Iris Vander Pluym
Iris Vander Pluym has not set their biography yet
(continued from Vol. VI.)
Things were winding down at The American Bar and I was trying to figure out a way to stick ShredofTruth.com with my hefty bar tab, when in walked a photographer from The Times. He was there to get some shots of Nancy Wake’s old haunt for an obituary running the next day. (I’d link to it here, but (a) it’s behind a paywall, and (b) it’s a Rupert Murdoch paywall. Plus (c), you know, fuck him.) He took some shots of the bartender, my new friends Graeme and Barbara, and pictures of Nancy Wake on the walls. This d00d was a total pro: affable and efficient. Not hard to look at, either, if you know what I mean.
So I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and just let the man work in peace, could I? Nope. And I was glad I didn’t, because of the amusing exchange that ensue...
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(continued from Vol. V.)
“To Nancy!” said Graeme to his companion, and they clinked what would turn out to be the first of many, many gin and tonics. He pulled out his camera and took pictures of the woman, whose name was Barbara, as she sat on the stool at the far end of the bar raising her glass. It was a dark corner, but I could just make out the brass plaque on the wall. It said “Nancy’s Corner.”
I had been observing them for a few minutes when I decided to interrupt the photo shoot. “Hello,” I said, sauntering up to the bar with all the swagger and brio of a Genuine Internet Blogger. “Excuse me, but, um, I’ve been watching people come over to this corner all afternoon. Can I ask you why?”
“Nancy Wake!” Barbara gushed. “She’s a World War II hero from our town in New Zeala...
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(continued from Vol. IV.)
I had hit the jackpot with this Reuters piece: Rupert Murdoch’s apartment was somewhere in the Mayfair section of London, “opposite the Stafford Hotel.” And yours truly was headed there in a hurry, trusty iPhone in hand.
Wait a minute: Rupert Murdoch’s “apartment?” WTF, motherfuckers? I had been traipsing all over London looking for a palace. Not “palace” as in Perry Street “Palace,” but a real, honest-to-goodness P.A.L.A.C.E., with turrets, and flags, a working dungeon, maybe a moat or something. But an apartment? Huh. Could it be that Rupert Murdoch and I had a lot more in common than I thought? Did he, like me, reside in a modest (carbon friendly!) yet ridiculously cool apartment in a historic building, in a fantastic neighborhood, in one of the wor...
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(continued from Vol. III.)
London is a city blessed with gorgeous old palaces — you know, actual palaces — as well as hundreds of buildings that could easily pass for royal abodes. Your intrepid correspondent was especially intrigued to learn that the target of her investigation, Rupert Murdoch, maintains a residence in London. As the 117th-richest person in the entire world, Murdoch’s palace would surely prove to be spectacular specimen.
I grabbed the only tool any journalist ever needs — my trusty iPhone with its shitty camera, unreliable Internet access, short battery life, and GPS with impossibly slow-moving maps (good thing Shred of Truth.com was paying for my AT&T data roaming charges, amirite?) — and set out on foot.
As I wandered aimlessly in circles hoping that the iPho...
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I came to London on a Top Secret Murdoch Mission dammit, and that is exactly what I will now report (smoking ruins and riot police notwithstanding). After all, as a journalist I take very seriously my solemn oath to seek out the answer to what is perhaps the most pressing question of our time: WTF, motherfuckers?
Rupert Murdoch, of course, is the 80 year old media magnate behind such roiling cesspools of conservative ca-ca as Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, right-wing tabloids like the New York Post, and many, many other media outlets around the world. According to Forbes’ annual list of the richest Americans, Murdoch is the 38th richest person in the U.S., and the 117th-richest in the world, with a net worth estimated at $7.6 billion. According to Wiki:
The Economist describes...
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It’s been astonishingly underreported in U.S. media, but apparently Texas has seceded from the United States, and has been recognized as a sovereign nation by the UK government! I saw the Texas embassy with my own eyes, plain as day, mere steps from my hotel. This must be a fairly new development, because the building still has a sign that says “Bar & Grill” on it. Or maybe the “Bar & Grill” sign was just a ruse to keep the U.S. government from knowing of Texas’s big plans, since no one would be crazy enough to put a pub in a building as spectacular as this one....
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Many thanks to those readers emailing (and commenting here at the Palace) with concerns for my personal safety. I just returned to my hotel for the evening and am about to take enough (totally legal!) drugs to positively ensure that I’d be able to sleep through fucking Armageddon. Ta-ta!
I am kind of irritated with myself though, because I simply did not think to pack a giant automatic weapon and 10,000 rounds of ammo. (That’s about the carry-on limit, from what I heard.) I now understand the profound implications of this tragic oversight on my part. I am currently ensconced in a corner room on the second floor of this hotel: tactically speaking I would be in an excellent position to engage in a firefight with nefarious marauders, should that become absolutely necessary. But nooooo...
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It’s time to reveal my Top Secret Mission: I am in London on an exclusive investigative mission on behalf of the Palace and ShredofTruth.com, in search of the elusive answer to that most pressing of all questions: WTF, motherfuckers?
I originally came in search of some Rupert Murdoch merriness, only to find London burning. I’m not sure how much coverage this story is currently getting in the states now, but the violent riots here are spreading city-wide, and have eclipsed the worldwide financial shitstorm on the cover of almost every newspaper — including Murdoch’s The Times. Last night, one masked thug was overheard saying “the West End is going down next,” which is just a wee bit troubling given (a) the location of my hotel, and (b) my pre-paid ticket to a show tomorrow evening. He...
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