A Right Royal Mix-Up!

On Friday evening the Sydney Town Hall will be decked out in it's finery for the 75th year gala Black & White Ball which will raise much needed funds for children who are blind and vision impaired.


For decades the Black & White Ball was the pinnacle of Sydney's social calendar when Eastern Suburbs socialites would frock up in their best ball gowns and dinner jackets. Tonight is expected to be a very special evening and the young debutantes who compete in the Derby (they reel in sponsored wooden horses across the dance floor !) should be trembling with the excitement of it all.


Alas, there has been a bungle.

The head table is always reserved for an Admiral of the Navy, an Air Force representative and possibly the chief of the Australian Defence Force and the most important guest of all, the State Governor.

Marie Bashir MIA

All guests are seated before the National Anthem is played and the official table parades down the red carpet to take their seats.

This year, HM The Queen's representative and patron of the charity Governor Marie Bashir will be missing. And why ?. A mix-up with the date according to our mole disguised as a bunch of white gladioli in the charity committee's board room in Double Bay.
First Elizabeth11 snubs Sydney, now the Governor is snubbed !.

HRH Princess Birgitta 

Relax though. Royalty is within our midst.Her Royal Highness Princess Birgitta of Sweden and Hohenzollern is in town for a few days of R & R.
She's the sister of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and is married to Prince Johann of Hohenzollern. You may have spotted them at British Royal Family weddings. In the seats over at the side reserved for European royalty (they were at William & Kate's wedding).

Birgitta is in town to play golf and see old friends.
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Someone who was snubbed her entire life by the British Royal Family was the Duchess of Windsor who married HM The Queen's uncle Bertie which led to his abdication.

At the Hampstead Theatre in London tonight, a play called The Last of The Duchess based  a book by Lady Caroline Blackwood opens. It tells of the last days of the Duchess as Blackwood attempts to interview her in Paris but is blocked by her ruthless lawyer Suzanne Blum (played by Sheila Hancock in the play) who it was said kept her prisoner in her final years.