She's Baaack..

The Scourge of Fleet Street Madame Arcati has succumbed to pressure from her fan base and is back in business. Go here for the latest jottings of the British blogger who strikes fear into the hearts of society and those who dare to comment on it via the pages of the UK's ghastly tabloids.
Alternatively, Madame Aracti's long suffering manager (this is the UK's Dame Edan Everage / Barry Humphries very own Odd Couple) renowned astrologer "to the stars" (why not) Victor Olliver has just published his latest guide to your prospects for the next year. As we only half way through this one why not download his 2015 daily guide. We swear by it and won't even step outside the front door before we have consulted our Lifesurfing paperback.

It's Obama by A Nose..

The other big race is the US election. Top British astrologer Victor Olliver (right)  is picking another Barack Obama win based on his astrological chart (he's a Leo).

Read it here on the Madame Arcati website.
" US Election astrology special: Obama forecast to be re-elected

Elections, astrologically, are a nightmare challenge to call and the imminent US Election is particularly complex (actually, not just astrologically). The wise stargazers sit on the fence - the Mail's Jonathan Cainer has declared that the result will be unambiguous - but declines to say which candidate will win. Marjorie Orr (though seeming to back Romney) announces that election forecasting is too tricky. "

 

Of course as presidential contender Al Gore discovered in 2000, winning doesn't necessarily mean becoming president.  
There is always the matter of those tricky computerised voting machines.

New: Your Astrological Star Forecast for September

Victor Olliver is fast becoming one of the world's top astrologers with a horoscope column in Britain's oldest published magazine The Lady and with regular appearances on Apple FM which broadcasts out of Hong Kong.

Here are your stars for September:


You can get personal horoscopes at Victor's website :victorolliver.biz
** he comes highly recommended by Britain's most outrageous blogger Madame Arcati.

Madame Arcati Scoops the World-by 12 months

It was exactly 12 months ago that the famed British blogger Madame Arcati drew our attention to an interview with the wife of the Syrian president,  Asma al-Assad in US Vogue, declaring it in bad taste as demonstrating Syrians were being massacred by security forces. Shortly after the Arcati story, the article disappeared from Vogue's website.:
                                  
 "Vogue keeps up Asma al-Assad interview as Syria burns

While the Syrian government massacres its revolting peasants, I see that US Vogue has still yet to take down its recent ghastly and fawning interview with Asma al-Assad, Syria's 'dynamic first lady' who is on a 'mission to create a beacon of culture and secularism.' She should import the BBC's resident proselytising atheist Prof Brian Cox to help her out."

                                                                                           

Now the fabled Washington Post has just caught up to speed, 12 months after Madame Arcati's scoop.
Read the story as re-produced in the Sydney Morning Herald here and Madame Arcati's original posts here
                                           ****************************************


 Two days ago we asked who was the famous brother of the person in the snap we published.
The answer was Kevin Spacey.

 The pic was of his older brother Randy Fowler who runs the Rod's Limo Hire company in Boise Idaho.
You can see the family resemblence-can't you? :

Madame Arcati & The News Corp Insider

Rumours of her demise were greatly exaggerated. Just a few weeks ago the British blogger Madame Arcati announced her retirement from public life. It was short lived.
Now she is back and has scored an exclusive interview with the former News Of The World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck.
Thurlbeck has had the privilege of now having his collar felt twice in the Great Hacking Scandal that has made the British publishing world exciting once more.

Read Madame's Thurlbeck interview here.

# Neville Thurlbeck has also joined the blogging world here. It's a good read. Our readers in the UK may be interested in his 2000 Mercedes SL280 that's for sale for £5,999. The same model sells for $27,000  (£17,000) in Australia. Anyone visiting for the London Olympics should snap up the bargain. The Shuttle has shipped an automobile out from the UK before. Freight costs approx $1000. It's easier than you think and pays for the trip !

# On the subject of the late News Of The World, was it Mr Thurlbeck who penned a scurrilous article that appeared about the Shuttle a couple of decades ago ?. On the front page no less and mistaking us for a character of dubious morals with a similar name who hailed from Glasgow ?

They coughed up a tidy sum three weeks later that paid for a holiday to Morocco and a brand new yellow Mini car, dubbed 'Rupert' in the great man's honour.

