William Cash - one of the WI pensioners bites back

Cool reception: The Gatehouse, Upton Cressett Hall, Shropshire

Further to my post yesterday on the banning of a Women's Institute branch from William Cash's Grade 1 Elizabethan moated manor house in Shropshire, Upton Cressett Hall - he escorted 27 pensioners off the premises after one of them asked to take a leak - an anonymous fan (of mine) has drawn my attention to further distressing developments pertaining to William's gorgeous home.

For I see that on Trip Advisor, Upton Cressett Hall is uniformly trashed by six reviewers purporting to have visited the mediaeval property. 'Unbelievable arrogance and greed. Such a pity, with some forethought and consideration this could be a most enjoyable visit. 5 stars for the Romanian lady who served tea and cake,' writes one Terence James of Shrewsbury.

Another appears to respond to the infamous episode of early August during which he ejected the 27 WI pensioners. Cathy writes:

'Well our local ladies group had a fun afternoon as Mr Cash is totally disorganised and has a very short fuse. He'd booked in 2 groups by mistake. The outside loos were locked and he didn't have the key, and disaster struck when another visitor went to use the loo in the house and shut the front door - everyone locked out! He lost his cool and ranted threatening to cancel the tour. eventually he or his staff got in through an open window. We had our tea and cake then a tour of 3 rooms - very disappointing. We were then treated to Mr Cash having a discussion with ladies from the other group which turned into him yelling and shouting at them to leave and he forcibly ejected them from the property! Not his finest hour and we certainly would not recommend this.'

Oh dear. Perhaps William should stick to journalism where 'yelling and shouting' are at least a time-honoured tradition.

To read other reviews of Upton Cressett Hall, click here.

To visit Upton Cressett Hall, click here.

Listen to William describe his home, click here.

To read my post on how William threw out the pensioners, click here.

William Cash bans 27 WI pensioners from home over loo row

Upton Cressett Hall in Shropshire

It has been ages since I wrote of the poppetiest of the Arcati poppets, William Cash. To be brutally honest, when I warm to someone I tend to lose interest. The thaw began after the odd Twitter exchange with his former second wife Dr Vanessa Neumann - usually described as the 'glamorous, intellectual Venezuelan fire-cracker who once dated Mick Jagger'. William has given the world many laughs - usually because of the unintended consequences of his extraordinary obsession with life's baubles. But at least he has turned this amour into an editorial expression with Spear's - 'the essential resource for high net worths.' (Or put simply, not you, probably)

You may not know this, but these days the poppet lives in a rather grand Grade 1 Elizabethan brick manor called Upton Cressett Hall in Shropshire. Its history is a roll call of royals, dukes and others with the hereditary X factor. One of its owner-occupiers contributed to the Armada Fund in 1588, for instance. And one of its bedrooms is named after Baroness Thatcher! 

Much to my amazement, parts of the property are open to the public. Which brings me to the saddest tale of the season.

William maintains a blog on a website dedicated to his home. And the latest post is entitled, 'Why I banned the Women's Institute from Upton Cressett'. It is a narrative of woe you must read if you have half an hour to spare - it's rather long. But compelling. I won't bore you with the he-saids/she-saids, suffice to say that an 'owner tour' disintegrated into farce when William came to blows with a branch of the visiting WI.

Problems began one early August day this year when a floral-skirted old cunty dared to address him as 'staff' and demanded to know where the toilets were. There are none. Now, I should have thought a public convenience essential in a place open to the public and where they tend to drink tea and eat scones. William was taken aback. But he recovered and pointed to a private 'loo under the stairs.' Following more peculiar antagonism, at some point everyone was accidentally locked out of the Hall and William threw a strop, banning all 27 members of one WI branch at a stroke. He even escorted them ('mostly white haired pensioners in summer suits or sixty plus blue-rinse members of the jam-making and Order of the WI Battle-Axe variety.') to the car park.

William is sufficiently self-possessed to spot his inner Basil Fawlty and send himself up a little. But I mean, where's his, er, famed noblesse oblige?

To read William's blog, click here

William Cash: Cruelly betrayed by his London Evening Standard!

Treachery is the coin of newspaper life. But the London Evening Standard's disloyalty to its regular (former?) contributor William Cash is breathtaking. An Arcatiste tells me that a few days ago its City Spy column suggested that William's wealth magazine Spear's hadn't paid some of its writers "for months".

