Diana: the gift that keeps on giving

Brisbane based writer John Morgan has published the latest in a long line of Princess Diana death books claiming that Diana’s post-mortem samples were switched with those of another woman.

He says that the cover-up could only have been ordered by The Queen.

Morgan says in the UK Daily Express that : "There is a lot of evidence which points to the toxicology testing being carried out on samples that did not come from the body of Princess Diana,... and that the documents were, along with others, withheld from the inquest jury"

"The evidence I have studied indicates that there are two lots of samples. One belongs to Diana, which is held by the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Paget, and the other lot are samples from another body and held by Charing Cross Hospital.

“Diana’s UK post-mortem samples were switched ahead of the toxicology testing.”

“I am asking why?” So are we. It seems that Diana had been drinking on the fateful night and this is a possible reason as according to a Fulham mortuary worker her "stomach smelled strongly of alcohol".

But then Diana's body was supposedly embalmed in France before it was returned to London. And why was a mortuary attendant sniffing around Diana's stomach ?

All these questions and more maybe answered in "Diana Inquest: Part 4: The British Cover-Up "
apparently the fourth volume in the saga.

Needless to say the tome has been warmly received by Mohamed Fayed who calls the book "heroic".

Tupou IV

Fayed has reportedly backed a 90-minute film "Unlawful Killing," by British actor and director Keith Allen which contains a "shocking "photo of a dying Diana which will be shown for the first time. Despite the fact the snap can be viewed on the interent and really isn't  all that shocking.

 Diana conspiracies have become Mohamed Fayed's raison d'être and he has accused Prince Phillip in the past of conspiring to murder Diana and Dodi.

Just 2 weeks ago at the wedding of HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton ,  royal 'watcher' James Whittaker was reporting live for the Nine network when he announced the arrival of Dodi Fayed at Westminster Abbey.


Fayed

"I mean Mohamed Fayed" he soon corrected himself, and then commented how gracious it was that the royal family had invited the hapless former owner of Harrods and father of Dodi who died with Diana in the Paris smash.

The portly figure in a morning suit and bedecked with medals was in fact, Tupou IV, the King of Tonga.

William's grandmother HRH The Queen was crowned in 1953 and one guest was Tupou's grandmother, the enormous girthed Queen Salote of Tonga who held an umbrella aloft shielding her and an aide as they travelled in a coach to Buck House in the pouring rain.

Princess Marina who was watched the passing parade with the writer Noel Coward asked who she was.
"Queen Salote" said Coward.
"And who is that with her ?" said Marina. " her lunch " responded Coward !

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Famous Last Words:
As the shenanigans of the enterprising Ibrahim family-owners of nightclubs and unidentified enterprises, plays out in the media and the courts- now with 2 nights of gun shots being pumped into various Ibrahim abodes by unknown would be assassins, we noted the words of a NSW Detective commenting on the mayhem.

Fadi Ibrahim is currently appearing in the Central Criminal Court, alleged to have conspired to bump off a man who he believed was one of the hooded men who pumped a dozen bullets into he and his girlfriend as they sat in a Lamborghini outside his North side house two years ago.

"This isn't acceptable" said the copper outside the court "and I advise the Ibrahim family to keep a very low profile so they go about their business unnoticed" while in the background, the diminutive Fadi in a snappy Italian suit and mirrored sunglasses clambered into a brand new silver, million dollar Rolls Royce Phantom!

London Mayor Wants His $100 Wager Win from Aussie

Writing in the UK Telegraph newspaper in a piece titled Even the Aussies want to bend the knee to the Queen , London Mayor Boris Johnson says he made a $100 bet 20 years ago in a Melbourne pub and as he has won the bet-he wants his winnings !. Unfortunately for Johnson, he just can't remember who he made the bet with as he lost a slip of paper with a name on it but he recalls it was an Australian university professor.

Johnson says : "somewhere out there is a vaguely Left-wing Aussie professor who owes me a hundred bucks. The only trouble is that I can't remember his name, so I am shamelessly using this column to jog his memory "

www.moviemem.com

The subject of the bet : that HRH The Queen would still be the monarch of Australia in the year 2000, which she was and still is.

Boris had just seen the film The King's Speech in which Geoffrey Rush as the speech therapist Lionel Logue reminds the future King George V1 that he will also be the King of Australia. The line jogged Johnson's memory about  the bet he made all that time ago when he was a visiting Professor of European Thought at Monash University.

Clover Moore

If you are that professor then 'fess up and send Boris his $100.

In the meantime, perhaps the London Mayor who nips around the dangerous London traffic on a push bike could give our dog collar wearing Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore some tips on just what those intrusive bike lanes that have appeared all over Sydney are actually used for.

On a trip from the Harbour Bridge today, the Shuttle travelled to the headquarters of Courier Newspapers in Alexandria alongside miles of the gleaming new bike lanes that have halved the size of car space on roads. We didn't spot one single cyclist.

Parky Declares A Republic is Needed !

One aspect of Sir Michael Parkinson's Australia Day speech last night at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music was the inevitable subject of whether Australia should become a republic after the failed republican campaign led by Malcolm Turnbull in 2000 was defeated in a referendum before the Australian people.

