Koalas F**k For Oprah, Wikileak's Chic and John Lennon

The Oprah jet & Gayle & Oprah on Hamilton Island

 * If you haven't noticed, Oprah Winfrey arrived by private jet in Cairns in Northern Queensland today. She didn't alight as the plane was cleared by Customs but flew onto Hamilton Island where she and her great friend Gayle King visited a zoo where they were confronted by 2 mating Koalas !.

According to Oprah as she cuddled one Koala "oh it feels just like the ones in the stores back home". Shops that sell Koalas in the USA? .

** Overheard by our spy in  Parliament House in Canberra in the Member's Bar : 2 Labor politicians  were discussing the Wikileaks cables and the ones where US diplomats describe former PM Kevin Rudd as a "control freak".

One, a well known cabinet minster said to the other " no, it's very disappointing. I haven't even been mentioned. It's like the kiss of death, I feel like a complete nobody !"

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John Waters

*** It's 30 Years since John Lennon was gunned down in New York City. Rolling Stone Magazine is to publish the very last interview with the great song writer recorded by Jonathan Cott on the 5th December 1980. You can hear much of the material on the magazine's website.

Cott recorded nine hours of interviews with Lennon but had forgotten all about them and most of the material has never been heard before.

**** Local actor John Waters is to tour his brilliant and successful one-man show  Lennon in Word and Music: Looking Through a Glass Onion. Water's sings just about every song Lennon wrote and talks through the show about Lennon's life. It's a superb show-the Shuttle first saw it it in 1998 and now Waters has the blessing of Yoko Ono.

Today Waters  was at the  Hard Rock’s Sydney Rock Shop, Harbourside, Darling Harbour to launch the Imagine There’s No Hunger in co-operation with Yoko's Why Hunger campaign.

The campaign was launched by Hard Rock International in November at the Hollywood Cafe and featured performances by Ringo Starr, Dave Stewart, Booker T, Joe Walsh and many more.

Waters is one of Australia's hardest working stage and film actors. Born in the UK he became fascinated by the entertainment industry while watching his father work in his  own movie studio very near Thames TV . His first break-as a child in the first Titanic film A Night To Remember.

Check out dates for Looking Through A Glass Onion at the website.

A video of John Waters in Looking Through A Glass Onion

The Oprah Bandwagon Arrives

They're streaming in from all over the country. The 7000 who have won tickets to attend the 2 Oprah Winfrey shows to be filmed at the Sydney Oprah House. Later today another few hundred arrive from the USA in a Qantas 747 piloted by movie star John Travolta.

On Wednesday Oprah herself and her personal staff arrive  in Cairns in QLD on Oprah's own jet.

When she finally arrives in Sydney on the 10th, a cavalcade of limos will speed her and the entourage to the Four Seasons Hotel near Circular Quay in an extraordinary move that is reminiscent of a US presidential visit. Accompanying Oprah is her great friend Gayle King who is also editor-at-large of O Magazine. Oprah and Gayle will share adjoining hotel suites.

Not only will police give Oprah an escort, traffic will be stopped along the motorway to ensure her trip, normally a 20 minute drive gets the US chat show host to her hotel in 10 minutes.

A dozen local security personnel (armed with pistols) have been hired to supplement Winfrey's own security guards and local and Federal police will be on hand. All locals who have been hired to work with Oprah have been required to sign confidentiality agreements. If anyone is found to disclose personal information and it's proved to have come from them, they are required to pay back twice what they are paid to work for her.

And the Sydney Harbour Bridge will be adorned with a giant O sign during her stay .Welcome to the Oprah roadshow.

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The historic Sydney Barrack's  Mint last night hosted the after party for the film  premier of Love and Other Drugs with the stars of the film  Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway on hand. They were a pretty friendly couple, chatting to guests and circulating at ease for about 15 minutes.

Naturally both love Sydney (when has any visiting celeb said differently ?...Eminen the only one who hated the place).

# actor Ryan Kwanten has returned to the USA after winning the GQ Magazine Man of The Year Award. Kwanten's star continues to rise in the States with the success of the vampire series True Blood. Oddly no Australian TV outlet has yet picked up the popular cult series.

And actor Firass Dirani who portrayed the 'colourful' Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim in the hugely successful series Underbelly 3 won the Actor of The Year Award. Dirani has just finished filming The Killer Elite with Robert de Niro.