A Boy & His Toys

Successful businessman John Kennerley is married to one of Australia's most endearing television personalities Kerri Anne Kennerley  a favourite on the red carpet. John often joins Kerri-Anne, or KAK as she referred to. It's one of the most successful local show business  marriages that has lasted almost 31 years.

So what does John do while Kerri is out competing on Dancing With The Stars and partaking in her show-biz activities ? . John, originally from Cheshire in the UK is building in  perfect detail in his house, a replica of a train line that runs through the north of England and to date has re-created a non-too small replica of one of Britain's oldest and grandest listed buildings, Shewsbury Station along with outlying tracks and trains.

He'll proudly show you some pics from his iphone of the amazing train set that snakes throughout the living room of the pair's Rose Bay mansion.

And he builds every single piece himself in a special workroom, including the replica trains that puff around the track and is now working on the local scenery to go with it.
 So it's true- a man and his shed could be the secret to a succesful marriage!

Sneak Preview : The Great Gatsby 2

We don't really have any footage-yet, but we are privy to the inner workings on the set of Baz Luhrmann's $150M epic, The Great Gatsby currently being filmed in secrecy at Fox Studios.

Jeff Duff

News comes that alternative singer and entertainer Jeff Duff has scored a role in the epic, playing an eccentric friend of Jay Gastby the movie's hero played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

The Shuttle first encountered Jeff Duff-then called Duffo- at Country Cousins, a London cabaret restaurant off the Kings Road in Fulham.
Duffo appeared on stage one Sunday afternoon singing up a storm with his Duff Orchestra and wearing a jacket that had a dozen brightly coloured dildos hanging from it. We aren't sure if the dildos were part of Duffo's act but they certainly ensured he wouldn't be forgotten.

As we have previously reported, Leo DiCaprio has been hanging out at the tiny Kings Cross club Beach Haus where he regularly takes a corner booth with a group of male friends.

Last night he attended the opening of the glitzy re-vamped The Star casino. Leo slipped in unnoticed by most. He can be seen here in the Sydney Confidential pages of the Daily Telegraph, chatting to friends including Russell Crowe, and scratching his backside. (that will teach him for not posing for the snappers).

Meanwhile guests at the party were talking about how healthy and slim Russell was looking. He seems to have shed several kilos so all that walking he does in the mornings is obviously paying off.

 Crowe learnt ages ago how to get the paparazzi to leave him alone. When he sets out each day from his magnificent Woolloomooloo penthouse on foot, he wears exactly the same gym suit, shoes and cap thus lessening the price of any paparazzi snaps. They gave up hounding him long ago. The rest of the day he can be seen tooling around Sydney in a sleek black CS Class Mercedes.

Here is Jeff Duff in a video we have tracked down with Jeff singing Stairway To Heaven in his inimitable style. Remember, in The Great Gatsby you may see something similar in glorious 3D !

Leo Stars

He's been keeping late nights at the nightclub Beach Haus in Kings Cross, sitting in a booth surrounded by half a dozen pals-Leo DiCaprio in Sydney and working on the re-make of The Great Gatsby.

Tonight he slipped into the grand opening party of The Star, Sydney's re-vamped Star City casino and joined Russell Crowe in the restaurant.

The current owners have spent nearly one billion dollars on the re-vamp. That would seem a brave move with the Federal government under great pressure to curb poker machines -of which there are several thousand at The Star-by 2 parliamentarians who Labor needs the support of to pass legislation.

The Star opened it's doors in 1995 with a spectacular party for several thousand with Diana Ross singing, fireworks and such. It had been designed by a Feng Shui master from Hong Kong. It certainly raked in the bucks for the owners but perhaps that had  more to do with lucrative gambling contracts handed over by the NSW Government and a promise that the casino would be the only legal one in the state. Tonight Olivia Newton John entertained.

The Shuttle attended the original opening in '95. During the day we had visited the couturier Claire Handler in her Double Bay boutique and she had shown us an amazing yellow feathered full length cape she had designed for a customer who had never returned to collect it.

"Looks very Diana Ross" we remarked. With that Claire summonsed a taxi and bundled the feather creation into the cab and sent it off to Diana Ross's suite at Star City.

That night Ross appeared on stage in Claire's creation, sweeping around the stage before flinging it off after 3 songs. As for Claire-she never got the boa cape back or heard from Ms Ross. Not a peep.

tango success in the US

Hearty congratulations to tSS friend and local TV presenter Kym Johnson who has just won the American Dancing With The Stars with a perfectly executed tango with Donny Osmond.