Latest news with #Camden
BBC News
15 hours ago
- Health
- BBC News
London baby banks issue plea for nappies amid shortage
Stocks of baby wipes and nappies for newborn babies have run out across a network of baby banks in London, a charity has warned. Little Village said that the essential items had run out across its hubs in Camden, Tooting and Brent and its Wandsworth warehouse. The charity, which supported 7,325 babies and children up to the age of five last year, reported that demand for its services was Compston, from Little Village, said: "Tomorrow a parent may have to choose between buying food or keeping their baby clean and dry – no family should face that kind of impossible decision. Nappies are not a luxury; they are a necessity." It is appealing for donations of newborn nappies, size one nappies and baby wipes at its charity said that it had provided 64% more packs of nappies in the first half of 2025 than in the same time period in 2024. Renata Acioli, a baby bank manager at Little Village, said: "I meet families who are doing everything they can but still don't have enough in their pockets to cover the most essential items for their baby."It breaks my heart hearing stories of mums and dads having to resort to nappy and formula rationing."On average, a newborn uses about 10 nappies a day, meaning families typically go through about three packs a week.
Associated Press
a day ago
- General
- Associated Press
Fifth Year of Camden Cleanup Underway
Originally published on TAPinto On Tuesday, which was Earth Day, Camden resident and avid gardener Ernesto Ventura Sr. received a free tree to add to his yard. 'This will fit in nicely with my tomatoes, grapes and other trees,' he said in an interview as he examined the roughly 2-foot piece of greenery. The tree Ventura received was one of 75 that the Subaru Corporation, through the Arbor Day Foundation, gave away for free during the Camden Cleanup kickoff that took place at Dudley Grange Park, Adam Leiter, a corporate communications specialist for Subaru, told TAPinto Camden. Continue reading here. Visit 3BL Media to see more multimedia and stories from Subaru of America
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Julian Clary: The BBC banned me from saying ‘lesbian' before 9pm
Julian Clary did Blankety Blank recently. Or rather, he returned to Blankety Blank, 35 years after he first appeared on Les Dawson's version, when he played in full make-up and pearls beside Danny LaRue and the Liver Birds' Polly James. On the off chance that you've not stumbled into the gameshow's latest iteration, the host has obviously changed – 'it's now that man from The Chase,' Clary says, meaning Bradley Walsh – but the format's much the same. Ribaldry, innuendo and nonsense are encouraged. Clary, then, is a natural. 'Beforehand I was told, 'This is family viewing, mind what you say', which is fine,' he says, today. At one point Walsh offered the following statement for guests to complete: 'If you want to convince someone that you're highly intelligent, tell them you're a world authority on *blank *.' 'They stopped the recording and told me to tone it down' 'I don't know why, but I put 'LESBIANS',' Clary says. At that point, 'they had to stop the whole recording to tell me to tone it down a bit.' Recounting this, he clinks his cappuccino into its saucer, then looks closer to crestfallen than indignant. 'I still don't understand why you can't say 'lesbians' on television before nine o'clock. Is there any reason for that?' He sighs. 'I think they're just so nervous now, so worried about what might offend someone, somewhere...' We're sitting in the garden of Clary's local pub in Camden, north London, reflecting on all that's changed since he first moved here as a young comic, some four decades ago. At that time, in the mid-1980s, Clary brightened up the nation by sashaying onto the scene, wearing what Quentin Crisp called 'as much make-up as the human face will allow', and immediately began testing the limits of what's acceptable. With his preternatural talent for double entendre – 'Ah, there's nothing I like more than a warm hand on my entrance,' he used to open with – and commitment to waspish camp, invariably he found those limits, kept going and gleefully danced on the other side. Infamously, he once went too far, when he took to the stage at the 1993 British Comedy Awards and claimed to have been 'fisting' the Tory chancellor, Norman Lamont (who was in the audience with his wife) backstage. Society, and television, has changed since those days. We're less buttoned-up, but far more cautious with it. Now, the edgy, what-will-they-say-next comedy of something like Saturday Live, where Clary's generation – including Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Harry Enfield – were incubated, barely exists on TV. 'There's not much, is there?' he says. 