criticism, but ends up in the same place. After the Wembley show, he posted a picture of himself in a T-shirt emblazoned with the opening lines of a snide news story about the band's decision to downsize the venue of their LA show. 'There are times when I'm not above being a little petty,' he grins. The T-shirt was 'not meant to be mean at all', he clarifies, and the music outlet in question 'are not the only ones who've said it. Lots of people have said this band is fumbling: 'Look how stupid they are, look how bad they're doing.' Well, according to the data, we're not, but you can believe whatever you want to believe.' When it came to Armstrong, Shinoda felt people's complaints were also disingenuous. 'There were people who lashed out at Emily and it was really because she wasn't a guy.' Fans, he thinks, were 'used to Linkin Park being six guys and the voice of a guy leading this song. They were just so uncomfortable with what it was that they chose a ton of things to complain about. They're pointing in 10 different directions saying: 'This is why I'm mad, this is why the band sucks.'' In the months since Linkin Park 2.0 launched, the reaction from fans has softened and Armstrong has been widely embraced. But devotees are still clearly looking for traces of Bennington in the band's work. Many interpreted Let You Fade, a bonus track on From Zero's deluxe edition, as a tribute to the singer, but 'it wasn't written that way,' says Shinoda. 'People even pulled out the fact that there's numbers in the song [that align with] Chester's birthday. I was like: whoops. That's not intentional.' At any rate, From Zero does hark back to the band's original sound: rock-rap fusion vocals, hip-hop record-scratching, highly accessible melodies and enough gristle (grinding guitar and screaming; anxious and indignant lyrics) to both intensify and offset them. Serendipitously, nu-metal is back in a big way, 'thanks to TikTok, the Y2K revival and, of course, enduring teenage angst', as per the New York Times, with bands such as Deftones enjoying a massive resurgence and acts including Fontaines DC, 100 gecs and Rina Sawayama incorporating the genre into their work. For millennials such as Armstrong, the sound of nu-metal provides nostalgia-coated comfort. She was a fan in her early teens, and feels 'like a child again' when she performs Linkin Park's old tracks. The era's garb – voluminous shorts, pulled-up sports socks, chunky jewellery, wraparound sunglasses – is also back in style, which reminds Armstrong of her teen self's beloved Adidas T-shirt and camouflage combats combo. 'We did this first!' she laughs. 'I'm old as shit!' But Shinoda doesn't look back with rose-tinted spectacles. In the early 2000s, Linkin Park did 'a bunch of metal tours and played with Metallica – the energy there was very masculine, bro energy. We were immersed in a culture where it was like an arms race for who could make the most macho music.' With peers including Korn, Slipknot and System of a Down, the nu-metal cohort was novel and outrageous enough to precipitate a mild moral panic – yet sexist lyrics in the work of groups like Limp Bizkit really were a problem. Linkin Park always seemed less aggressive and intimidating than their peers, and Shinoda always disliked the macho aspect. 'Chester connected with it a little more than the rest of us did, but not by much.' His band, he feels, featured 'more lyrics that were introspective. It wasn't like: 'Hey, I'm gonna kick your ass.' It was like: 'Somebody kicked my ass and I'm so frustrated.' In high school, I wasn't kicking anybody's ass. That was not happening.' Nowadays, nu-metal's aesthetic has been freed from its more unsavoury elements by a streaming generation who simply don't remember it; it's just another fun retro style to rehabilitate. Even Shinoda is less disgusted. 'Genres are so blended and music is so all over the place, I don't hate nu-metal any more.' Whether down to this defanged nostalgic comeback, the quality of the band's back catalogue or the incredibly catchy new material, it's clear from the Wembley show that Linkin Park have a whole new generation of obsessive young fans. The delight in the crowd was palpable – an energy Shinoda is deliberately cultivating, especially after the mental exhaustion of the Post Traumatic tour. 'I think we all wanted our show to be really good vibes,' he says. 'I want you walking away feeling like, this was such a wonderful, special, fun night.' Inevitably, this means certain songs are off the setlist. There are a couple that Shinoda would 'feel weird playing', including One More Light, the title track of the band's last album with Bennington. It was originally written 'for a woman at the label that we worked with who passed away. Then after Chester passed, the world decided that it was about him. And so that's just too sad to play.' Linkin Park tour the US from 29 July
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Indiana Jones whip snaps up $525,000 at auction after 'Citizen Kane' sled goes for $14.75 million
A whip wielded by Harrison Ford in ' Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' that once belonged to Princess Diana has sold at auction for $525,000. Thursday's sale came a day after the Rosebud sled from 'Citizen Kane' went for a staggering $14.75 million, making it one of the priciest props in movie history. They were part of the Summer Entertainment Auction being held all week by Heritage Auctions. Heritage says the overall take has made it the second-highest grossing entertainment auction of all time, and there's still a day to go. Yet to be up for bids are Macaulay Culkin's knit snow cap from 'Home Alone,' a Kurt Russell revolver from 'Wyatt Earp,' a pair of 'Hattori Hanzo' prop swords from 'Kill Bill Vol. 1" and a first edition set of Harry Potter novels signed by J.K. Rowling. The whip sold Thursday was used during the Holy Grail trials that Ford's character goes through at the climax of 1989's 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.' Ford gave it to then-Prince Charles at the film's U.K. premiere. It was given as a gift to Princess Diana, who gave it to the current owner, who was not identified. The buyer also was not identified. 'The bullwhip is the iconic symbol of an iconic character of cinema history, Indiana Jones, and has been a highlight of this auction," Joe Maddalena, Heritage's executive vice president, said in a statement to The Associated Press. The $525,000 price includes the 'buyers premium' attached to all auction items for the house that sells it. Heritage said the nearly $15 million bid for the Rosebud sled puts it second only to the $32.5 million that Judy Garland's ruby slippers from 'The Wizard of Oz' fetched in December. Neither of those buyers were identified either. The sled was sold by longtime owner Joe Dante, director of films including 'Gremlins.' 'Rosebud' is the last word spoken by the title character in director Orson Welles ' 1941 film 'Citizen Kane,' and the hunt for its meaning provides the film's plot. Many critics have regarded it as the best film ever made. Long thought lost, the sled is one of three of the prop known to have survived. Dante stumbled on it when he was filming on the former RKO Pictures lot in 1984. He wasn't a collector, but knew the value of the sled and quietly preserved it for decades, putting it as an Easter egg into four of his own films. Dante's friend and mentor Steven Spielberg paid $60,500 for another of the sleds in 1982, and anonymous buyer paid $233,000 for the third in 1996.