Kevin Spacey, Madame Arcati : An Obesession With Penises

Kevin Spacey’s Richard III closed last night after a triumphant  run at the Lyric Theatre with Spacey receiving standing ovations. After the final performance Spacey shared champagne with billionaire Paul Ramsay who had forked out a $200,000 donation to the Kevin Spacey Foundation for a pair of tickets and another 100 grand for a game of tennis with the actor.

One theatre patron who wasn’t too taken with Spacey’s acting or the Sam Mendes production was former NSW premier Bob Carr who walked out of the play at interval and ripped into the Hollywood star's performance on his blog Thought Lines. 

Another who is probably not on Spacey’s Christmas card list is the famous British blogger Madame Arcati who has finally hung up her bicycle clips. Madame announced a week ago that her four year run was at an end.

Arcati has delighted, amused and horrified readers in equal doses but it was when she ignited a family feud amongst the Spacey family that her readership went through the roof.

Madame interviewed Spacey’s brother Randy Fowler in 2008. Randy had written a book Spacey’s Brother: Out of the Closet  in which he revealed that as a child he was regularly raped by his father who was was obsessed with pornography, was anti-Semitic and a member of the American Nazi Party.

Then Randy’s ex-wife Stephanie Mastini contacted Aracti bemoaning Spacey's superiority complex and claimed Randy was being ignored by his famous sibling.

Randy

Stephanie

Over the next two years matters degenerated into a family squabble with Stephanie’s sister Francine Mastini entering the fray calling her sibling Madame Batshit.

Finally Randy Fowler returned fire blaming Madame Arcati for all the fuss and accused all and sundry of trying to out his Oscar winning brother as gay.

There had already been much snickering about Spacey-who is the current artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre in London-after he was mugged in a London park at 4.30am by a young man who stole his mobile phone. (The incident brought back memories of the legendary BBC correspondent Sir Robin Day who had  been similarly mugged in Holland Park Walk whilst taking a constitutional walk. Day said at the time he had no idea the Walk was a gay beat even though he had lived nearby for 20 years.)

Soon Randy's ghost writer Jack Ewing chipped in and not to be left out, Spacey's biographer 

Randy Tamblyn had a few words to say as well.

The outcome was a rash of twitter bannings by Spacey with Madame Arcati and Stephanie being consigned to the sin bin where they have probably been joined by Bob Carr.

The penises ?. The man who is reputedly the mastermind behind the Madame Aracti blog  Victor Olliver has fled to the gentler world of Astrology and has become resident star gazer for the famous publication The Lady, Britain's oldest published magazine. 

Editor of The Lady, Rachel Johnson (sister of London's Lord Mayor Boris Johnson) has just resigned with dreadful timing to join the PR fixers Bell Pottinger.

The magazine's publisher Julia Budworth once accused Johnson of being "obsessed with penises".

Duncan Fallowell , a Long Lunch & "Massive C*ck"

Duncan Fallowell

The Wikipedia claim that travel writer, author and social commentator Duncan Fallowell was also the famous British blogger Madame Arcati- as reported on the Shuttle,  turns out to be a hoax.

This will come as a great relief to both writers who were besieged by readers demanding an explanation -quite apart from Fallowell and Arcati being mortified that others may think they were one and the same person.

It was  another piece of Wikipedia mischief where posters slightly alter entries.
Some famous ones include an entry in singer Robbie William's page that "in 2006 he ate pet hamsters for a living in and around Stoke ": that the entire village of Denshaw near Greater Manchester was "the home to an obese population of sun-starved, sheep hurling yokels with a brothel for a pub and a lingering tapeworm infection " :  that "Italians drink children’s blood." :   that US pro-golfer Fuzzy Zoeller had admitted to "polishing off a fifth of Jack after popping a handful of Vicodin pills": that  David Beckham "was a Chinese goalkeeper in the 18th century." :  Plato was "an ancient Hawaiian weather man and surfer " and our favourite : Stephen Fry " regularly wears a gorilla suit to bed.

Who then is Madame Arcati ?. Well that mystery is still to be solved but we believe one man may hold the secret : writer Victor Olliver, star astrologer for the English publication The Lady, who is known to be an intimate of Arcati.

