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Details of a Welsh second home in a glossy celebrity magazine from a contentious presenter on BBC Cymru Radio Wales (RW), throw the spotlight on a complaint that people focus too much on her “big bottom”, and how she has objected to photographers taking pictures as they stood on public thoroughfares, but herself posted revealing photographs on social media, it has emerged.
Hello magazine proclaimed: “Former Countdown star Carol Vorderman usually resides at her home in Bristol, but she also owns a second property in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
“The latter is where the star is currently staying, and by day she appears to be enjoying paddleboarding and sun-soaked activities but by night this is where she relaxes”.
However the whole concept of second homes in Wales is enormously controversial because it drives up property prices for local people, and incomers are often unaware of the indigenous Welsh language in tourist areas.
Political parties have also highlighted the huge problem it creates in Wales.
The issue has been described as a “crisis” in UK newspaper The i, and as a “gross injustice” in The Guardian.
A Swansea University (SU) report for the Welsh Government (WG) earlier this year, analysed, too, this enormous difficulty.
It declared: “The phenomenon is limited in its most extreme form to the four coastal counties of west Wales (Gwynedd, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Anglesey).
“Although there are smaller areas in other counties (such as the Gower Peninsula in Swansea) which also have a high concentration of second homes, these too tend to be in parts of Wales frequented for holiday and leisure purposes”.
The academic investigation was featured in the Western Mail with a report on it saying: ‘Increasing taxes on second homes is just one recommendation put forward in a new report commissioned by the Welsh Government to look at a so-called “second homes crisis” in Wales’.
An article in Hello magazine also looked at Ms Vorderman’s Twitter comment about “Doing the worst HAKA ever on the beach…”.
Hello said about her: “Early morning paddleboarding sessions have become a regular occurrence for Carol, who frequently shares snapshots documenting her outings on social media”.
But the articles about Ms Vorderman come amid growing concern that she has regularly grabbed the headlines in the UK media for alarming reasons (and social media has often been at the heart of the revelations), with her exploits even being the subject of a piece by our satirical writer Edwin Phillips.
Recently the media have said that she was in tears and spoke of “harassment” when she spotted two photographers, one in front of her on the pavement and the other on the opposite side of the road before she drove from her (first residence) home in Bristol to do the regular radio programme.
Ms Vorderman stated in a video she shared: “This is what happens when you walk outside your home… This is what I call harassment”.
She was supposedly left “frightened” after the incident.
However the pictures these photographers tried to take came after she shared on Twitter two photographs of herself posing in skimpy “home gym gear” to show how young she looks.
Ms Vorderman is originally from Prestatyn, yet intriguingly despite her professed love of Wales, and being pictured in a T-shirt emblazoned with the Welsh flag at a rugby stadium, she chooses to live in England, although she is now apparently staying at her second home in Pembrokeshire.
It seems as well that she is, today, part of a celebrity ‘set’ in Wales.
A picture of another personality, completely naked, was sent to her and also put on social media.
The photograph was placed on Twitter by the rugby presenter Jonathan Davies with the caption “Just for you Carol”.
She has, too, used Twitter to thank and send kisses to a controversial BBC Radio Cymru (RC) presenter who has re-tweeted the views of an alarming commentator who endorses burning down holiday homes and setting the union flag alight.
Ms Vorderman said “Diolch Rhydian xx” to Rhydian Bowen Phillips who stated on Twitter that it had been good to see her at Broadcasting House.
Yet Mr Phillips has enraged many listeners to his show after re-tweeting the comments of ‘Jac Jolly’ about the Welsh language, who has said on social media that he is proud cottages in Wales were burned down and tweeted that: “The UJ (Union Jack) should be burnt despicable rag that it is” with an emoji of a burning flame following the remark.
It is clear that Ms Vorderman’s Twitter friend, Mr Phillips, holds extremely trenchant views himself.
He has tweeted a picture of himself ‘flicking the Vs’ at a poster of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, announced how he ‘despised’ the Conservatives, and has re-tweeted a comment claiming that a Brexiteer is “stupid”, as well as “A ruptured pustule on the anus of the country…and…I utterly despise you”.
He presents on RC at Saturday lunch time, and was a guest during the wedding of BBC Wales Today (WT) and Radio Wales (RW) presenter Lucy Owen (Cohen) to fellow X-ray host Rhodri Owen, in 2004. He has also been reported to the Football Association of Wales (FAW) for using abusive language on social media.
Less abusive, however, was a MailOnline report about Ms Vorderman, which said that she had “incredible curves” and “incredibly smooth complexion” with her age prominently displayed.
These words, set alongside the age (60), are usually reserved for someone who has had extensive plastic surgery.
Even so, Ms Vorderman claims to be unhappy about coverage of her appearance, and has stated to newspapers: “One of the sad things is that people think I am only ever talking about the way I look. I just choose to pay no attention to it.
“I was a free school meals kid. I got to Cambridge from a comprehensive. That just didn’t happen in the 70s. Now I do a lot of work with kids from a similar background to me. I have my online maths school, I sell I-don’t-know-how-many education books a year. But that never gets talked about. Instead it’s,`how big is her bottom?’”
Perhaps instead of Ms Vorderman’s ‘big bottom’ commentators will now focus on her second home in Pembrokeshire…
The memories of our Editor Phil Parry’s remarkable decades long award-winning career in journalism (which included looking behind the headlines of ‘celebrity’ interviews) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