'Channel 4 was our natural home, when that was new and dynamic. I don't know what there is now that's equivalent to that.' Clary has changed too, of course. He is now 66, his friends are retiring and 'moving into bungalows', and while the wit's still sharp and the claws even sharper, there is a gentleness – almost a gentility – to him. He does, after all, write hugely successful children's books and, now, cosy crime novels. He was a Strictly Come Dancing finalist and won Celebrity Big Brother. He delights in gardening, and is the annual highlight of the London Palladium pantomime. Clary would never call himself a national treasure, and he leaves the epithet 'stately homo' to Crisp, but he gladly calls himself a 'national trinket'. The biographic blurb on his latest book, Curtain Call To Murder, claims he 'lives a reclusive life in Chatham, Kent' and 'recently married Timothée Chalamet'. In reality he lives a minute's walk away from here, with his husband of nine years, Ian Mackley, a film marketer. At home he has two wardrobes, one for his muted 'normal' clothes, another for stage. Never the twain shall meet. 'The showbiz stuff is all in the basement. They smell of sweat. You wouldn't want those next to your own clothes.' The man we know as 'Julian Clary' is not a character (his parents named him Julian after a Benedictine monk), but there is a clear division between the quiet, introverted man in the pub today, and the figure he cuts on stage. The outfits help draw that line, at least in his own mind. 'On tour, definitely. It's all about preserving your energy, so you can be a zombie all day, then about 10 minutes before, the make-up and clothes will be on, and that's when you've got to up your energy levels. There's a certain setting in the brain, to be funny,' he says. 'It all helps, it all makes a statement. It's show business.' Today he has clearly drawn from the normal wardrobe: a black Harrington jacket, black T-shirt, navy trousers and On running shoes. His hair is ashen and feathery, his glasses round. There has always been something delightfully avian about Clary's appearance, but if he was once a glorious peacock, he has become positively owlish. But his health is good. 'Oh, fine. I'm very robust, good genes in my family.' His mother, Brenda, turned 94 this week. They share a love of Antiques Roadshow. 'She's a scream, we will talk every day without fail.' His skin is remarkably smooth – partly a result of those genes, partly a result of 'a man in Harley Street' who fires a laser at his face to stimulate collagen. 'I tried Ozempic, it's not for me' He was also, he has said, 'early on the Botox train'. 'Yes, a long time ago. I think it all makes sense to do those things.' Despite never looking anything other than trim, he's also given Ozempic a go. 'I did try it. It's not for me. I got terribly ill.' But you're so slim, I protest. 'Well, everyone else is on it. What it basically does is slow down your digestion, so food is inside you for a lot longer. My body didn't like that. Reflux. I think often these things are too good to be true.' For a dozen years, until 2019, he really did live a reclusive life in Kent, dividing his time between Camden and Goldenhurst, a 17th-century manor and gardens near Ashford. The house was once owned by Noël Coward, and came to Clary's attention when his old friend Paul O'Grady, who owned a farm in Aldington, the same sleepy village, implored him to join him in the good life. 'I loved that house, I spent 10 years slowly doing it up bit by bit, but it was one of those things where once I'd done it all and sat in it for a few years, I felt done with it. So I sold it on a whim.' The village pub didn't know what had hit it when Clary and O'Grady, who were on the cabaret circuit together in the 1980s, would occasionally install themselves on a Friday evening. But despite having dogs, chickens and ducks, Clary wasn't quite as taken with the countryside as his friend. 'Muddy, isn't it?' he says, grimacing. 'No pavements, no streetlights… I sort of enjoyed it as a contrast to here, but I sold it just before lockdown, and if I'd been able to choose where to spend lockdown, it wouldn't have been the country.' It was also a bit of a faff. 'I've got a little London garden here, which suits me because I can do it all myself. I had to have gardeners in the country, and we never quite got on top of it. It was a beautiful place but it takes over your life. You're serving your house all the time, whereas here' – he flourishes a hand around – 'there's all the rest of life.' He says that, but life in London is quiet. 'I'm 66,' he explains, when I ask where he goes out these days. Having recently finished a sold-out national tour, the Western-themed A Fistful of Clary, his routine now involves getting up early to walk his 'neurotic rescue dog', Gigi, a crossbreed, before writing at home each day. In the past 20 years, Clary's written everything from memoirs to romance novels – or as he termed them, 'dick-lit'. His children's book series, The Bolds, about a family of hyenas living undercover in Surbiton, has sold more than half a million copies since it was published in 2015, and been translated into dozens of languages. He's also adapted it for the stage. It must be lucrative. 