Karl Stefanovic : "long lunch, massive c*ck ""

Still, these Wikipedia frauds are no-where near as good as the tale perpetuated by celebrity TV interviewer Richard Wilkins who launched his book Black Ties, Red Carpets, Green Rooms last week at Kit & Kaboodle.
In 2009 Wilkins announced on the Today Show that actor Jeff Goldblum had died after falling down a cliff in New Zealand. The story swept the world in news reports before an embarrassed Wilkins said he had been the victim of a hoax.
And was this a hoax ? Launching Wilkin's book, TV presenter Karl Stefanovic, fresh from a long lunch with Channel Nine boss David Gyngell,  said ( in front of Wilkin's three children) there were three things he knew about Wilkins : "he has great hair, he's a great bloke, and he has a massive c*ck " !


For more on Duncan Fallowell's books go to his website here.
Madame Arcati has an excellent review of Fallowell's book here. 
 Victor Olliver's astrology website is here.

Sexual Frenzy & Unmasking the Real Madame Arcati

Duncan Fallowell  ( Prospect Magazine)

 The novelist and travel writer Duncan Fallowell has a remarkable revelation.

In his latest book, How To Disappear : A Memoir for Misfits Fallowell says he had 40 ‘sexual partners’ in the month following Princess Diana’s death, ‘including a group of women in a naturist Jacuzzi in Brighton.’ We learn this in an interview with the writer conducted by the British Blogger Madame Aracti.

Princess Diana's funeral in 1997

The Evening Standard's Londoner's Diary has also picked up the tale :

“People were impassioned but slowed right down, which are the two best conditions for sex,”. “On September 29, several weeks after all these events, I noted in my journal that I’d had 40 sexual partners in the month following Diana’s death, including a group of women in a naturist Jacuzzi in Brighton where I’d found myself by chance.“Most of the encounters had something accidental about them, and were not coarse or contrived. I’m not bragging. And I’m not going into details. But I’ve known nothing like it since and it wasn’t only me. One could hardly venture out without some interaction taking place in which strangers became friends.“It reached an airy culmination off Portobello Road around 10.30 one morning. I was on my way to buy fruit from Nellie’s barrow when a pair of eyes crossed my path, there was the look, I followed him down an alleyway and hey, presto, it was all happening, screened by the packing cases in a little warehouse behind Woolworth’s.”Well, how was it for you?

The Shuttle has read two of Fallowell's travel books : One Hot Summer in St Petersburg and Going As Far As I Can about his travels in New Zealand. That book upset the Kiwis badly which alone should be an endorsement. Both books are a superb read and Fallowell has some heavyweight fans. Graham Greene became one as did William S.Burroughs.

But researching Duncan Fallowell via the Internet we came across this intriguing piece in his Wikileak's page :

"Fallowell currently maintains a weblog Madame Arcati."

Is it true ?. We should be told.

Liz Brewer, Ita Buttrose & International Terrorists

Madame Aracti has drawn our attention to a new book published in the UK by one of that countries top public relations experts Liz Brewer.

Liz was once married to Australian John Rendell of Christian The Lion fame and is the mother of chanteuse and songwriter Tallulah Rendell who wowed audiences in Sydney recently. She was also one of the hosts on the reality TV show Aussie Ladette To Lady where she attempted to convert a bunch of rough and tumble young girls into genteel lasses, suitable enough to mingle with the more refined classes .

party planner Liz Brewer (right) and celebs including
Ivana Trump & NCIS actor Michael Weatherly

Ms Brewer has just published a new book Ultimate Guide to Party Planning & Etiquette which is flying off British book shelves in a country where trying to keep up the standards expected is becoming increasingly difficult in the new 'chav' culture sweeping that great isle.

And Liz knows her stuff having organised some of the top bashes in London for celebrities like Shirley Bassey and Ivana Trump. She's been around celebrities and high society for most of her career that began on the Algarve in Portugal when she opened a nightclub and attracted big names like Paul McCartney and Cliff Richard.

But we also have our own tome - the recently published colonial version : A Guide to Australian Etiquette-for all occasions, from weddings to work by publishing icon Ita Buttrose who was featured in the TV drama Paper Giants-The Birth of Cleo that depicted the 1970's when Kerry Packer lost the contract to publish a local version of Cosmopolitan and instead, under the auspices of Buttrose came up with the top selling magazine Cleo that has been going gangbusters ever since.

Ita Buttrose &Betty Churcher
at the B &W lunch

Ita was a special guest at the Black & White Charity lunch last Tuesday which featured Dame Edna Everage who reminded the audience and Ita that it was her on the 1974 cover that rocketed Cleo to a staggering circulation of nearly half a million copies although it was Ita's idea to feature, for the first time, a man in a dress as she reminded the Dame.

