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 "

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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.

British Tabloid Catches Up to The Shuttle !

Four weeks to the day after the Shuttle told the world that the Golden Globe award winning film The King's Speech was filmed in the premises at 33 Portland Place in Marlebone, London owned by 'Lord' Edward Davenport, the London Evening Standard newspaper in the UK has picked up the tale :

"It is the room where Colin Firth as King George VI learned to overcome his stammer, a scene watched by millions of film fans.

But it can be revealed that the set of Lionel Logue's clinic has been the scene of wild parties organised by the house's owner, Edward Davenport, including being hired out for "sex parties".

Read the Evening Standard report  here

Our friends at the UK Daily Mail have also run a report .here

Aussie Actors Nominated For Golden Globe Awards

Geoffrey Rush : The King's Speech

3 stalwarts of the Australian film industry are up for Critics' Choice Awards-Nicole Kidman, Jackie Weaver and Geoffrey Rush  but the surprise choice is young teen actor  Kodi Smit-McPhee who excelled in the independent hit  Romulus My Father in 2007.

Kidman will be competing with Natalie Portman and Annette Bening in the Best Actress category for her performance in Rabbit Hole while Geoffrey Rush is sure to win for his terrific performance as the Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue who tutored a stuttering King George IV on how to handle public speaking.

Colin Firth who played the King has been nominated as Best Actor. The King's Speech has  Golden Globe and Oscar winner written all over it.

Jackie Weaver who cleaned up at the Australian Film Industry Awards ( AFI) for her role as the tough talking matriarch of a crime family in Animal Kingdom has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress (another certain Oscar nominee).

14 year old Kodi Smit-McPhee who may walk away with an award as the Best New Young Actor / Actress for his part in Let Me In will compete with his co-star Chloe Grace Moretz  for the same gong.

Kodi won an AFI award for Romulus playing the son of an Italian immigrant (Eric Bana).
For the full list of awards go to the Critic's Choice website.

An interview with Chloe & Kodi at the Sitges Festival: