More Fashion & Klunk Klink

As sure as night follows day-the Myer Spring /Summer parades follow David Jones fashion gala a week later. And so it came to pass at the Horden Pavilion (soo much easier to park !) and of course, the most successful Miss Universe ever, Jennifer Hawkins strutted the catwalk to show off the wares. Along with some others of course including Kris Smith and football superstar Harry Kewell.

Jennifer Hawkins & Kris Smith in the 2013 Myer parade, Harry Kewell and errr Kris & Jennifer from 2009- not a lot changes !

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The row over the bizarre election front pages on the Daily Telegraph has spread to the UK with the BBC picking up the controversy. Yesterday's photo-montage depicted Anthony Albanese, Craig Thomson and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as characters out of the 60's TV show Hogan's Heroes.

After Rudd complained Opposition Communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said that the PM sounded like a "jilted lover" but as some unkind wag commented-"does that mean Tony Abbott is now Rupert Murdoch's new mistress?"
Now UK Labor MP and staunch Murdoch opponent Tom Watson who was involved in the recent select committee investigating Murdoch has just tweeted he is "mentally packing his bags" to visit Australia soon to talk about Murdoch's activities in the UK. 
We think the last word should go to Tim Dunlop writing on the ABC's The Drum :
"What the editors and proprietor no doubt saw as some sort of brave, daring play by a vital and vibrant news organisation putting itself in the middle of the biggest political story of the year, looked more like some sad grandpa with a comb-over at a nightclub trying to impress the ladies with his hip moves from another era."

Happy day in the UK with a sad memory

Britain (and it's dominions) are celebrating the birth of the third in line to the throne, The Prince of Cambridge.
 Kate and William have delivered the required heir and the world's media have a new celebrity to fuss over for the next two decades.

Something overlooked by Fleet Street is the fact that Kate's gynecologist is Dr Alan Farthing.  
 In 1999 one morning, Farthing's fiancee left his Chiswick home to return to her own house in Fulham. There an unknown gunman shot her dead at her front door. She was the popular BBC presenter Jill Dando and her murder has become one of the great mysteries of modern times. A local man Barry George was arrested and convicted in 2001 but after two appeals and after a new trial in 2008 George was acquitted.

Jimmy Savile ? : blame Richard Nevile

Writer A N Wilson, once dubbed the 'young fogey' has laid into a series of personalities in a dissertation about the so-called 'sexual revolution' that has resulted in what he thinks are today's slack morals.

Richard Nevile
at a book launch
 2 weeks ago

Starting with Lady Chatterley's Lover (he read it as a boy, under the sheets with a torch) , Wilson draws a line beginning with the Baby Boomers , Hippies ,and the swinging 60s and just about anyone who contributed to the arts during that era  from the Rolling Stones to Richard Nevile and the Oz Magazine team who were busted for obscenity when they produced the School Kids issue that featured Rupert The Bear with a hard on (the issue was actually edited by school kids).

Richard Nevile,Felix Denis
   and Jim Anderson at
  their obscenity trial

Even the Oz defendants brief at their trial, Rumpole author and barrister John Mortimer comes in for a serve and perhaps barrister Nevile Wran who defended Nevile in Sydney on obscenity charges and later become NSW Premier for 10 years, should share in the blame.
Apparently 57% of Brits were happy in the idyllic 1950s and presumably there were no rapes, sex assaults or abortions- although the Shuttle's late aunt who had a backyard abortion in 1951 may dispute that (as a result she was couldn't have children and suffered for the rest of her life).
All this free sex and loose morals have disturbed Wilson so much he draws a link between them and the BBC apparently ignoring the exploits of the late Jimmy Savile although he has failed to point out that most of the newspapers Wilson has written for also turned a blind eye. And little does he know he shares something in common with Richard Nevile : in the 1960s Nevile who was an advertising copy writer was dubbed the Young Fogey by pals who weren't quite convinced with his 'revolutionary' zeal.
You can read all this in the Daily Mail.

Clive James : "I'm approaching the end..."

Broadcaster Clive James has announced that he is losing his battle with cancer and will "never see Sydney again".
He said :""I’ve still got an Australian passport, that’s ­patriotism, loyalty, and that’s also because I’m a masochist and I like being on the end of the longest queue for anything in Europe which is the security queue at Heathrow.”

James was brought up in the southern Sydney suburb of Kogarah and recounted his early days in the first volume of his autobiography "Unreliable Memoirs".

Clive spoke to the UK'S Daily Mirror and told of the father he never knew and how he was named after a character in a Tyrone Power film.

The interview can be read here.

Coolest Ever Weather Presenter

A Bumpy Year & A Bieber Baby

The 2012 predictions are flowing in and the usual catastrophes await us-floods, typhoons etc as well as our old favourite Nostradamus predicting the beginning of WW3.

The New York Post's Cindy Adams says Justin Bieber will become a dad for real and Prince William and Kate become parents (that organ of repute Woman's Day says likewise but that 'medical intervention' will be needed)
The famous Edgar Cacye had lots to say about 2012 including that the entire West Coast of the USA will disappear (presumably in an earthquake) and that New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco will be destroyed as will Japan! Another tsunami ?. How accurate was Cacye ? Some of his predictions for 2012 have been uncanny having happened this year including turmoil in Lybia,. Egypt and Syria.

The BBC's Diplomatic Correspondent James Robbins says Assad's regime in Syria will fall in '12. Meanwhile Henry Deedes in the RightMinds blog in the MailOnline says Barack Obama will win again in 2012 (even I could have predicted that) but Jeremy Clarkson will be embroiled in another scandal when he calls Obama the Mad Mullah.

The howtosurvive.net website has bad news for us here in Australia. We're facing a 7000 ft tidal wave! Time to sell that harbor side property and move to Ulhuru.

The Psychic Twins Terri &Linda Jamison who it's claimed warned about the 9/11 attacks two years before they happened have a pretty good track record. They reckon 2012 will be a 'calm' year in the video below. No tsunamis. No 7000ft tidal wave. Phew.
They reckon however that Britney Spears will be working on a new album. Amazing !

As for the Shuttle-we predict tons more champagne parties in 2012, lots more gossip and scandal involving celebrities, politicians and business figures plus love affairs that begin and end. And when have we ever been wrong? . Happy New Year!

Man of the month

It must be Paul Yarrow who is making a career out of appearing in the background of news broadcasts as One Fat Guy. He says it's a statement for the ordinary man. We agree. He is ordinary but he's a star !

hack-watch : a skeptic in our midst..

Michael Peschardt, the highly likable BBC Australian based correspondent has outed himself as climate change skeptic.

Peschardt was appearing this morning on Kerri-Anne Kennerley's Morning Show during a segment where various journalists comment on newspaper headlines and expressed his view of Opposition Leader (see below) Malcolm Turnbull's successful negotiations with the government on climate change.

Peschardt who originally came to Oz to cover Alan Bond America's Cup bid, and never left, pondered why local politicians should be rushing in so soon before the Copenhagen climate change meeting this month (can't have Aussies making independent decisions !) and the dubious claim this week in the British media that researchers had "massaged" figures despite those researchers claims that hacked emails were being taken out of context.

But as fellow panelist Julie McCrossin-broadcaster, comedian, happy lesbian and journalist said :"now he's in trouble-he's quoting English newspapers "!
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Earth to Fairfax Newspapers : today is Wednesday 25th November, always has been and always will be on the same day.
Not as your first edition announced this morning as it thudded on the doorstep :Thursday 26th November.

(The fact that dozens of sub-editors have been laid off and standards are falling is entirely co-incidental. )