exclusive : HRH Prince Andrew To Be Appointed Governor of NSW

The fun-loving but  troubled British royal HRH Prince Andrew, the Duke of York is to be appointed Governor of NSW by the new premier Barry O'Farrell, taking up his appointment in November this year when the current incumbent Marie Bashir retires.

The official announcement is expected to be made by HRH The Queen when she visits the country in October for the CHOGM conference. And the O'Farrell family and royal family have been linked by an incident from over 140 years ago (see below).

O'Farrell has always said that Government House, perched high above the Opera House with it's sensational views of Sydney Harbour would be rightfully restored as the Governor's home if he won the election. With his convincing win on Saturday when the Coalition swept into power with 68 seats to Labor's 20, the new premier has a mandate to implement most of his policies.

It's been 15 years since former premier Bob Carr closed the Governor's mansion . Since then it's been available for everything-weddings, parties , barmitzvahs and so on. The Coalition has always claimed it was a scandal and the Monarchist's League has been outraged that NSW Governors would live in their own homes rather than the official residence.

Although ex-convict architect Francis Greenaway was originally commissioned to design Government House it was eventually built by English architect  Edward Blore and finished in 1890.

 Blore working in the romantic Gothic style, produced a mock castle which matched the crenellations of the existing nearby Greenway stables. The new building immediately became the talk of the town and helped establish the romantic Regency style in residential architecture which became popular in the colony over the next twenty years.

Prince Andrew, a man used to luxury and who has been the butt of numerous scandalous tales in the British media over his association with the New York millionaire Jeffrey Epstein should feel right at home in his new abode. It has style and plenty of space and beautiful gardens for entertaining on a large scale. With maids, butlers and 2 Royal Equerries plus his own staff and several official limousines he will want for nothing.

There are 28 rooms and the large reception area is a richly decorated two-storey hall with a musicians gallery. Government House also reputedly introduced the first modern water closet to Australia. The porte-coche was added in 1873, and the two front rooms extended about 1900. Although there had been earlier proposals (c.1900) to move the vestigial Governor into more modest premises, it was not until 1996 that this finally occurred under the premiership of Carr.

Numerous Royals have stayed there in the past including The Queen and Prince Phillip and Prince Charles and Diana when they were together and Pope Benedict slept there for 2 nights in 2008.



Jane & Sarah

It's been long rumoured amongst royal circles in the UK that Andrew would have to packed off somewhere sensible to re-create his crumbling public image. A spell as Governor of NSW for the normal 4 year appointment would seem the ideal solution.

And he should feel right at home. Sister-in-law Jane Ferguson lives a short drive away in Bondi and ex-wife Fergie is a regular visitor.

There are plenty of nightclubs and attractions for the Andrew's fun loving daughters should they visit and if Andy wants a casual drink there's always the Lord Dudley pub in Woolahra, a favourite of Prince Harry.

Andrew's appointment follows in a tradition of packing off Royals to the colonies for further education and royal duties.



a depiction of the attempted assassination: National Gallery



The

1867 visit of Queen Victoria's son Prince Alfred to Australia was the first by a member of the British Royal family and was tumultuous, to say the least.

It produced an outpouring of national exaltation and then of national shame following an assassination attempt on the Prince.

 On 12 March 1868 an  ancestor of the new premier-Henry James O'Farrell shot the Prince in the back at a public function in Clontarf, Sydney. O'Farrell was immediately arrested, and was convicted and hanged on 21 April that same year.

"Off With Their Heads "! Charles & Camilla Attacked & Diana's Portrait

Video has surfaced of the attack upon Prince Charle's and The Duchess of Cornwall as they headed through London streets to the Royal Variety Performance. Apparently Camilla was poked in the chest with a stick shoved through the window. One protester loudly shouts "off with their heads !". No wonder the pair looked so alarmed. That's precisely what happened to many of their forbears.

Still it should have set them up nicely for the show-Susan Boyle, Robbie Williams and Australia's very own Human Nature currently wowing audiences in the USA with their nightly Las Vegas show.

Meanwhile we have uncovered a covertly filmed scene of Camilla having Princess Diana's portrait removed from Clarence House and replaced with her own.

