Move over Imelda Marcos !

Lang Hancock

Our favorite local Filipino gal made good Rose Hancock Porteous is about to be immortalised in song and on stage with the gala premiere of  Prix D’Amour (The Price of Love) a musical based upon the life of the former nurse and maid who snared the heart of her billionaire patient.

Prix D’Amour was written by  Paul Dion of Merimbula.and is to be presented at the local Twyford Hall  with a show that promises laughter, tears, singing and dancing. No mention yet if the beloved Rose's drug conviction for forging a script for sleeping pills features. Surely the incident is an ideal moment for a dreamtime sequence or a dramatic interlude, perhaps just at the end of the first half. 

The musical is based upon the book "Rose" by Robert Wainwright.

It poses the question : was Rose a gold-digger or was she a woman misunderstood by the values of two vastly different cultures?. The mind boggles.

This is the story of a woman who began life as a small town girl but became one of Australia's wealthiest and most eccentric socialites.

the Prix D'Amour cast

Rose was born in Silay City in the Philippines and was the granddaughter of a Philippine Revolution war hero. Her father was a friend of Ferdinand Marcos.

It has been claimed that loved blossomed between Rose and the ailing Hancock when she was watching TV reports of the dramatic fall of the Marcos regime that was broadcast live. At one stage after  the Marcos clan had scrambled aboard a US helicopter to flee to Hawaii, with a dozen Louis Vuitton suitcases crammed with US dollars- Imelda turning to her tearful and loyal servants proclaiming  "I leave with nothing but your love" diamond bracelets cascading down her wrist-.a camera crossed to the then Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans who was one of the first visitors to the former presidential palace. 

Evans described for the cameras the chaos he found as he toured the palace and his puzzlement on coming across Imelda's bedroom where he opened a chest and discovered a variety of brightly coloured objects, holding one one up for the viewers to reveal a very large purple veined dildo. Evans feigned ignorance as to the dildo's use wondering  aloud what Imelda could possibly do with such a strange object.. (Rose also has a collection of shoes just like Imelda).

Ms Hancock nee Lacson  flew in to a rage, issuing Filipino curses and hurled a vase at the telly.

Startled from his oxygen tent , the West Australian mining magnate Land Hancock shot up to see the fiery dark haired downstairs maid with eyes flashing in anger- love was borne and the rest is history.

In his later years Lang languished in the same bedroom  whilst his loving bride /nurse entertained Perth's elite in the downstairs ballroom of their love nest, Prix L'Amour, occasionally ushering a few into his bedroom like a tour group. Will all these wonderful moments be put to song and dance in Prix D'Amour ?.

Sadly Rose will not be attending the world premier. She is still recovering from a stroke late last year. Prix D'Amour opens on July 30th.

We bring you again some clips of our Rose in action and , click here to hear one of the wonderful toons from Prix D'Amour !

Join the Billionaire's Club!

Dress to Oppress ! Twiggy Forrest

It was a sight to warm the hearts of Capitalists everywhere-Australia's richest woman Gina Rinehart demonstrating against the proposed mining tax that will be increased to 40% on future profits.

 Never have the well heeled  battlers come out in force and together for such a common cause. Billionaire's and the nation's 3 richest people-Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest, the corpulent Clive Palmer and our Gina, daughter of the late billionaire Lang Hancock who married his Filipino nurse Rose-in twin set and pearls shouting herself hoarse on the back of a flat bed truck on the well manicured lawns of Perth's Langley Park, screeching about PM Kevin Rudd's proposed tax that will kick in 2012 and replace a royalty system currently paid.

No Tax Gina Rinehart

Gina's ex-step mum Rose

 'Twiggy' Forrest is one our favourites-hovering between the richest and second richest man in the country depending on share price and always pictured at these events in a worker's orange flouro jacket and miner's helmet-sparkling clean-before clambering into his chauffeured Beemer and speeding off to the boardroom.

The idea of this tax is the more the mining corporations make-most with their headquarters based in Geneva or the Cayman Islands, the more the government will make on minerals dug out of the ground  and the more the government will raise in taxes on a finite resource that will run out one day. 

Whilst China booms so do we and with building programs there that will see Aussie mineral deposits that have kept the country afloat for 2 decades , sought after for years to come , the government reckons the common people should be getting a bigger share of what basically belongs to the nation. The billionaires aren't having any of that nonsense and reckon the Mandarin speaking Rudd is on the way to become a full blown Communist (while China is well on the way to becoming a capitalist giant). 

Clive Palmer

Of course mining actually does little to improve the country. No infrastructure is built-just bloody great holes in the ground from which the precious minerals are extracted and then these mining giants  just move on

Someone has badly planned this PR cock-up. The miner's union wouldn't have a bar of it so it was left to the bosses to pitch in a few hundred million dollars for a TV advert campaign. But having a handful of mining corporation bosses-with US , British and European accents weeping over lost billions in profits was always going to end in tears and having one corporation which wasn't stock market listed (hence it's share price wouldn't be affected) announce it was upping stakes and moving out only to discover it was actually expanding it's drilling operations soon backfired.

Not only will these corporations  be able to deduct all investment in their mineral searches , they will only pay tax on super profits at 40% which is reckoned by the Treasury to raise an extra $9Billion a year.

As a flushed Gina led a chorus of mine managers (on about $250K a year) in a rousing chant of-

"Axe the tax..axe the tax"..she paused for a minute and shouted "what do want for Australia again?"...one impertinent sod shouted "the Wallabies  to win on Saturday !".( the rugby team  are playing the English team at Subiaco oval in Perth).

The Shuttle has forwarded Gina, Clive and Twiggy's and names to be entered in the Roll of Honour at the prestige USA organisation Billionaire's For Wealthcare who regularly turn up in limos at anti-Barack Obama parades against socialised health care.

Motto : Appearances Are Everything-Dress to Impress and Oppress !