It claimed, "one contributor, fed up with the weeks of waiting, used to go and plonk himself in reception until a cheque materialised."

I am sure an embittered and penniless celebrant of "high net-worth individuals" fed this tale to Spy. Amused followers of Cash will be surprised the paper ran it. For years he has filled pages and pages of ES Mag with his homages to the super-rich - interviews, marital memoir, dispatches from obscure parts of Europe and reports from tax havens with lovely beaches and aristo memento mori - so for his journalistic home from home to stab him in the back like this is nothing short of scandalous.

We must await further news of his magazine's financial status. In the meantime I must add that I have in numerous posts cautioned him against making an altar to money: friendships forged in the world's gilded slops melt away at the first hint of impecuniosity. It is my karmic duty to repeat this message over and over again - I think I must have been the loaded Imam of the Nizārī Muslims in a previous life.

Josh Spero of Spear's: 'As for my bed, I did just kick a banker out'

Josh Spero, senior editor and website editor of Spear's. Click here for its website

Leathered Arcatistes will know that Madame Arcati has been most teasing of the publisher, editor and journalist William Cash. His writings, for instance, in ES Magazine are characterised by an extraordinary fixation on the super-wealthy and their gilt-edged micro-habitats: others might call this fixation his specialism. Inevitably, he owns and edits the quarterly Spear's magazine - itself a respected bible for the world's mega-monied.

Remotely, astrologically and Twitterly I have struck up a fleeting acquaintance with William's wife Dr Vanessa Neumann - an intriguing socialite whose chart reveals both a committed humanitarianism and a taste for sensation.

Now, remotely, I have made a connection with Josh Spero, senior editor of Spear's, and I couldn't resist asking him to talk about his work - and what it is like to work for William Cash.

Josh Spero! Hello. You're the senior editor and website editor of Spear's magazine - which means you work for one of Madame Arcati's frequent targets of interest, William Cash. Tell me about Spear's - it's all about wealth and the wealthy isn't it?

Hi, Madame - I liked your latest incarnation on Broadway - Angela Lansbury doing a turn. Spear's is about wealth but it's much more than that - people want authoritative intelligence about and analysis of global finance and the best writers on art, luxury and travel. Combined with our trademark witty style, it's the whole package.

What in Spear's terms is the minimum worth of a wealthy person?

We usually say £3 million - but anyone who's interested (wealth-regardless) can subscribe or read all our content plus blogs on spearswms.com

Spero/Spear's: do you think your name had anything to do with your appointment? And tell us briefly about yourself - are you innately interested in the wealthy? Where else you have worked and who shares your bed at night.

The name is a happy coincidence; I always think that being edited by William Cash and worked on previously by Sophia Money-Coutts is more apt. It doesn't go unnnoticed, tho'. The wealthy are interesting because - like any anthropological group - they have their own customs, hangouts and events, and it just happens that to observe them in their natural habitat you go to Berkeley Square, not Borneo.

My first job in journalism was hateful nightshifts on the Independent, after which (as the saying goes) I went freelance and wrote for the Guardian's ArtsBlog for a while. Then I met William at a party, freelanced for Spear's for a year and came on board permanently last July. It was July 14, Bastille Day - except this time I felt I was storming the fortress of the rich *on the side of* the rich.

As for my bed, I'm wretchedly single, tho' I did just kick a banker out. (This wealth thing is getting to me.) If any man considers himself eligible, my email's not hard to find.

And what do you do precisely? What time do you start work and end?

9-6 Monday-Thursday writing for, editing, commissioning the magazine and running spearswms.com with its blogs, newswire, party pics and all else. But a journalist's work continues in the evening - all the events (as fun as they are) are business as much as pleasure.

Tell me of the most interesting story Spear's has run of late.

There's Conrad Black's diary from jail (http://www.spearswms.com/good-life/diary/4411/exclusive-conrad-blacks-jail-diary.thtml), which got into the Sunday Times - he's unrepentant and on the verge of being proved right. Christopher Silvester wrote about what the wealthy should do when they're arrested, which is looking likely after l'affaire UBS.

William Cash

What's William Cash like - I mean is he hands-on? Does he rage and storm about as many editors do? Or is he an ocean of calm? Does he have an eccentricty? Anna Wintour I hear chucks coins from her purse into her wastepaper basket.