Cleo-1974

Dame Edna retorted that she had no idea who Ita was at the time and thought her name was a reference to an International Terrorist group.

Both books are required reading if one is  to attempt climbing the social ladder in either capitals and from Liz Brewer's interview on Madame Arcati we learn both cities suffer from similar problems. Like the eternal gatecrasher. Liz gives some handy hints to seeing them off and we feel concurs with our view of the local half dozen who plague events here - if they bring nothing to the event in appearance, manners, humour or intellect, what's the point of them ?.

But back to Ita's guide to surviving the sophistication of Australian culture. There are many crossover areas in both Liz Brewer's book and Ita's but the local version give us some much needed tips with a local flavour :

if suffering from bad breath consult your dentist

are you constantly farting ?..avoid spicy food

do you constantly chew gum, smack you're gums and make popping noises ? Don't !

don't let your dog jump in a pond especially if there is green algae !

don't pig out on bread at the dinner table and leave only crumbs

urinating in public is revolting

spitting in public is uncivilised  ...and so on.

Ita also gives some helpful advice on weddings : what to do when the best man is a woman, how to dress for a Muslim wedding, what to do when you run into your ex ! and a host of veritable survival hints even at the football : no player should ever pretend to be their best mate in an attempt to have sex with another player's wife : if a girl has had too much too drink it's best to call a taxi to take her home and most importantly : you never watch a player's mate and his girlfriend having sex!

How can you live without this book ?

Madame Arcati Returns From The Ether

It truly was a case of  "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated ". The popular British blog Madame Arcati disappeared one day only to reappear a week later.

Just as the website's alter ego Victor Olliver announced the launch of his new astrology consultancy  website, his much feared Arcati site vanished into thin air. In it's place was an announcement from Google saying there was no such entity called Madame Arcati.

But a collective sigh of relief from the reptiles of London's tabloids was just a tad  premature. An earlier victory that saw an Adult Content page to be clicked 'yes' or 'no' as a pre-requisite to enter the site had already backfired as readers flocked to see what lay beyond.

And not only did the website suddenly reappear seemingly from an alternative universe, it seems the mighty Conde Nast publishing empire has bowed to Madame's demand to remove an interview with the wife of Syria's president and the countries 'first lady' Asma al-Assad, that was featured on the US Vogue website.

Asma al Assad

In the piece that has now vanished Vogue hackette Joan Juliet Buck enthused : 'Syria is known as the safest country in the Middle East,' It is 'a place without bombings, unrest, or kidnappings.'

Perhaps Joan hadn't visited  Damascus where reports arrive daily of anti-government demonstrators being slaughtered by plain clothes government thugs.

In place of the Vogue article is an "OOPS the PAGE YOU'RE LOOKING FOR CANNOT BE FOUND !.

Which is basically what Google said about Madame Arcati just last week!.

"safest country in the Middle East"

MA is obviously not  a woman not to be trifled with ! Read Madame Arcati here .

And as the The International Committee of the Red Cross calls for better humanitarian access to Syria, check out The Sun newspaper's  'Sexy Brit bringing Syria in from the cold' which describes Ms Assad as "not the average Arab dictator's wife" !

****************************
On a brighter note the Sydney Morning Herald's 'PS' column announces that Little Miss Eden Wood may be on her way to Australia. If you haven't yet been exposed to this shining talent, here is the little madam singing Cutie Patootie. Yikes !

What Happened To Madame Arcati ?

She was there one day-the next she had simply vanished into cyberspace.
For 5 years the Madame Arcati blog spot has been a thorn in the side of the British publishing world and such a success that the blog drew an envious 6000 readers a day (the Shuttle hovers around 1200-1800).

Madame Arcati cast a cynical eye over the often pompous print world of UK newspapers and magazines and it's fair to say she would have had a healthy club of critics but they were outweighed by a significant fan base around the world that included some of Britain's top writers and journalists.

The man who some say held control over Madame Arcati's career, writer and film critic Victor Olliver  (right) isn't saying much but he has in the past expressed some dissatisfaction with the world of blogging and twice shelved the blog for long periods. But now the whole thing has vanished seemingly along with it's extensive archives.

On his website Olliver says : "The old Madame Arcati site on Blogger is no more. Duncan Fallowell wrote me earlier today asking whether MA had been censored again because he couldn't find it. I had no idea. Blogger/Google sent no warning or explanatory note. So, all of Madame's musings since 2006 now reside in the colon of some beardie's worst imaginings somewhere across the Atlantic."