'I've often wondered what my children would be like' 'Children's books? Well, the foreign deals get you some money. But you've got to sell a lot of books. I like doing the children's book events, because they don't know who you are, and getting a laugh from a room full of children is as much a thrill as the Palladium.' Clary, it turns out, loves children, and is never more animated than when he learns I have a two-month-old. Over the years, he's come close to being a father, 'but not close enough.' He once revealed that a university girlfriend (a one-off, no need to stop the presses) became pregnant with his child, only to miscarry. Later, in his forties, he considered having a baby with a lesbian friend, or potentially adopting. He has since made peace with it, he says. 'Oh yes, that's for the best. You have a curiosity, you wonder, 'What would my children be like? Would they be nice, take me to the shops?''. Children's books have now given way to a life of crime, with the breezy and extremely unserious A Curtain Call To Murder, which is set backstage at the Palladium. The prologue contains a tongue-in-cheek disclaimer – 'please don't think I'm just another opportunistic slapper whose literary agent told him this was where the money is' – but really that's precisely what happened. 'I do whatever I'm told, I just like writing. I still have the same agent who said, 'It's all about children's books, write something for children.' So I did. And then she said, 'Now it's crime.' So I said oh, why not?'' He shrugs. A sequel's already underway, with the protagonist, Jayne, now working in television – 'another world I know a lot about, and also full of awful people.' Clary's sense of humour has always required a victim, he says. 'Someone to be rude about, whether it's my pianist or someone in the front row.' Growing up with his two older sisters in Teddington, south-west London, his first target was police officer father, Peter. At home, the young Clary and his mother, a probation officer, would be thick as thieves, teasing the others with a lovingly barbed running commentary. 'Me and my mother would be rude to my father, he was the set-up – but for comedy purposes, you understand,' he says. 'He was a kind man, a gentle man. I don't think he really wanted to be a policeman. He did his 25 years and retired. I don't think he liked arresting people and locking them up, that didn't thrill him at all.' It was firmly middle-class, genteel upbringing. All Sunday lunches, camping holidays, pet guinea pigs and duties as an altar boy. The young Clary was both the parish priest's gardener and, latterly, coxswain for the local rowing club. He wrote poetry and plays, and has described himself as 'self-evidently effeminate even as a five-year-old.' 'I probably wasn't exactly what my father had in mind' His parents were 'both quite liberal, and my father was a bit bemused by me, I think. I probably wasn't exactly what he had in mind, but there was never any 'Get out of my house' or anything like that. It was a very happy household, it was all about having a laugh.' Clary was bright, and earned a scholarship at St Benedict's, a Catholic private school in nearby Ealing. There, he was beaten by priests and bullied by his peers, but responded by amping up his fey mannerisms and effeminate nature. With his best friend, Nicholas Reader, who was also gay, he became a quasi-school celebrity. 'Character building. Everything happens for a reason,' Clary says today. At the time, the safety and levity at home made it a sanctuary. 'School was difficult and all of that, but as long as we had a laugh in the evening, that was your sort of reward for getting through the day.' He later found his crowd at Goldsmiths University, in south London, where he studied English and drama before starting in alternative comedy. Always dressed to the nines, often in PVC, he appeared as Gillian Pieface, and later as The Joan Collins Fan Club (the real Joan is now a friend), with his whippet mongrel, Fanny the Wonderdog, as his limelight-stealing sidekick. A TV break, on Saturday Live, came in 1987 before he got his own show, Sticky Moments. Any sexual repression from his teenage years was made up for in his 20s. In Clary's memoir, A Young Man's Passage, he lists a non-exhaustive catalogue of some 60-odd partners, including 'Tony with low self-esteem', 'the newsreader', 'prematurely bald Adelaide boy with hairpiece', 'Sensible Ian' and 'the man from Madrid who pronounced me 'magnifico!'' Such promiscuity came with risks in the 80s, as the Aids crisis took hold. Clary was protected by a bad bout of anal warts, which put him out of action during the height of the tragedy. 'Do your readers want to know about that?' he enquires. 'Well, it's my theory, yes. I felt like I was protected by an unseen force. At a time when unsafe sex would have been a very dangerous thing to do, I was prevented from doing it due to anal warts. That's just a fact.' Plenty of friends weren't so lucky, including Clary's boyfriend, Christopher, who died of the disease in 1991. He writes beautifully about caring for him until the end, all the while attempting to keep a comedy career going. 'I didn't want to let my boyfriend's death defeat me' 'I remember having him very ill at home in bed, with the night sweats, changing his sheets, all of that,' he recalls today. 