exclusive: Leo gets married

Aussie based singer Leo Sayer has maried long time girfirend Donatella Piccinetti at a romantic beautiful country wedding In Berrima. Glen Marie Frost did the honours.

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.

A Very Nice Chrissy Present

Sargeant & Ferrari

Every girl should treat herself and that's just what marketing expert Sharon Sargeant has done after successfully selling the escort agency she set up 18 months ago.

Sargeant, a country girl from Queensland is shaping up to be one smart cookie. 

The world was alerted to her when she started dating the famous private investigator Frank Monte around 4 years ago. Frank threw a party at the uber smart Otto's Restaurant on the Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo to introduce her to Sydney and around 14 months ago they became engaged at the very same spot. 

Then Rupert Murdoch's Daily Telegraph discovered that Sharon owned an up-market escort agency Red Velvet Models. Sharon says she manned the telephones and organised the lives of the models working for her and checked out the credentials of the prospective customers.

A wardrobe malfunction that happened after Sharon and the girls had a night out to see Lady Ga Ga and went partying in Kings Cross was splashed across tabloid pages around the world.

Soon she was appearing again in newspapers from Sydney to Delhi when Ms  Sargeant  was discovered dancing in Las Vegas with one of the USA's top porn stars Claudia-Marie (beware-it's an adult site). 

Finally a controversy blew up in British newspapers after raunchy pics appeared of the British Rugby team setting off in a million dollar gin palace from the very same wharf in Woolloomooloo.

Sharon meets the English Rugby team

 Sharon had been spotted and photographed talking to the footballers in a restaurant earlier in the day before she farewelled them off in the boat with some scantily clad models.

But it seems Sharon had ulterior motives all along.
When we contacted her today she confirmed she had sold Red Velvet Models to a US firm and was pondering  her next business move.

they sail off into the sunset

"It was always my plan " says Sargeant " I always planned to set up the business, promote it like crazy until it was a success and then sell. I get bored easily and I'm always looking for the next business venture"

And it seems the business paid off. Our snapper spotted Ms Sargeant a few days ago in the Bondi Westfield car park about to clamber into a gleaming new black $400,000 Ferrari.

"I treated myself for a good year's work" says Ms Sargeant.

As to her future plans :"I'm looking around for opportunities and have a few in mind" she says. " One is an adult product supplies service-most of them look terribly old fashioned and I think I can whip the industry into shape quick smart "

Sharon and Monte have moved out their Icon apartment in Kings Cross into the Toaster building near Circular Quay where they plan to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks. 

"Frank and I still date and go to parties together but he's spending more and more time in the US and I always travel with him " says Sharon  'He's a fascinating man and being around him is never boring".

Will she be assisting with his Upper House bid in the NSW March election?.
"I should put my marketing skills to work but actually he's pretty good himself and I haven't really followed state politics. But Frank would make an excellent MP as he would ensure that other MPs would remain honest given his background"
 Perhaps I should have asked advice from the 2 state MPs who were customers of my last business" she says.

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Leo Sayer

Santa & Rabbi

Showing why he's been dubbed " Mr Double Bay" in a suburb with a large Jewish community, Dee Bee's owner Graham Goldberg threw his famous Christmas drinks party on the 24th and made sure he had all bases covered.

Joining guests like Leo Sayer, actor Michael Caton and around town ladies Marie Sutton and Angela Belle McSweeney- a Santa Claus and a Rabbi !

Why British tabloids should listen to us

Fast on the heels of our tale (below at the end of "Cate Blanchett Snubbed") a UK tabloid the Daily Star has published a tale about our pal Russell Crowe titled :

CROWE'S CONCERT CANCELLED

Music-loving RUSSELL CROWE abandoned plans to sing at a children's charity show on Monday (09Aug10) - and spent the evening reading stories to his sons instead.

The Gladiator actor had volunteered to perform a song at a show for the Australian Children's Music Foundation at the State Theatre in Sydney on Monday evening.

But after travelling to the venue, Crowe's slot was cancelled - and he took advantage of his night off by spending quality time with his kids.

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Errr..not quite folks. The event to which the Shuttle was invited was  the Dueting For Kids concert to raise funds for the Australian Children's Music Foundation which was founded by children's TV host Don Spencer OAM who is the father of Danielle Spencer who is married to Crowe.

Although Russell is an Ambassador for the foundation along with a host of music identities like Dame Joan Sutherland,  Andrew Farriss from INXS, The Wiggles honorary Oz resident Leo Sayer,  Rolf Harris and Andre Rieu, Russell Crowe had never intended to either attend the function or perform at it.

Naturally Crowe and his wife Danielle are great supporters of Don who is a tireless charity worker and  the pair nearly always turn up at events to aid his works but Crowe is always mindful that being one the world's current top box office movie stars, he is bound to be the center of attention.

