Lara Bingle's Handsome New Hunk

While Britain is hearing the news that texting menace, cricketer and professional toupee model Shane Warne has been getting up close and personal with actress Elizabeth Hurley, the Shuttle hears that Lara Bingle so publicly dumped by cricketer Michael Clarke has found a new man and not only is he a handsome Yank but a model and top DJ to boot.

Didier Cohen has been working in Sydney modelling for department store David Jones. With deep blue eyes and hunky looks he swept Lara off her feet after the 2 met at the Beach Haus nightclub in Kings Cross 2 months ago where Didier was guest disc jockey.

Didier Cohen & Miranda Kerr model for DJs

Cohen returned to the USA to complete modelling commitments-he is represented by the prestige Wilhelmina's Agency  and is now back to spend summer in Sydney with Lara.

Lara has struggled since she was embarrassed by the revelation she had had a brief affair with  footballer Brendan Fevola whose wife left him when the affair became public.

Bingle says she had no idea Fevola was married at the time. That led to Clarke calling off their engagement and  Lara became the victim of a bitchy media campaign where everything from her dress sense to intelligence was questioned by tabloid columnists. It is after all Australia and dumping on a cricketer is considered tantamount to treason.

Evidence-see how Warne who maintains an on and off again relationship with his long suffering  ex-wife Simone is the subject of countless admiring stories by journalists.

But Lara, one of the nicest gals around town and a Shuttle pal is back on her feet and has just signed a lucrative new 3 year contract with Speedo.  And now a new man untainted by local scandal-nice.

Will our Max decide Britain's next election ?

Max with Carson Kresley

For a month now the tabloid media has been waging an all out assault on our favourite celebrity spruiker Max Markson who likes to think of himself as Australia's answer to Britain's Max Clifford. Originally from Bournemouth via a saucepan stall in a Shepherds Bush market, Max is Australia's top celebrity agent.
 

Max's crime was to disrupt the holy of holies-a cricket match. When model Lara Bingle, best known for the failed Oz tourism campaign 'So Where the Bloody Hell Are You?' discovered that a previous boyfriend footballer Brendan Fevola had distributed some topless snaps of her taken on his mobile phone, she did the only sensible thing. She hired Max to negotiate a deal reputedly worth $200,000 with a woman's magazine to tell her side of the story.

Lara does a Bingle

 Bingle's then fiancee  Michael Clarke, vice captain of the Australian cricket team was about to embark on a tour of New Zealand. As the team strode out for the first day, missing was Clarke. He had flown back to Sydney to see Lara. The howling of sport's writers, egged on by their tabloid comrades was deafening. Leading the moralising charge was Sydney Morning Herald cricket writer Peter Roebuck who delightfully informed us that 'to do a bingle' was new cricketing slang for fumbling the ball.

Others like the fragrant Miranda Devine weighed in wanting to know, just who was Bingle and what did this "airhead "do all day as Miranda pondered on the size of Bingle's IQ.

But Markson was deemed the villain of the drama.
Max was denying the tabloids their God given right to a saucy tale. And he was encouraging them to beat up the story to boost sales of magazine carrying Lara's story.

Beware of a reptile scorned.

Now Max has become the story as a newspaper yesterday revealed supposed emails to Max from a 'disgruntled' employee questioning the legality of  Max's ability to avoid speeding fines. Markson's business registered Mercedes has clocked up over $30,000 in fines but avoided being de-registered via a complicated loophole whereby a company can declare it doesn't know the identity of a driver when the offence occurred.

They're out to get Max and today tSS hears news that a writer from the UK  Independent newspaper is flying in to do a piece on Markson. 

 

As Britain's Labour Party and PM Gordon Brown vie to be re-elected they have brought in ex-PM Tony Blair to boost morale.

 Expect a major story to appear about Markson's involvement in Cherie Blair's ill-fated Oz book tour in 2007.
A charity that expected to receive substantial funds from the tour cried foul when the pot was discovered to be empty. tSS was ejected from one function after approaching  Mrs Blair and asking her if she might consider donating profits from her book to an Iraqi children's fund.