It is of course, a spoof by the wonderful and talented artist Alison Jackson. Check out more at her website.

exclusive photos : Prince Charles & Camilla Attacked In London Demo

Good to see those bullet-proof windows work !

The Shuttle doesn't have enough knowledge of the full facts of the education cost's debate currently being waged in the UK to comment and certainly does not endorse violence. 

These photographs from our British source are quite remarkable though and do raise questions-how could the heir to the British throne get up caught in these circumstances?. Expect questions in Parliament.

Possibly one positive thing to come out of this calamity-a politicised younger generation.  We hope..

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FAMOUS LAST WORDS # 1 :

Headline in today's Daily Telegraph : 

Oprah's motorcade in Melbourne freeway scare

Story :

" Oprah’s car moved past the scene without incident"

Polo Champs Miss the Big Match



Jean-Paul & Nina Clarkin at Windsor last week



The annual Paspaley Polo takes place today in Centennial Park and with the world's largest supplier of cultured pearls celebrating it's 75th year it promises to be an extra special event.

 Sadly two of the world's great polo players will miss the day.

Carina Clarkin, the UK's top female player and her husband , the handsome and debonair Jean-Paul Clarkin have left Sydney for New Zealand after playing at the Windsor polo match last week.

Carina, known as Nina is the niece of the beef baron Lord Vestey and the Vestey family connections with Australia are deep and varied.

Lord Vestey was once the largest single land owner in Australia until 1966 when dozens of his Aboriginal stock men went on strike demanding equal pay with whites.

When Gough Whitlam was elected Prime Minister in the early 1970's he forced Vestey to hand back traditional lands to the Gurindji tribe.

Vestey also owns several cattle ranches in Venezuela-or did until President Hugo Chavez sent in troops to occupy them. In 2006 he settled a dispute with Chavez by handing over 2 of his best properties to the Venezuelan government.



Lord Vestey & The Queen

 Jean-Paul's late father Paul Clarkin was a mentor to both Princes William and Harry and Nina's mother Rosie dated their father Prince Charles and was part of his inner circle.

Nina, a good friend of William's is expected to be a guest at the wedding of William and Kate Middleton.





Lord Vestey visited Australia earlier this year on behalf of St John Ambulance ( HRH The Queen is patron). He holds the lofty title of The Lord Prior of St John. He also attended the Royal Easter Show with the Social Shuttle's resident landed gentry and contributor Bill Ranken.

And Lord Vestey and Nina Clarkin have another claim to Oz-Sam Vestey's great grandmother was the opera singer Dame Nellie Melba.

Will the Shuttle Prove Lucky for Collette Dinnigan & Kate Middleton?

In 1979 the Shuttle's resident psychic adviser Mandy Miami was looking for a new British designer to showcase at the New York nite spot she was managing-the Mudd Club. She chose an up and coming young couple David and Elizabeth Emanuel for her British Invasion Fashion Show that scored the Emanuels a front page story in the prestige Woman's Wear Daily.



The Emanuel wedding dress

 And she predicted an amazing success for the 2 designers and that one shining moment was in store for them very soon- one of their designs  "will be seen throughout the entire world like no other has ever before".

In 1981 Princess Diana wed HRH Prince Charles in a now famous Emanuel wedding dress, watched on live TV by billions of people around the world.



Miranda Kerr in Collette Dinnigan



On Tuesday evening the Shuttle attended the opening of Collette Dinnigan's new Woollahra boutique. The news had just broken of the engagement of Kate Middleton and Prince William. Collette is one of Kate's favourite designers and Kate is a regular at her London store. Today Ms Dinnigan fielded phone calls from media outlets around the world asking for her advice on Kate's wedding dress.

In Vogue UK she is running at odds 16/1 along with Alice Temperley another favourite, that the future Queen will wear one of her designs on her wedding day.

However the chances of Kate choosing a non-British wedding dress designer are pretty slim. The British media would rip her to shreds if she wore a foreign design-even a colonial one. But Collette does a nice line in beautiful Christening gowns for that inevitable Royal baby that will be with us in a year or so !

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Society maven Marie Sutton , the woman who managed to gazump the entire world by getting Princess Diana to attend the Victor Chang dinner in Sydney in 1995 as her last official charity function tells the Shuttle her phone began ringing at 5am this morning and hasn't stopped.