If the Daily Star had read the Shuttle as at least 4 other British tabloids do on a regular basis  (reproducing stories from here,) they would get these things right.

Russell & Danielle at a Don Spencer event in 2008

 Fortunately one daily London newspaper has now come to an arrangement with the Social Shuttle to have first access to our exclusives. That's one to us and nil to the Daily Star

As we noted yesterday Crowe would not be at the event (with organisers confirming to us today that he was never going to be). He twittered that  night that he felt he was coming down with the flu.

Which didn't stop him taking his usual morning walk with his kids today around Wooloomoolloo and through the Botanic Gardens where he gave the Shuttle a cheery wave. Crowe has told us in the past that one of the reasons he loves being back home in Sydney is because of the relative freedom he has to wander about unbothered by paparazzi.

2 Years ago he devised a scheme perfect in it's simple brilliance to maintain that privacy. Every time he leaves his home now for  his daily constitutional he wears exactly the same clothes, thereby devaluing possible sales of snaps of him out in public.

Cafe wars vamp up in Bubble Bay

        Graeme Goldberg, the 6'6" Eastender, and host of DeeBees fires the first shot tonight with a customer loyalty party as a re-vamped Cosmopolitan opens directly opposite in the Eastern Suburbs society haunt of Double Bay.

       The Cosmospolitan has been undergoing major renovations since the Sir Standford Hotel shut down last year and is now open for business and drawing many of the older customers who favoured it's expansive outdoor seating area to while away the hours gazing at the passing parade.

 
  Double Bay-or Double Pay (or Bubble Bay) as kids refer to it because of it's expensive boutiques that come and go with great regularity, had hit hard times in recent years that seemed to co-incide with the collapse of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, once the favoured bolt hole of visiting celebrities like Bob Dylan, Princess Diana, Presidents Clinton and Bush and the stage for the final exit of INXS frontman Michael Hutchence.

         But retailers are reporting a mini-boom with the great US financial calamity as more and more people delay holidays abroad.  Expect GG to roll out the usual suspects-Leo Sayer, Max Markson and boxers Jeff Fenech and Joe Bugner.

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      Meanwhile on Wednesday the New Zealand born businessman and yachtsman Neville Crichton will host a glittering shindig to launch the new Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano at his Waterloo showrooms.

      There has been a parting of the ways between Chrichton and Tony Graziano, the amiable former boss of Ferrari and Maserati in Australia. Both are staying mum on the reasons but it was Graziano who used his connections to secure a deal to transport stars like Sophia Loren and Catherine Deneuve on their Sydney visits gaining valuable column inches in the media.

      

 It even paid off handsomely when Graziano stepped into the breach to get the most successful Miss Universe winner Jennifer Hawkins to her hometown of Newcastle during her triumphant homecoming tour after Rolls Royce / Bentley sniffed at the prospect proclaiming "we don't have that many customers up there", a reference to the steel city's working class origins. Hawkins repaid Graziano by purchasing the Maserati Tony chauffeured her in.

    

Guests arriving at a function to launch a new harbour cruiser last week were startled to see a glaring Neville Crichton as Tony Graziano 'gate-crashed' the launch and parked a Maserati at the entrance complete with a couple of glamour girls. Graziano is now flogging used autos and specialising in luxury Italian cars.

..always keep a diary

One noted guest amongst the glitterati like tiny singer Leo Sayer, bon vivant & style meister Leo Scholfield and Lord Mayor Clover Moore at last night's re-opening party for the glorious Queen Victoria Building with it's $45M re-vamp was former Town Clerk Leon Carter. Carter, a Scottish baron , was Town Clerk under 11 Lord Mayor's and keeper of the city secrets.

Recently uncovered by builders in the Town Hall ceiling-just across the road from the QVB-was the legendary "shooting gallery", long rumoured to be there but only just re-discovered in a remote corner of that vast building.

The shooting gallery dated back to WW2 and when Sydney was often described as the "Chicago of the South Pacific". No, not because it was windy-mainly because it was run by bent cops in co-ordination with criminal gangs. It was decided it would be prudent that town hall workers be armed and skilled in shooting, hence the shooting gallery.

Carter, who has seen off more Lord Mayor's than memory can handle also has a reputation as a no-nonsense official. One town hall worker who preferred to remain anonymous related how Leon "sensibly kept a pistol and a little black book in his desk drawer. No-one knew which was more dangerous !"

Leon also revealed the history of the word 'camp'-the word once used in Sydney and Melbourne to describe gays (the existence of lesbians as usual, being completely ignored). It began in the former colony's convict days when women were scarce and young lads turned to other activities to make a buck or two. When arrested for prostitution in the city known throughout the South Pacific for it's male bordellos, an offender would have his record stamped by police with the initials KAMP-"known as male prostitute" !. And you thought it was all about wearing hideous feather boas and miming to Babra Streisand songs !