Sceptic

"Two days ago I set up a new Madame Arcati here - is this not a marvellous display of intuitive timing? How could have I 'known' that the old Madame was about to shoot up the astral colon?" 
                                                                               
The Shuttle team  (bar the office moggie Mildred Pierce) are firm believers in all things esoteric. Soon we will be commissioning a chart based on the stars from Mr Olliver. It will make a good dinner table topic for the next get-together with our favourite ABC Radio broadcaster but confirmed sceptic Phillip Adams.

Madame Arcati can still be read on the excellent British website Anorak.co.uk or in England's oldest and continuous published magazine The Lady.

Visit the Victor Olliver Astrology website here.

Punishing Prince Andrew

Our tale yesterday on April Ist was slightly misleading. We meant to say HRH Prince Andrew should be appointed as Governor of NSW.

It's the ideal punishment. Four years opening endless garden fetes and charity bazaars, signing local government bills into law and meeting new Cabinet Ministers of the Coalition-with a threat of a further 4 year appointment should he not mend his ways.

Our apologies to the one London tabloid scribe who sent a fierce email castigating the Shuttle for the 3 hours he spent checking on the tale. The other two British newspapers were much more jovial about it.

The crafty Madame Arcati spotted the ruse immediately. One would have to get up early to  pull the wool over her eyes unlike the Times of India which ran the story on page three.

The excellent website Anorak.co.uk was sensibly sceptical.

Anorak also got stuck into our good pal the multi-millionaire adventurer  Dick Smith with his "2 children only" policy and pointed out who would never have been born under such a rule- Don Bradman and Ned Kelly being just two.

Unfortunately they linked to that opinion writer for hire Andrew Bolt, climate denier pal of the dotty Lord Monckton and right wing mouthpiece for the Melbourne Herald Sun. Andrew is also a stolen generation denier who makes Pauline Hanson look like an old lefty.

He once famously challenged left wing Professor Robert Manne of La Trobe University to Be a Manne and name just ten (sic) stolen children whereupon Manne produced 4 pages of names.

Bolt has spent the last few days in the Federal Court where 9 Aboriginals have filed a claim under the Racial Vilification Act over his columns and blog in 2009 when he got stuck into mixed blood indigenous folk who identify as Aboriginal.



Andrew Bolt

 In one piece titled White Is The New Black Bolt suggested “white Aborigines” were illegitimate and therefore not eligible for prizes and benefits"

As one of the claimants pointed out "what prizes and benefits does one get for being black ?"

Yesterday Bolt lost his cool under questioning in the witness box  and slammed the claimants who he said brought the anti-discrimination case brought against him as an “unforgivable travesty” designed to “smear me.”

That brought a swift rebuke from Justice Bromberg and Andrew was forced to apologise. Bolt actually said at one stage "some of my best friends are are gay Aboriginals".

It's not looking too good for Bolt.

Today former Former Federal Court Judge Ron Merkel who is acting for the nine prominent members of the Aboriginal community linked Bolt's writings to the eugenics movement saying :

“Mr Bolt’s assumption is because you’ve got mixed descent or you are white you have a choice to renounce who you are,” “But they never had the choice that Mr Bolt ascribes to them…throughout their whole lives they have identified as Aboriginal persons.”

“That’s the real sting that you’ll see in these articles.”



James Murdoch

 Which brings us back to Anorak.co.uk and their "third child" syndrome.

On Wednesday News Corp announced that James Murdoch is now Deputy COO, Chairman and CEO of News Corp International which makes him 3rd in line and the presumed heir to Rupert Murdoch

James, 38 is the Third Child of Rupert Murdoch and the former Anna Murdoch !

Hopefully in 3D-Murdoch The Movie

A film script on the life of Rupert Murdoch is being hawked around Hollywood.

This news comes courtesy of Franklin Leonard's annual Black List. Leonard is regarded as 'Hollywood's most important soothsayer" according to the LA Times with his list each year of unmade film projects. 

He compiles the list by talking to LA's most influential agents and studio bosses and any script that gets 5 mentions is included  with the added bonus it generates so much industry chat that the inclusion is regarded as a lifeline for ailing screenplays.

'Murdoch' was commissioned by the UK's Channel 4 and written by respected TV script writer Jesse Armstrong but 4 decided against making it. It's now being handled by a top agency Creative Artist's Agency who are looking for a producer and backer.