William doesn't rage or storm - he prefers to get things done. I've learnt a lot about how to run a magazine from him. He has, tho', been known to come in two days before going to press and say, I've commissioned this piece... He also says 'unacceptable' a fair amount.

Does William know you're doing this interview? I've been quite naughty about him in the past. Did he say, "Be careful of that crazed blogger Madame Arcati"?

He doesn't know, but that's because we've been mid-office-move for a fortnight so I've been working from home. I don't think he's ever issued a fatwa in your honour.

Who do you think is the best writer on the subject of money and wealth - best in the sense of style and accuracy? And who is the best connected?

John Arlidge is Spear's Chancellor of the Excessive - he's a whiz on luxury - and Stephen Hill is our prescient, acerbic economic commentator (http://www.spearswms.com/spears-world/salon/stephen-hill/). I have to mention Anthony Haden-Guest (http://www.spearswms.com/search/?search=haden&x=0&y=0), our arts editor, who is a legend both sides of the Atlantic and one of my favourite writers. William has some pretty good connections - you say 'Do you know someone who...?' and he invariably does.

What were you doing in Switzerland the other day?

I was interviewing the CEO of Hublot watches in Geneva. It's my second visit there this year, after Design Miami/Basel and Art Basel. It's nice but I'm a London boy through and though - it was way too small.

One of my beefs is that too many magazines and newspapers are preoccupied with wealth and status. Taking your Spear's cap off for a moment, what do you think?

Definitely. If you talk about wealth and status, don't fetishise them, which is the mistake most papers make - they can be serious objects of study and comment too.

William got back control of Spear's lately. Tell us about that and what difference that's likely to make to the magazine and to you.

William rescued Spear's from Luxury Publishing - and it feels good to be independent. With new investment, we've got our sights set on the world - we already have a Russian edition and we're looking forward to Indian and far eastern ones too. As for the difference to me, plus ca change...

Who is the most fascinating rich person in the world? - and why.

I don't think I can name one but I can pick a whole class - entrepreneurs. Everyday I meet and write about them, and the fizz of their brains makes them bound to succeed. They see the holes in the world where no-one else does and have the energy, creativity and intelligence to plug them. It's like watching kaleidoscopes of genius.

In a few words tell us where serious wealth resides these days and is it moving any place? For instance, is the Russian oligarchy about to implode?

At the moment, Russia and the Middle East are heavily oil-dependent for wealth, which is a mixed blessing. As for implosion, it's already happened - most have been bailed out by the Kremlin. I'd look to China in the future - it can only go up.

Vanessa Neumann

I did your horoscope, Josh. Capricorns such as yourself have a natural affinity with high status; your Moon in Leo makes you confident, exuberant even, with a keen sense that you can beat others at their game. It's a good leadership indicator provided arrogance is reined in. Your tender side does not always get properly expressed. Together, the placements make you independent, and eager for authority: indeed people with this combo often successfully seek high positions in large enterprises. Integrity is important to you. As I don't have your time of birth I can't calculate your Rising Sign, but other placements worth mentioning: Saturn in your 2nd House oddly enough puts a focus on finances - this can mean that lessons learnt in life will be through a preoccupation with money as well as hard work which does not generate much in the way of financial rewards. The Sun in your 4th House makes you dominant in family situations, can indicate a very close attachment to at least one parent, and is often found in people who make a "family" of friends or colleagues. Your Moon in the 11th House assures you a wide social circle among all classes and an ease with the powerful. This is an extremely brief horoscope I'm afraid - but does it ring true?

Gosh, it does - it's almost like you've seen my forthcoming autobiography (as yet unwritten). Confident - you can't be a meek journalist. Exuberant - I'd hope so. Tender - give me the chance (see above). And a wide social circle - I mistakenly synced my iPhone with my address book and wound up with 2000 names.

Where would you like to be in, say, five years' time?

I'd like to carry on in financial journalism, so maybe the Economist or FT, but my secret ultimate ambition is to present Front Row on Radio 4.

Thank you Josh! Give my love to William!

Spear's website click here

Vanessa Neumann: MPs' expenses "source" named?

