Carol Vorderman
 Carol Vorderman     (author, broadcaster, celebrity) | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 24 December 1960 |
| Alma mater | Sidney Sussex College (Cambridge) |
Carol Jean Vorderman is a British broadcaster, media personality and author. Her career began in 1982 when she joined the Channel 4 game show Countdown, appearing on the show with Richard Whiteley from 1982 until his death in 2005, and subsequently with Des Lynam and Des O'Connor, before leaving in 2008.[1]
Contents
Background
Carol Vorderman was born in Bedford, Bedfordshire, the youngest of three children of Dutch father, Anton Vorderman (1920–2007), and a Welsh mother, Edwina Jean Davies (1928–2017).
Her parents separated three weeks after her birth, and her mother took the family back to her home town of Prestatyn, Denbighshire, North Wales, where Vorderman and her siblings, Anton and Trixie, grew up in a one-parent household. Vorderman did not see her father again until she was 42. In 1970, her mother married Italian Armido Rizzi. The couple separated ten years later. Vorderman's father remarried; his wife died in the early 1990s.
Carol Vorderman was educated at Blessed Edward Jones Catholic High School in nearby Rhyl. In 1978, aged 17, she went to read engineering at Sidney Sussex College (Cambridge). She left with a third-class degree, a result which she has described as having been "disappointing".
Vorderman did not trace the Dutch side of her family until 2007 (as part of the BBC genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are?). It was only then that she discovered that her father had been an active member of the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation. He died while the programme was being filmed. Her great-grandfather Adolphe Vorderman played a key role in the discovery of vitamins.
Journalism
Carol Vorderman has had newspaper columns in the Daily Telegraph, and in the Daily Mirror on Internet topics. She has written books on Detox diets. Her No. 1 bestseller was "Detox For Life", produced in collaboration with Ko Chohan and Anita Bean and published by Virgin Books, which sold over a million copies.
Many school textbooks have been published under her name, chiefly by Dorling Kindersley in series such as English Made Easy, Maths Made Easy, Science Made Easy and How To Pass National Curriculum Maths.
Commercial ventures
Carol Vorderman also expanded her business ventures, launching a number of Sudoku products. In March 2007, she launched a brain-training game called "Carol Vorderman's Mind Aerobics" together with BSkyB. Also in 2007, she released a video game for PlayStation 2 in the United States entitled "Carol Vorderman's Sudoku".
In 2007, Vorderman did TV commercials for the frozen food chain Farmfoods – advertising "Chippy Chips for £1" and "Cadbury's Cones for 99p".
In the autumn of 2008, soon after she completed her final regular Countdown show, Vorderman announced a new commercial venture, her own property development and sales company that would specialise in overseas holiday and retirement homes in the Caribbean, the Bahamas and Spain. It was called Carol Vorderman's Overseas Homes Ltd. She saw the company as a natural extension of her own experiences in buying and selling properties over recent years and was aiming at a target market of "families aged 35 plus". However, because of the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the venture proved short-lived. During March 2009 Vorderman publicly withdrew her name from the firm, which suspended trading soon afterwards.[2]
On 2 March 2010, Vorderman publicly launched her new commercial venture of an online mathematics coaching system for 4- to 12-year-old children under the name of the "MathsFactor".
Political views
Anti-Tory
On 7 June 2023, Carol Vorderman told the Daily Mirror she wanted to see the Tories annihilated at the next general election. She said:
- "I love this country, by the way. I absolutely adore it. I've been joyously living here for a very long time.
- "I believe the Government that we have now is so completely detached from the politics that I grew up with. I'm not saying it was perfect, but it's completely detached."
- The 62-year-old, who received free school meals as a child in North Wales, said she wanted to see the number of Tory MPs slashed at the next election.
- "They are so disgraceful that they should not even be able to form an opposition. They take from the poor and they give to the very rich. I grieve for what we used to have in politics. I want to do everything I can to get them out of power."
- But asked if she would run to be an MP, she said: "No absolutely not."[3]
Not pro-Labour
On 13 June 2023, Labour MP Wes Streeting tweeted:
- "An unelected House of Lords can’t block an elected House of Commons.
- "If you don’t want Tory laws to go through Parliament elect a Labour government."[4]
Lord Prem Sikka replied:
- "Your statement is incorrect.
- "The Parliament Acts of 1911 & 1949 curb power of the Lords to block Bills only. Last night, Lords were discussing a Statutory Instrument, not a Bill. Government used SI to enact primary legislation, an unprecedented act."
Carol Vorderman tweeted:
- "Lord @premnsikka putting the record straight to Wes Streeting:
- "Last night's vote was about freedom of speech & also how govt used a "Statutory Instrument" to enact primary legislation (law), which has not been done before.
- "Fundamentally it means a Minister can now more or less decide on new law without recourse to Parliament!!
- "4,000 pieces of EU law will go this way too if something isn't done. Follow @stellacreasy for more on this.
Best for Britain
| Carol Vorderman spoke at a Best for Britain event in June 2023 |
Vorderman has criticised the "patently corrupt" Tory government.
References
- ↑ "PASSED/FAILED: Carol Vorderman"
- ↑ "Property overseas: Would you buy a villa from Carol Vorderman?"
- ↑ "Carol Vorderman says 'disgraceful' Tories should be wiped out at next election"
- ↑ "If you don’t want Tory laws to go through Parliament elect a Labour government"
- ↑ "Government used SI to enact primary legislation, an unprecedented act"
- ↑ "Fundamentally it means a Minister can now more or less decide on new law without recourse to Parliament!!"
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