'And then I'd have to say, 'Well, I've got to go to work now and be funny.' It was very incongruous. I think that kind of helped me, but at the same time it's a kind of denial it was happening at all. 'And then when people die, you sort of think, 'Oh, I must carry on for their sake, I must lead a good life… I didn't want any pity, I didn't want to let it defeat me or define me. I still think that now when people die.' By the early 90s, Clary was being swept along in show business, 'not really knowing what was going on.' Sometimes there was a good reason for that. 'There's a recording I saw of a run of a show we did at the Aldwych where the first half's really slow, and the second half's really manic. I asked my friend about it and she said, 'Yes, that's because we did a joint before the first and a line before the second.'' He laughs. 'But that's what you did in the 90s, it seemed like a good idea at the time.' That all just petered out. 'Yes, I never hit a crisis point, I was too self-aware, and lucky really. For other people it got out of hand. Besides, once you're in your 30s or 40s you start to enjoy being sober and clear-headed. That's quite a nice feeling as well. Who knew?' He was under the influence, specifically of Rohypnol, taken during a period of depression, when he made that Norman Lamont gag in 1993. Ever the perfectionist, it still irks him that the actual punchline – 'Talk about a red box…' – was drowned out by laughter. 'It's not nice, being cancelled' It brought the house down, but in doing so also (briefly) tore down Clary's career. The newspaper front pages declared him 'sick' and 'obscene'. A London Weekend Television executive wrote to him to ban him from live appearances. The moral outrage, despite only 12 viewer complaints, made Clary one of the earliest victims of cancel culture. 'It's not nice, being cancelled. It's not a positive thing. But as I say, everything happens for a reason and I had a nice quiet year after that.' He never dwells on what might have happened if he'd not said it. 'Oh, I'd have said something else the following year, I expect.' Despite being a 'news junkie', he is not particularly politically active. 'But I'm an old leftie, that's where I stand.' What does he make of the current Government? 'Well, if they could lean a bit more to the left, I'd be thrilled.' Moving to the country and growing older did nothing to shift him on the political spectrum. 'No, and my friends haven't either. I don't understand that, but people do get more right wing as they get older, don't they?' That, or they get caught in the weeds of some issues, never to return. I wonder what Clary makes of his friend Boy George's row with JK Rowling over her views on trans people. At this he narrows his eyes. 'I'm on George's side,' he says, simply. There has, he concedes, been 'a fracture' in his generation of performers on the matter. 'I think it's important to know where you stand without bringing a load of hate on yourself. I love and support the trans community and I'm very in favour of strength in numbers for LGBTQI+. We're stronger together.' I have rarely met anyone so sanguine and unruffled. He used to suffer from panic attacks and anxiety, but hasn't done so in years. On Desert Island Discs, his book choice was Stop Thinking, Start Living by Richard Carlson. 'It worked for me. Now, if anyone starts unloading all their misery on me, I just send them the book.' He tried therapy once but found it boring. 'Some people think you've got to deal with your childhood trauma, and that could take years, whereas I think if you just don't think about it…' This attitude is a family trait, he says. 'We're all of a kind, really, we treat life quite lightly, and don't get knocked down by anything. It's quite healthy, but it makes you quite lightweight. If someone wants to have a serious conversation with me, well good luck, because I don't really go in for it now. 'Some people do heavy conversations all the time. Analyse their relationships every Friday… 'This is what you're doing wrong, this is how I'd like you to change…'' He shudders. 'Can't imagine doing that.' Fortunately his husband is on the same page. 'I wouldn't have married him otherwise.' He met Mackley, who is 17 years his junior, on a yacht in Ibiza 20 years ago. A decade later, Clary announced their marriage on social media with a photograph and the line 'On Saturday he slipped his finger into my ring at last. #married.' What would the young Clary have made of that? 'Well, he'd be amazed you can even get married,' he says, but not disappointed he decided to. 'No, promiscuous as I was, I was always looking for love, just in the wrong places.' They'll now live out their days in Camden, he predicts. A book here, a stand-up tour there, the panto, a bit of Just A Minute with his old friend Paul Merton. 'It's enough,' he says. Retirement, though, isn't an option. 'No. I saw Barry Humphries on his last tour, and he was still going at 89.' That's Clary's plan. A smile flickers across his face. 'Can you imagine, buggery jokes at that age?'