Someone on Twitter asked me the other day about Arcati's dear friend William Cash: I hadn't written about him for some time, I was reminded, and what was the fellow up to. I haven't the foggiest: still writing about the rich, I guess - and comforting his MP dad Bill Cash and sister Laetitia after this morning's news in the Telegraph, I suppose. Fancy getting the taxpayer to bankroll his rent for Laetitia's flat when he owned another flat already in London. Oh well. I've heard worse.

It is William's wife Dr Vanessa Neumann - the Venezuelan intellectual and so-called "Cracker from Caracas" after her Mick Jagger fling - who interests me more, to be honest. She and William parted a while ago. Vanessa now writes a blog on her elegant website, click here. I see in her bio she makes no mention of William: we learn of her four degrees, the six languages she can speak or read. Among other things she's editor-at-large of something called Diplomat magazine. Here she is rubbishing Hugo Chavez.

Happily, we learn that the pair (Vanessa and William, that is) are still on speaks. On May 17, 2009, she quotes William's good advice about attending a society birthday party in London: "'You must be prepared; that’s the key to these things,' said my husband, who is highly perspicacious but rarely prepared for anything." Such are the perils of intimacy: familiarity. See Katie and Peter, too.

The May 23 posting - on my birthday - grips the eye: she appears to name the "source" in the MPs' expenses scandal: one Heather Brooke, an investigative journalist. But hold on, not quite. Later in the piece, we learn that Vanessa is still unsure of the identity of the whistleblower despite this claim in her opening par: "The identity of the source remains a mystery. No longer."

Then again, in her last par she comments of the Telegraph: "[They] have reinvented themselves as the clever kids on Fleet Street and are the real winners in the scandal - except for maybe Ms Brooke, whose journalism career will now be assured." I'm confused. We can agree Brooke started the litigation ball rolling on MPs' expenses transparency in 2005, but does that justify Vanessa's headline: "Anonymous No More: Meet the UK’s Deep Throat"? Click here and tell me what Vanessa's saying. I haven't a clue.

William Cash marries another rich woman

It's not every day someone is given the opportunity to write about his forthcoming nuptials twice in the same edition of a newspaper. Yesterday the London Evening Standard permitted its wealth-worshipping correspondent William Cash to regale the few dozen people who know (of) him with a blow-by-blow account of his engagement to Mick Jagger's ex, "Venezuelan-born writer and academic Vanessa Neumann" (who wrote me a little while back about William's journalistic output) and planned wedding. If you missed the double-page spread in the paper itself, the magazine supplement offered a reprise and more name-dropping. Cash appears to have a Jasper Gerard-like hold on editors.

Regrettably, the two pieces could not quite agree on the precise day of the ceremony or ceremonies. The paper suggested Saturday while the magazine offered "11am" Friday. I had soooooo wanted to toast them at the right moment, but was thwarted! Perhaps the magazine piece is the accurate one: they married yesterday at the Chelsea Register Office but then had their Mass of Celebration at the Palace of Westminster and then the dinner dance at the Carlton Club (phew!) today ... it's all so confusing.

But if all went well at the register office (let's say yesterday), the pair will have been greeted outside by the "surprise" Edwardian horse and carriage William "splashed out" on. Sipping chilled champagne, they will have clip-clopped about the gates of Buckingham Palace (a nice aspirational touch that) prior to lunch at Mark's Club in Mayfair. Both bride and groom can boast beau monde wedding guests: she, Topper and Tinsley Mortimer, "the ultimate WASP Manhattan socialite couple"; he, er, Piers Morgan. Toby Young was banned by Vanessa because of his false claim he shared her with Jagger, William gallantly repeats. William's ex-wife is Ilaria Bulgari, "of the jewellery family". She will not have been welcome at the wedding(s) either.

One really would have to have a heart of stone not to wish Vanessa and William all the luck that money can buy and brand celebs can vouchsafe.

A horoscopic glimpse of Dr Vanessa Neumann, click here.

A horoscopic glimpse of Dr Vanessa Neumann

As I await to hear further from Dr Vanessa Neumann – the future Mrs William Cash – said to be worth $100m and of a family worth $200m (so the papers say!) - I have glanced at her horoscope.