"They're calling from all over the world" she says "radio stations and newspapers in London and America. I even had a TV station in South Africa wanting to send a film crew to interview me".

"There's not much I can tell them" she says. " I've never met Kate and last spoke to William on the telephone 3 years ago".

In the meantime she is busy filling a table for the Black & White Committee charity lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel on the 30th November.

The special guest is John Rendall of 'Christian The Lion' fame. He's  just returned from hosting a safari in Kenya and will be giving a talk at the lunch on life in an antique shop on the Kings Road, Chelsea with the lion cub he purchased at Harrods in the 1970s.

And there's a slide show. The pictures were recently exhibited at the prestige Saatchi Gallery in London.

To purchase tickets to the Black & White lunch contact them on (02) 9327 5698 or email susan.diver@rbs.org.au.

Ask to sit on Marie's table and she'll tell you all about Princess Diana !

For those who have forgotten about the Christian saga-here is the youtube video that went viral worldwide. Get the Kleenex out.....

Holly Vallance's boyfriend and Prince Charles

This week the Sunday Telegraph made much of singer Holly Vallance's romance with UK property "billionaire" Nick Candy, although she and Candy have been dating for sometime now. (the paper's sister rag The Herald Sun called Candy a 'millionaire')

How rich are the Candys?. Nick and his brother Christian own a building corporation (like Sydney , London society under New Labour saw the rise of the  property developer) but the brotherly entrepreneurs have had a few hic-cups in the past.

In 2004 they were conned by four men into buying  the King's Beeches site once owned by the King and Queen of Thailand. The four men who presented credible documents didn't actually own the property which belonged to a Saudi billionaire. The 4 con men were eventually jailed and the Candy's were compensated by the Lands Registry Office which had passed the deal. It's said the Candy's loss of face was almost as bad as their financial loss.

Nick & Christian Candy

Earlier this year a consortium the brothers put together to pay $500M for a choice Beverley Hills plot in Los Angeles  fell into default when it couldn't pay two-thirds of the purchase price. The lot was eventually auctioned but failed to cover the cost price.
When the pair bought the plot in 2007 local realtors were already gossiping that they had paid far too much.

The Candy's are based in Monaco and are seen about London with the usual toys- Rolls Royces, Bentleys and Ferarris.
They also had sumptuous headquarters by the Thames River in a building they had paid $39M for and renovated with black marbled floors and black leather lined lifts which they also sold this year for $60M claiming to have made a huge profit. Insiders say they spent nearly $60M alone renovating the building and are puzzled by the claims of a profit.

 More recently they came a cropper over plans to re-develop the famous Chelsea Barracks with yet another glass and concrete monster, when HRH Prince Charles wrote to their partner and expressed his dismay  in the venture. That partner Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, prime minister of Qatar and the Qatar Royal Family pulled the plug on the venture. When Charle's letter became public there were howls of protest from all corners and the loudest were the Candy's.

Charles launches a development he likes-Breakfast Point in Sydney

The Candy's sued the Qatari Royal Family and won an out of court settlement in July this year.

But they also made a grovelling apology to Prince Charles for dragging his name into the debacle.

However residents of Chelsea cheered Charles for his endeavour.

Other developments in London have been cancelled while their pride and joy-One Hyde Park , a glass palace of 86 apartments in Knighstbridge due for completion this year is half sold according to the Candys.

Not so says our source in Dubai where one buyer had put a holding deposit on 3 of the super luxury flats. Since the downturn in the Dubai property market he has withdrawn from the sale. There are rumours 2 other buyers have pulled out and others are beginning to re-negotiate the original sale price.

another tabloid discovers the Shuttle

The Sun Herald, Australia's second largest Sunday newspaper has paid tribute to Social Shuttle contributor Bill Ranken on his 80th birthday. Ranken has been a regular on the London , New York and Sydney social rounds for over 50 years, taking up photography for the last 20. 

Living in a pied-a-terre in Elizabeth Bay during the week, Bill spends  his weekends on his family property Lockesley in the Southern Highlands, regarded as the possibly the best in NSW. Prince Charles is a regular visitor there. Neighbours include Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban. With it's magnificent sweeping valleys and Georgian house it's also often used as a film location, the latest being a horse whisperer epic staring actor Jack Thompson.

