Nicole Channel's Eliza

That's Eliza Doolittle of course and we think it's Nicole Kidman. She had rather a waxy look about her, a slight touch of the Madame Tussuad's.
Flemington's Derby Day is the smarter race meet of the Melbourne Cup racing season. It's a bit more refined. After today it all goes downhill and Melbourne Cup next Tuesday is best avoided.

The Shuttle has covered more than out fair share and even provided the "celebrity" visitors on two occasions. Now we find the races rather tiring, It's better to find a local Sydney party for the day and hang out there. That saves the trouble of booking flights and hotels in Melbourne which are choc-a-bloc.

On Tuesday Flemington is packed with humanity-hundreds of thousands of them,. Fascinators are so thick on the ground one could take your eye if you turned your head quickly. On Derby Day virtually every Sydney celebrity, news reader, weather girl and so on is in Melbourne as Sydney's gossip set flies down to file reports on the same Sydneysiders they saw last week. There is usually an obligatory mention of Eileen Bond.

Italian designer Robert Cavalli was at the Derby, cleverly shouting the word Lavazzi (who paid him to turn up) into any microphone that would listen. As well as telling us about his glamorous new range soon to be had at Target.

Getting to the Cup on Tuesday is a bit of a nightmare unless you happen to be staying with Captain Peter Jansen (right) in his magnificent 4 story city building, where once past the front door you find yourself  in an eccentric English country style manor house complete with stuffed bears and hunting trophies.

Jansen is a Racing Season regular and once raced Jaguar cars in England. One year with Jansen behind the wheel of an XJ Sports and English milliner to the Royals, Freddy Fox beside him, the Shuttle crouched in fear in the rear seat as Jansen floored the Jag and got us to Flemington in under 15 minutes, waving aside policeman who jumped out of his way. Leaving the Jag purring right at the main entrance of the racecourse the three of us belted through the course to the Myer enclave so Freddie and Peter could judge the first rounds of Fashions In The Fields.

The highlight on Tuesday is of course, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall who will present the Melbourne Cup..

Nice Coffee-Neat Calendar

We love this calendar. It's a bit late in the year to release it  but one should always time their promotion to a date as Lavazzi Coffee did-Valentine's Day.



Layne Beachley, Wendy Harmer Kym Wilson at Lavazzi



Lavazzi have been publishing a calendar for 19 years now and this year's snapper who took the beautiful and subtle photos is world famous Mark Seliger whose work you see in publications like Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone.

The theme of the calendar was 'Falling In Love With Italy' with Seliger's work depicting different scenes each set in a different part of Italy where as any romantic worth their salt knows it is impossible not to fall in love. And that's just with the food.

Mark's work is often seen in galleries and museums all over the world and he's especially known for his creative shots that transform real life into art.

Past photographers have included Annie Lebowitz (currently in Sydney for her MCA exhibition that will soon tour the country ).

The calendar was launched the same night at a private party along the Navigli the historic and once navigable canals that are now Milan's most romantic settings within a venue transformed into Cupid's garden.

Sydneysiders settled for a huge terrace house in leafy Challis Avenue, Potts Point transformed into-well a large room with plenty of good eats, champers and delicious coffee based cocktails surrounded by huge billboards of some of Selinger's romantic photos. This calendar is a great size-6" x 8" but can the general public get a copy ?. We forgot to ask.



Blair Milan



## Naturally a top Italian coffee firm like Lavazzi wants only the best for it's guests and that was evident with the parties catering staff supplied by the award winning Stedman's team led by Mandy Quinn who has won numerous awards.

 They may soon have competition. Blair Milan one of their major, majordomos is about to set  up a catering and staff hire firm of his own.  Hugely talented Blair's dad is the media personality Nigel Milan who once ran New Zealand's top television network and transformed SBS TV into the sensational multi cultural outlet it is today.

And Blair's mum is one of TV's most popular chefs and foodies-Lyndey Milan who writes for the Australian Women's Weekly and appears on Kerri-Anne Kennerley's Morning TV Show. Lyndey once presented Gordon Ramsey with a 'swear jar' at a Sydney party into which he was to deposit gold coins for charity every time he swore. Ramsey fumbled the jar upon presentation and it smashed to the floor in a thousand pieces as he exclaimed "oh f*ck !"