The birth details I have: born Feb 18, 1972, in Caracas, Venezuela. If correct, Vanessa is Aquarius with an Aries Moon: she will be reticent and unusually self-willed as well as highly perceptive (I wonder if that's true?). As I don’t have her birth (tick-tock) time I cannot calculate her Rising Sign. Her Sun in the Fourth House confirms the importance and almost peculiar influence of family on her life while her Moon in the Fifth House underscores a need for privacy, shrewdness in business matters and a strong attraction to sensation.

Saturn in the Seventh House inclines her to caution and promises quite testing times in relationships – the key to spiritual growth it should be said. This placement can mean she is fairly cool and undemonstrative - not quick to show her feelings - but may denote a dutiful nature in important liaisons. Despite her wealth and position she will feel restricted by all sorts of relationships in her life and by a resistance to her ideas, which is most interesting. She just has to persist. Who says the rich have it all?

There’s so much more to be said but that’s enough for now. I need a glass of wine.

William Cash - an important clarification

The impossibly beautiful intellectual Dr Vanessa Neumann - the future Mrs William Cash - has clarified something to me that didn't make much sense before now.

William revealed in ES mag that he would have to write "5,000 pieces" to pay for a £670,000 engagement ring, which would average a paltry £134 a feature. However, Dr N writes: "William's column on engagement rings was edited by ES - he actually wrote '5,000 articles in The Spectator'. Which is about right; or maybe you would know more about Spectator pay rates these days than William." Well, these small magazines can't afford to play King Farouk - even with Andrew Neil driving up the lifestyle copy quota - hence the eternal presence of the rich man Taki whose column is a low-return hobby and no better for that. But I'm happy to make this point on the 5,000 pieces clear and wish the couple all the happiness in the world. Their joy draws attention to my own singleton existence - perhaps I should start an online diary to tell you all about it. It would make a short movie; Duncan Fallowell could play me (in drag of course).

I have asked Vanessa for an email-interview, btw. She is definitely a most fascinating person and I wonder whether I should propose to her, too. William would have to share her with Madame Arcati. The variety might intrigue her ...

William Cash: Full of Bulgari

My William Cash story has generated all sorts of thoughts on the man named after his first love. For instance, I hear of one journalist sent to interview him at the West London home of his then betrothed, Ilaria Bulgari. It was a media story about his persuasive skills in flogging Spear's Wealth Management Survey to some rich people..

The pair sat in his (ie her) 5* sitting room, and the journo was just about to start asking questions. As he embarked on his first question (which should have been "How did a joker like you end up in a place like this?" but was actually something dull and supine), Cash asked: "Is the dictaphone on?" The journo said yes. "Then I will begin..."

What followed was 45 minutes of Cash droning on about how wonderful he and his magazine were and all his famous friends, especially Elizabeth but also Tom Wolfe et al. The hack tried to ask questions but Cash spoke straight over him. Sometimes he would pause for breath, at which point the journo would interject with something. Cash would disregard the question and continue with whatever it was he was talking about.

After he had exhausted his soliloquy, he showed the writer out. "That," he said, pointing to a large photographic canvas, "is an original Alison Jackson."*

*Know a Gordon Brown lookalike? Click here

William Cash - feeding from the 5,000 ...

My good wishes to journalist William Cash on the news of his latest betrothal - to Venezuela-born socialite intellectual Vanessa Neumann, last seen frolicking with Mick Jagger. In ES magazine he relates the most amusing episode of his proposal to her on New Year's Day in Mustique - where else? - with novelist Jay McInerney and new wife Anne Hearst stepping in valiantly as branded name-droppees for din-dins.

All this excitement leads William - founder of Spear's Wealth Management Survey - to wonder how much a chap should spend on an engagement ring. "Tradition has it that it should be two months' salary," he informs (news to me), so I can understand why he nearly keeled over when in 2002, on a visit to a Bulgari store in Bond Street, with his now ex-wife Ilaria Bulgari (the Bulgari heiress), he was quoted £670,000 for one of the "smaller rings" in the glass cabinet. He reveals disarmingly: "I calculated I would have to write at least 5,000 pieces" to secure the bling. This is shocking. I hadn't realised that a man as preoccupied with money as Mr Cash laboured so cheaply - that works out at a mere £134 a piece. Surely this breaches minimum wage laws?

With his cute nose pressed up against the glass windows of expensive shops he cuts a rather poignant figure in my mind. Suddenly I quite like him. And let this be a warning to aspiring hacks as they dream in their colleges ...