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Mark Latham's extraordinary response to accusations he had SEX in his office
Embattled independent MP Mark Latham has described a blazing argument that signified the end of his relationship with former OnlyFans creator and businesswoman Mathilde Matthews as 'something from World War Z'. The former Labor leader addressed his unfolding sex scandal directly for the first time on Saturday, having generally limited his comments to posts on X or 2SM radio. Latham read his defence against the allegations levelled by Ms Matthews from a four-page document in Camden, southwest Sydney, on Saturday morning. Ms Matthews claims the MP has inflicted 'a sustained pattern' of psychological, financial and emotional abuse against her for almost three years. She is seeking an apprehended violence order against the one-time federal opposition leader, alleging vile acts 'including defecating on me before sex and refusing to let me wash'. Latham told the crowd his relationship with Ms Matthews fell apart during an argument on the night of the Rosehill Racecourse sale vote. He claimed Ms Matthews was covered in mud when she allegedly confronted him. 'This was like something from World War Z,' he said. '(But) one thing's abundantly clear - what we had for over two years was a sexed-up, consensual, open arrangement between adults with a fair bit of other contacts, such as fun days of the races, thrown in. I didn't make any moral judgment about her.' Latham went on to say the pair shared a consensual relationship, adding that 'probably 95 per cent of the things she's complaining about, she initiated'. 'So the media disease here... is to take this stuff which is not rational, not true, from someone who... is obviously not thinking clearly about anything and exploit her for these salacious smutty stories that you run about someone's sex life,' he said. He didn't deny accusations that he had had sex with Ms Matthews in his parliamentary office, saying that people could 'write whatever they like'. 'Members of parliament are allowed to run their own office,' Latham said. 'These are not matters of public interest… but the truth is, members of parliament have privilege for whatever happens in their office, it is their own domain.' During questions from gathered reporters, a female journalist pushed Latham on whether it was appropriate to have sex in a workplace. 'I'm not dealing in your salacious, voyeuristic exercise,' he said. When she followed up on another allegation later in the press conference, Latham launched his own attack, telling the journalist she was 'shaking'. 'You must be worried about (being a) voyeur. Oh, shaky fake media, fake news,' he mocked. The journalist pointed out she had been filming with her phone camera for a least 15 minutes prior. When another journalist pointed out that sex in a workplace would be a 'sackable offence in the private sector or anywhere else', Latham responded: 'Well, it's not in the NSW Parliament, ok'. Latham said the subpoenas served by his lawyer, that requested the communications between Billionaire WiseTech boss CEO Richard White and Ms Matthews, had not been intended to intimidate her, like she alleged. Instead, he insisted they were to test Ms Matthews' allegations in court that he had made her have sex with other men. 'She's falsely claimed in her private application to the court that I made her have sex with other people, so this allows us to interrogate the people that, unprompted by me, … she's had sex with, and there are many,' Latham alleged. 'So the (subpoenas are) directed in part to get information that's relevant to her application so it can be tested in the court, which, is the process of justices.' Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting the abuse claims against Latham are substantiated, only that they have been levelled against him by Ms Matthews. The latest twist in the legal saga came on Friday when the politician's lawyer Zali Burrows served WiseTech global billionaire Richard White and Ms Matthews with a subpoena on Friday. The subpoena requested emails, text messages, and OnlyFans direct messages between Mr White and Ms Matthews, who connected on LinkedIn in 2023. Daily Mail Australia exclusively revealed Ms Matthews' past as an OnlyFans content creator earlier this week. She posted graphic images and videos of herself under the suggestive name Bondi C** Sl** from 2019 to 2023. Mr White is not accused of any wrongdoing and this publication is not suggesting Mr White and Ms Matthews engaged in a sexual relationship, only that Latham joked about her performing a sex act on the tech billionaire. Only hours later, a series of text exchanges were revealed by The Australian in which he joked Ms Matthews should perform oral sex on Mr White to 'celebrate', after four board members left the firm and he was appointed executive chairman in February. Latham joked Ms Matthews was owed 'big money' by the 70-year-old businessman and should 'get that compo DNA!!!!' Ms Matthews replied that there were 'not really grounds' to support such a claim. 