Ranken learnt how to work the land during a stint as a jackaroo in the outback in the 1950's riding with Aboriginal stockmen who he says are amongst the best horsemen he has ever encountered. A tractor accident  in his late 20's in which he lost an eye brought on a life change and although he regularly commutes between the city and his 2 country properties, for years he was spotted squiring well heeled ladies about town like Ros Packer in Sydney, Princess Margaret in London and Princess Lee Radziwill in the Hamptons.

On April 2nd-Bill's birthday, we launch his regular photo pages-15 Minutes.

exclusive: a Prince & Count to the rescue

Rural news:

 Long gone are the days when Oz lived off the sheep's back but HRH Prince Charles is coming to the rescue and will attend the 9th Rosehill and Wool Congress in April at the Rosehill Racecourse and Convention Centre in Sydney's west in April.

There will be all manner of exciting social events, including a welcome reception, cocktail party with The Australian Wool Fashion Awards and a dinner harbour cruise on picturesque Sydney Harbour, as well as tours, field trips and visits to the Sydney Royal Easter Show to watch sheep judging and other arena events.

The Congress presents a forum for active discussion and debate on the future and opportunities of the sheep, meat and wool industries.

And clocking in after giving the country a miss last year over the sheep mulesing controversy is Count Paolo Zegna, one of the largest buyers of the best quality wool which is shipped to Italy and turned into suits to be sold throughout the world. The Count was last here in 2008 when his Zegna Wool Awards were held in great secrecy at the Sir Standford Hotel with organizers fearful of a full on protest that was rumored would include visiting pop star and PETA advocate Pink !. Zegna flew in via Melbourne, arrived at the dinner, gave out a dozen plaques to the crusty faced sheep farmers and scampered. Pink and protest placards never materialized.

Fashion designer Liz Davenport, one of only five Australian designers bestowed with the nation’s top fashion honour - the Grand Award from the Fashion Industry of Australia and whose designs are sold in more than 300 boutiques and department stores throughout the world, is researching the wool industry for the Congress.

Currently in China Liz is quoted in The Land Newspaper saying "“You would never find a king, prince, premier, Prime minister, or a president wearing anything but a pure wool suit but this alone can’t keep farmers producing wool.” She also says : "“I asked a Chinese supplier where his wool came from and he said an animal. I asked what animal and he said he didn’t know – this is a problem.”. As for Charles-he says "Wool is a fibre even the most brilliant boffin in the most high-tech laboratory could never create.”

Liz should be pleased to know that Charles will be coming to her rescue. Not even the Congress organizers or her have been told of the Prince's visit yet.

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Meanwhile Russell Crowe's Museum of Interesting Things has finally opened at the Nymboida Coaching Station Inn . The old barn in the small NSW country town now houses a ton of Crowe memorabilia including his Romper Stomper boots, Gladiator costume, wild west outfits from 3.10 to Yuma, a dozen Johnny Cash gold albums and dozen cricket caps from famous batmen over the decades including Don Bradman.

No. we have no idea where Nymbodia is either .
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Wishing you were there:

    At Sugarmill in Kings Cross on Tuesday comedian Gary Eck was upstaged by Robin Williams who was dining with Happy Feet 2 co-star Elijah Wood. Williams gave an impromptu 30 minute hilarious dissertation about his Sydney visit. Anyone who has been to a William's press conference will know just how side-splittingly funny Williams can be.

     tSS began to film part of the routine with our snap happy but a tap on the shoulder from a large gent changed our minds.

    Williams and Wood are recording voices for the cartoon penguin fantasy at George Miller's Kings Cross studios.

exclusive : Sydney snares film awards and Morgan's on the way

            On the day NSW premier Kristina Keneally ( with Cate Blanchett in tow) announced that Sydney has lured the Australian Film Awards (AFI) away from their usual home in Melbourne, tSS can exclusively announce plans are well underway to film a science fiction epic based on the Sir Arthur C.Clarke's award-winning 1972 novel Rendezvous with Rama ,some of which will be shot in Australia.