Parky leans to the left of politics- born in working class Yorkshire and the son of a miner- he once told the Shuttle in 1998 over dinner in response to the question of what he thought of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher :

"she was a perfect example of total power corrupting. I'm with the Queen on this-she couldn't stand Maggie !"

Sir Michael reckons that Australia, where he is spending more and more time in retirement , should become a republic but not until after the death of his favourite Royal, HRH Queen Elizabeth 11.

And the reason ?. "Just think" said Parky, "and you should put this jingle to the tune of The Beatles 
"We all Live in A Yellow Submarine":

"your -next -Queen- is- Camilla- Parker- Bowles, -Camilla -Parker -Bowles ".

If you have forgotten the tune-here is the original:

Michael Parkinson Becomes Honorary Australian

Comedian Ben Elton has become a citizen and 70's star Leo Sayer loves the place.

Now Sir Michael Parkinson has been given the rare honour of giving the Australia Day address at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music tonight.

Parky is no stranger to the place, Both he and wife, the TV presenter Mary Parkinson have been visiting Australia for 30 years. They spend most summers in an apartment in Rushcutter's Bay overlooking the harbour. One daughter and her family have lived here for 20 years which gives them the excuse to visit.

But of course, Parkinson's love of Australia has always been well known and since his retirement last year he told the Shuttle in January 2010 that one of the joys of giving up his interview program was the ability to spend more time here and of course, the ability to watch even more cricket, one of his greatest loves.

Leo Sayer (Australia Day Council)

Tonight Michael Parkinson in his speech pointed out some of the reasons he loves the place including the lack of snobbery and the directness of Aussies. He used former Prime Minister Paul Keating as an example pointing out the outrage that surged through British tabloids when Keating put a protective arm around HRH The Queen on an official visit and labelled Keating The Lizard of Oz :

 "He was simply reaching out in a friendly gesture as one human being to another. Here we are all human beings."

Parkinson said Australia first came to his attention as a boy in Shropshire when his miner father constantly commented on the quality of Australian cricketers. In his speech he marvelled at how the country had progressed from a penal colony to in his words : "one of the most powerful and progressive nations in the world".

And he brought up the subject of the devastating floods in Queensland and the dreadful bush fires in Victoria last year saying :


"It is a reminder to the world of the resilience and the courage of the Australian people"

# Fans of Parky should check out former East Ender Graeme Goldberg's Dee Bees cafe in Double Bay where Michael and Mary often take breakfast. You may even see Leo Sayer there-he and Goldberg are great mates. According to Graeme, Ben Elton is yet to visit as he lives in Perth with his family.

See our earlier chat with Michael Parkinson at Doyles in Watson's Bay.

A reminder of Michael Parkinson's brilliant show with one of his favourite guests-Dame Edna Everage.

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.

last minute Christmas presents

  God only knows how they did it with the postal workers strike but  tSS was delighted to receive on Boxing Day, 2 books for Christmas that have brought us much delight. One is the 'Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus' by Mario Reading , a weighty tome from which we will bring you some compelling revelations for the future shortly in 2010.




  The other was 'Alison Jackson Confidential', the second publication by this brilliant and very funny photographer. By a remarkable co-incidence Britain's Daily Mail today has run a series of Alison's very funny snaps reputedly of HRH The Queen going about London, one of which we re-produce with no apologies but at least we'll give you the link. Hey, the Mail routinely nicks our stories and pics without attribution but we are perfect gentlemen, if little else.
      Alison's books really are a hoot and feature celebrity look-a-likes with such clever lighting and poses you could never pick them from the real thing.

For the full set of the Daily Mail pics go to the Mail on Line's "Is That The Queen in Tescos?"

As to whether Australia becomes a Republic and with talk of such, expected to ramp up next year with Republican sympathiser PM Kevin Rudd in one corner and Monarchist Opposition Leader Tony Abbot ( a former amateur boxer to boot) in the other, the last word goes to the brilliant editor of the law journal Justinian Richard Akland about the popular choice for our first president, the recently retired High Court judge and world respected jurist Michael Kirby.

         Shuttlers will re-call Kirby, while still sitting on the bench of the High Court of Australia, 'outed' himself in 1999 in his Who's Who entry by quietly naming his long term partner as a Dutch born newsagent, Johan van Vloten.

          The howls of outrage were deafening even with an attempt in Parliament to bring m'learned Judge down via a concocted scandal involving rent boys supposedly picked up at Sydney's infamous under-age prostitute hang-out The Wall, by Kirby cruising about in his chauffeured Commonwealth car. He survived it all to retire this year. As Justinian reports :

"Geoffrey Robertson QC, the plummy barrister, wrote a critique of Kirby's contribution to society and the law: ''Once again, you must be Mr President - not of the NSW Court of Appeal but of the Australian nation … It must be President Kirby, and if homophobes snigger that you have become 'The Queen of Australia', just make the monarchists curtsy to you.''"

     

              Johan van Vloten & and partner Justice Michael Kirby