'I could kill my professional career. Remember, I don't have a secure job,' she said. Some of these texts were reportedly sent by Latham (pictured) from the parliamentary floor It is not the first time text exchanges between the ex-lovers have been published, with sexually explicit WhatsApp messages between the pair made public this week by The Daily Telegraph. Latham told Daily Mail Australia the outlet's reproduction of the messages was 'not accurate'. These messages included a series of lewd exchanges on February 20, 2025 during parliamentary sitting hours. 'Very hard thinking about you,' he wrote to Ms Matthews shortly after 11am, before following up with a series of suggestive emojis. 'Need badly to taste you,' he wrote that afternoon, alongside an emoji of a tongue. 'Made it back for first vote after dinner,' he said at 8.38pm. Latham has claimed the communications did not impact his work. Ms Matthews declined to comment on her OnlyFans past but her lawyer told Daily Mail Australia that her client 'has been subjected to character assassination, reputational damage and trial by media'.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Campbell's Company Board Elects Mary Alice Dorrance Malone Jr. as Director
CAMDEN, N.J., July 18, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Campbell's Company (NASDAQ:CPB) today announced that the company's Board of Directors has elected Mary Alice Dorrance Malone Jr. as a member of the Board. Malone, 42, is the Founder and Chief Brand Director of Malone Souliers, an international luxury fashion brand. "We are pleased to welcome Mary Alice to Campbell's Board of Directors," said Keith R. McLoughlin, Chair of the Board. "Mary Alice's unique blend of creative, analytical and entrepreneurial experience and deep appreciation of Campbell's history will be an asset to the Board and the company." With nearly 20 years in the fashion industry, Malone has built and led successful businesses. She is experienced in general management, retail sales and brand building. In 2014, she founded Malone Souliers, a luxury footwear brand with global distribution and a reputation for beautifully crafted collections. In 2020, Malone acquired U.K.-based Duo Boots out of bankruptcy and successfully relaunched the forty-year-old footwear brand following improvements in operations and product development. Malone is the great-granddaughter of Dr. John T. Dorrance, the inventor of condensed soup and President of the company from 1914-1930, and the granddaughter of John T. Dorrance Jr., a former Chair of the company from 1962-1984. She is the eldest daughter of long-time board member Mary Alice Dorrance Malone who served on the board from 1990 until her recent passing in June 2025. Malone earned her B.A. in international politics from Elon University and studied design and manufacturing at the University of the Arts, Denver and London College of Fashion. About The Campbell's Company For more than 155 years, The Campbell's Company (NASDAQ:CPB) has been connecting people through food they love. Headquartered in Camden, N.J. since 1869, generations of consumers have trusted Campbell's to provide delicious and affordable food and beverages. Today, the company is a North American focused brand powerhouse, generating fiscal 2024 net sales of $9.6 billion across two divisions: Meals & Beverages and Snacks. The Campbell's portfolio of 16 leadership brands includes: Campbell's, Cape Cod, Chunky, Goldfish, Kettle Brand, Lance, Late July, Pace, Pacific Foods, Pepperidge Farm, Prego, Rao's, Snack Factory pretzel crisps, Snyder's of Hanover, Swanson and V8. For more information, visit View source version on Contacts Investor Contact: Rebecca Gardy(856) 342-6081Rebecca_Gardy@ Media Contact: James Regan(856) 219-6409James_Regan@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