           The rights to Rama were purchased by actor Morgan Freeman several years ago and he has raised $US200M to produce the film. tSS's Hollywood spy disguised as Freeman's co-producer says that script problems are nearly over with Freeman, a perfectionist  demanding re-writes to steer the movie away from Hollywood sensationalism and to stay more faithful with Clarke's original concept, much like Stanley Kubrik's epic 2001 A Space Odyssey, based on another Clarke novel.

        Rendevous with Rama is set in the 22nd century when an alien ship suddenly appears in Earth's solar system and an expedition is sent out to explore the first alien artifact. The film has been Freeman's pet project for over 10 years now.
         tSS was fortunate to visit Sri Lanka in 2006 to meet with Freeman and Sir Arthur when the actor arrived to spend a week with the science fiction master in his rambling beachside bungalow to discuss aspects of the production.
         Much of the film is to be shot in New Zealand at Lord of the Ring's director Peter Jackson's studios with dates now being lined up at Sydney's Fox Studios and the Gold Coast's Warner Bros studios in 2011. Freeman will produce, direct and star in the film and is expected to visit Australia later this year.
         Freeman and Clarke formed a close bond as far back as 1996 when he first contacted the writer about purchasing the rights to his book. He, along with most of Sri Lanka were rocked when Sir Arthur was accused of sex crimes by one of the UK's most tawdry tabloids in 1998.

           Unkown to the outside world, Clarke had been paralyzed from the waist down for over 15 years putting paid to some of the physical claims by a reporter. Like the US president FDR, he would have himself propped up for media photographs to give the impression he was mobile on his legs.
           Clarke was regarded as one of Sri Lanka's most honoured citizens having spent almost his entire life living there. Despite Sri Lankan diplomats demanding the British newspaper hand over their proof, it continually declined to or ignored them.

            Then 3 young men admitted they had been paid cash by the newspaper to make the claims and withdrew their allegations. To this day, a Sri Lankan arrest warrant is still outstanding for the newspaper hack who filed the original report. Several NGOs who picked up on the false claims citing rumours alone, were only relieved from million dollar defamation lawsuits upon Clarke's death in 2008.
           At the time of the allegations, stories swirled about that the false claims were an attempt to embarrass HRH Prince Charles who was to travel to Sri Lanka in 1998 to invest Clarke with his knighthood. tSS has some inside credible knowledge on that, which we may publish one day.
            When Clarke died, he left most of his milllion dollar fortune to his Sri Lanka male partner of over 40 years and their extended family. The lurid tabloid stories contained tales of children living in Clarke's compound of an old English style house and half a dozen smaller houses. The kids turned out to be the children of his partner's brothers and sisters, all who had been housed by the British born writer.
          

Harry hits the headlines..

The UK's Sunday Express tabloid  has jumped on a few pages in Harry M.Miller's autobiography Confessions Of a Not So Secret Agent over his claims of a dinner party conversation with HRH Prince Charles.

  
According to Miller, Charles said in 1977 that the Royal family was past it's use by date and that Australia should be made a republic. Charle's was puzzled : “why Australia bothered with us – we are really yesterday’s news”. Miller also says Prince Charles "bedded" a number of local girls and was annoyed that the NSW Governor and Victoria Cross recipient Sir Roden Cutler (known to his friends as Rodent Cutlet ) interfered with Charles night-time plans by sitting up late for him at the rather magnificent if somewhat stuffy Government House perched high above the Opera House..


It tops a month of a brilliant publicity campaign by Harry, one of the best in the business that has seen the book flying off the shelves.  But is it true ?. There's a clue here and it concerns the late Governor. It's pretty common knowledge who Charles was really bedding and she wasn't the wife of a politician as Miller claims. But she was the wife of a VIP linked to Cutler whose career was nipped in the bud by the state Governor who was furious at the time. Nor can we quite see Sir Roden really giving the Royal heir a hard time-he was an avowed monarchist. It was Charlie's choice of partner who it's said he spent the entire visit to Australia with, that annoyed Cutler. Perhaps Harry is being kind with his confessions. The Prince's flame is still married to her husband who has since gone onto have a stellar career in other areas and become a pillar of the establishment. That career didn't however include his ambition-to follow in Sir Roden's footsteps.