The Greens Leader & Jimi Hendrix

Dr Bob Brown (above) the leader who has taken the Australian Greens party to such extraordinary heights with 9 Senators now holding the balance of power in the Upper House for the next six years, resigned today as party leader and as an MP.

The openly gay Brown plans to spend more time at his Tasmanian property with partner Paul Thomas. Needless to say the media, notably News Corp which vowed in an editorial to "destroy The Greens" has already begun to promote conspiracy theories for his resignation, pinning it to the Carbon Price (earth to News Corp-it's a price not a tax) and so on, ignoring the fact that next year Brown would undoubtedly be re-elected and faced serving in the Senate until he was 75.

What is less well known is that Brown in 1970 as a young doctor having graduated from Sydney University was working as a locum at St Mary's Hospital in South Kensington when Jimi Hendrix's body was brought in.

Brown says it was obvious Hendrix had been dead for some hours and the presumption was that he had died from a drug overdose. Despite talk at the time that Hendrix had been murdered, Brown says there was no way of proving as much by an autopsy which he assisted with and he was never spoken to by police over the matter.
And it was Bob Brown who faced the British media that morning to announce that Jimi Hendrix had passed away.
You can hear an interview Brown gave on the subject some years ago to 2GB here on the Greens website.

G.W.Lambert self portrait 1920

Kit Lambert

## Jimi Hendrix who died in at the age of 28 had another Australian connection with some degrees of separation. It was Kit Lambert, the man who discovered The Who who was the first to realise the potential of Hendrix when he saw Jimi performing in a pub in West London. He recalled later :
"He was amazing, not only playing the guitar with first his right hand, then left but eventually with his teeth. I had to have him and in my mind I created an instant record label, Track Records and signed Hendrix before we even knew how a record was produced".

Lambert was the son of the English classical composer Constant Lambert who was the son of one of Australia's first great artists and the Official War Artist at the WW1 Gallipoli campaign, George Washington Lambert.

Harry Potter Down Under

It's about as far from the madding crowd as one can get. Antarctica is the next stop.

Symmons Plains

JK Rowling

The Apple Isle,Tasmania is one of the most pleasant parts of Australia with a glorious country-side that is reminiscent of the green pastures of rural Britain. And the climate is far better. Glorious summers followed by  snowy winters with piercing blue skies.

Woman's Day, the glossy of repute reports that J.K.Rowling,  the most successful author of the last 100 years with the Harry Potter books and films has purchased Symmons Plains, a mansion that comes with a 865 hectare farm. Apparently she has bought several properties on the island. Other media reports question whether the sale actually happened but Woman's Day insists the tale is true.

'In Like Flynn'

Others who have sought the solace of Tasmania include the late MI5 officer Peter Wright,  former Sydney Morning Herald scribe Leo Schofield and the former UN weapons inspector Richard Butler who once had a contract put on his head by Saddam Hussein.

Tasmanians who have left for the wider world to achieve success and fame : The Mentalist's Simon Baker, Greens leader and possibly one of the most powerful men in Federal Parliament Bob Brown, Mary Donaldson now in line to become the next Queen of Denmark, composer Peter Sculthorpe, cricketer Ricky Ponting and our favourite swashbuckling actor, Errol Flynn.

High Court Judge Supports Gay & Lesbian Wedding Album

The Potential Wedding Album is for same-sex couples who would like the option to get married in Australia. Inclusion in the album is to show support for marriage equality, currently a hot topic that has got many Australian politicians in a real tizz and heading for the hills - except notably The Greens who support same sex marriage as one of their main policies. Dr Bob Brown, their leader  is openly gay and lives with his male partner,

Bob Brown

With that in mind, as volumes of The Potential Wedding Album are completed they will be printed and delivered to the Prime Minister Julia Gillard  and the Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott and other members of the Australian parliament, to highlight the couples who are treated unfairly by the marriage laws in this country. 

They should make ideal coffee table books for Mad Monk Abbott, a conservative Catholic !

The project has already got some major supporters including former High Court Justice Michael Kirby who retired in 2009 after exiting the closet quietly in 1999 when he listed his long term partner in Who's Who In Australia as Johan van Vloten.

Johan van Vloten & Justice Michael Kirby

Kirby came in for criticism from shocked  conservative circles but stood his ground even after a botched attempt to falsely stitch him up over the alleged use of Commonwealth chauffeured limos to pick up rent boys at Sydney's notorious Wall, a male prostitute haunt.  

It was  discovered the ComCar records being bandied about that purported to show Kirby's movements were fake with the result that then Prime Minister John Howard offered an unqualified apology in Parliament.

 Since retiring, Kirby has toured the world  lecturing at law symposiums and speaking on equal rights, particularly for young gays and lesbians.

If you want to show support for the Potential Wedding Album you can sign up here

And go the albums to view many of the couples who have signed up and contributed their photos. The albums are quite charming.

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## One budding politician who is openly supporting same sex marriage is the famous private eye Frank Monte who will be standing for NSW's Upper House in the March 2011 state election. 

Frank Monte

Brought up a Catholic in an Italian family in Egypt, Monte says although his political views are fairly conservative, he believes personal liberty is one of the greatest bastions of a free society and he supports the freedom of people of any orientation to get legally hitched-at St Mary's Cathedral if that's what takes their fancy !