The script blurb reads : "As his family gathers for his birthday party, Rupert Murdoch tries to convince his elder children to alter the family trust so that his two youngest children by his newest wife will have voting rights in the company."

Ouch ! A little close to home. 

When Rupert divorced his second wife Anna Murdoch Mann , the mother of children Lachlan, James and Elisabeth, Anna went in tough with heavy New York lawyers and  secured a very profitable trust which she controls that holds huge swathes of News Corp shares in her children's names although  she was forced off the News board in the process. 

And she had rather unkind words to say about Rupert in a 2001 interview where she described him as "hard, ruthless and determined".

No-one quite knows what size of inheritance Wendi Murdoch's 2 daughters Chloe and Grace may be in for. With  News Corp  headquartered in Delaware with it's secretive corporate laws, the outside world doesn't really know quite what the media empire or Murdoch is worth although it will be in the billions of dollars.

 Long before Wendi appeared on the scene Murdoch also made a famous faux pas in 1997 when he referred to "my 3 children " while talking about succession in a press conference that drew the ire of his daughter Prudence Murdoch MacLeod, his first child from marriage to Patricia Booker. Never shy, Prudence got a public apology out of her father.

So it's all there-plenty of meat for Murdoch the film !

Rupert ?

Who would play the roles in this gripping drama where the clan get-together to discuss high finance?.

As the media baron Rupert Murdoch  step forward Barry Humphries who played Rupert in the 1983 film Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries. Humphries has aged nicely with the same crumpled look as Rupert.

Matt Damon is a cinch for the role of the American accented Lachlan Murdoch and surely  Sarah Murdoch with thespian ambitions could play herself. New actor Leighton Meester could do a good Elisabeth Murdoch. Hayden Christensen with specs could play James Murdoch.

That leaves roles for the two who are bound to play  a leading part in the carve-up of Murdoch's billions-Wendi Murdoch and Mathew Freud. Answers on a postcard please.

# you can download Leonard's Black List here and see other scripts 'Murdoch' is competing with. The Shuttle's favourite : Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter. The future president's mother is killed by a vampire and Abe spends the rest of his life hunting down the killers !

Panto Dame Returns !

We all said her self imposed exile wouldn't last. The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd, the applause-the insults. The rotten fruit hurled. How could she resist ?

 Madame Arcati has announced she is receiving visitors again over the Yuletide period (and hopefully longer).

 How fitting that the silly season is almost upon us and someone will entertain while the hacks of Fleet Street churn out their daily drivel (eagerly read by us ). At last we will have some balance.

Still censored by Google, but that just makes her seem like a very naughty girl..

Go here and read.

Oh, and Madame's long term fiancee,  Molly Parkin's autobiography Welcome To Mollywood is to be published shortly as well.

 

Journalist, artist and Soho fixture there is no-one else quite like Molly around anymore. This book is a must read.                                                      

                                         

*****************************



Gene & Brian Sherman



An ill-wind is blowing over a $500,000 donation to University of NSW College of Fine Arts.

Given by noted philanthropists Brian & Gene Sherman, the gift was to establish a gallery in honour of the British born arts curator Nick Waterlow, murdered a year ago just 2 days after we reported he had attended the opening of an exhibition of ex-Oz Magazine artist Martin Sharp's works.

Student Representative Council president, Osman Faruqi, has said :''students are concerned by what this deal means for the integrity and reputation of a public institution like UNSW,'' 

"''The reputation risk posed to the university far outweighs any financial benefit gained. Students want to see quality education placed before private interests."

The Shermans are one of Sydney's most high profile couples in the art's community. Brian's Equitilink company is the largest private funds management company in Australia. He also dabbles on the stock exchange and was reported to have picked up $45M in one deal during a morning in 2002. Both the Shermans support a number of charities.

The Natural History museum in Sydney near Hyde Park has been revived via the Sherman's donations and in Brian's role as the president of the Australian Museum trust, it's governing body.

Committed vegetarians for nearly 30 years, both Sherman's are active animal right's activists and fund studies on how to end factory farming of poultry and pigs.

The Student body needs to do a re-think here.

The pair emigrated from South Africa a long time ago when they were broke. No-one knows what the Shermans are worth-possibly a $$billion or two-but the only demand from Brian & Gene when donating is for another phone call when extra funds are required.