Vale Bob Hawke

When Whispers was traveling back and forth from the UK to Australia and pondering on whether we wanted to finally settle in this wide brown land, one person we met who was very instrumental in making our decision was the late Bob Hawke, then Prime Minister.
There are plenty of obituaries written about him today so we'll just point you in the direction of some of the best.

Bob was simply an extraordinary human being. A sharp intellect and intelligence was masked by Hawke's ability to appear as the average bloke in the pub. At the same time he would met with world leaders: Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and China's Zhao Ziyang and   business leaders who saw a great advantage in dealing with a former powerful Union leader who understood that business could be conducted whilst respecting worker's right.
Hawke once told me he admired how Big Business in Germany co-operated with unions with an attitude of "everyone should win". During his tenure Bob Hawke's inclusive policies, and for long after, worked in Australia.
 Bob Hawke tributes flow as Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison make final federal election pitches
Some of our snaps over the years:

Bob's first wife Hazel succumbed to the terrible scourge of Dementia. She remained devoted to Hawke.

In 2010 Prime Minister Julia Gillard launched the biography penned by his wife Blanche d'Alpuget

 In 2012 in uber-smart Balmain Bob Hawke launched the Worker's Bar for advertising mogul and pub owner John Singleton pictured here with Bob. The pub was the location for a legendary meeting of unionists in 1891 that coincided with the famous Shearer's Strike in Queensland during which the Australian Labor Party was formed.

Lord McAlpine Hits Back

With the British media in a feeding frenzy over the claims about the late BBC TV personality Jimmy Savile, it was only a matter of time before matters came to the boil and an innocent was hurt.

Lord McAlpine's Cable Beach Resort

The 'jumping the shark' moment came early Thursday morning when a lightweight, snowy haired breakfast TV host attempted to ambush British PM David Cameron by presenting a list of names he had gathered on the Internet- 'within three minutes". Cameron put the host firmly in his place whilst shushing the presenter's blinking eyed co-host as she tried to butt in.

Margaret Thatcher with Lord McAlpine (right)

Within 24 hours Lord Alistair McAlpine , the former Conservative Party treasurer had issued a furious denial and one of his accusers had back-pedalled like Speedy Gonzales in reverse, admitting he had made a terrible mistake. There were red faces all round and McAlpine has said he will sue.

Lord McAlpine is a familiar figure around Sydney and was here earlier this year on his way to visit his beloved  Cable Beach Resort which he established in 1979 in the pearling town of Broome in the Northern Territory.
In the late 1990s McAlpine hosted an unforgettable party at Sydney's Hotel Intercontinental which he owned at the time, to promote Broome.
He arrived amongst the city traffic on a towering camel, no mean feat for the diminutive Baron. Guests were invited to a lavish dinner and left later that evening each bearing a deck chair as a memento.

Pitty Pat's intern James Murdoch

Lorenzo & Pitty Pat

At one stage Lord McAlpine also dated Primrose 'Pitty Pat' Dunlop, the Melbourne socialite and heiress who at the time was writing a social column for Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Telegraph and carting a 15 year old intern around with her by the name of James Murdoch. James had a low boredom threshold and would fall asleep at parties
Pitty Pat ended up marrying the Polish Count Krasicki after a disastrous engagement to Qantas flight attendant Prince Lorenzo Monetsini who famously ran off with his bridegroom leaving Pitty Pat at the altar at the glorious Cipriani Hotel in Venice along with 100 socialite guests who had flown in from Melbourne , Sydney London and New York, some still arriving as the groom fled to Harry's Bar, clambering out of water taxis to attend the 'wedding of the year'.  
Lord McAlpine now lives in Italy with his wife and is presumably in contact with the finest British libel lawyers. Such is the rich tapestry of life.
You can listen to an  interview Lord McAlpine gave to ABC  Kimberley in March this year here.



**Earth to News Ltd : Lord McAlpine was not a Member of Parliament  or a politician.

Something in Common : Dracula & Rupert Murdoch

Russell Crowe may be in the frame to play Count Dracula in the 37th film about the legendary Transylvania but he is also tipped to play Rupert Murdoch in a planned film based on the memoirs of journalist Sir Harold Evans.

Harold Evans

Evans was the editor of the Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981 when Rupert Murdoch purchased Times Newspapers after a secret meeting with then PM Margaret Thacher, a fact just revealed in the Leveson Inquiry. He was appointed editor of The Times by Murdoch after extracting an agreement that Rupert would have no editorial input. That feel apart within a year and  Evans resigned, writing his auto-biography Good Times Bad Times in 1984.
He now lives in New York with his wife Tina Brown the former Vanity Fair editor and their 2 children.

Playing Evans will be the thinking woman's heart throb Colin Firth. This will be the second time an Aussie actor has played the Citizen Kane of the Antipodes. In the excellent TV  series Selling Hitler based on the phony Hitler Diaries and broadcast in 1991, Dame Edna Everage's manager Barry Humphries was cast as Murdoch. Rupert agreed to the purchase of the diaries after they were endorsed by the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper who later expressed reservations before publication. Despite being informed that the diaries were fakes, Murdoch famously said "publish them anyway, after all we're in show business".

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Memorable Freudian Slips at Leveson # 1

Under questioning from Robert Jay QC at the Leveson Inquiry : famed Australian/American media mogul Rupert Murdoch who promised editorial independence to Margaret Thatcher's government during his 1981 successful bid to takeover  the Times Newspapers and thus avoided the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, responds to Jay's inference that he may influence politicians:

 

“If any politician wanted to know what I think, they only had to read the editorials”

From Flab to Fab ! : Russell Crowe

Last night at LA's Soho House

RUSSELL CROWE ISN'T THE FIRST Hollywood star to have a battle with the bulge.

But look at the snap of our Russ from two years ago and our exclusive picture from last night's AACTA Awards in Los Angeles

2010

Crowe was topping the scale at a hefty 102 kilos but has shed 25K in a two year concerted workout regime and we have the secrets.

We and all Russell's Twitter followers. Russ is an active twitterer and last week he detailed his exercise regime which is pretty simple :

1hour 20 minutes walking, 30 minutes of Yoga followed by a 15 minute weights workout.

For the last two years Crowe has made his home in Sydney, partly to spend as much time with his 2 boys Charlie  and Tennyson  and partly to get himself in top shape.
Last year he splashed out $10M on a mansion in Rose Bay with spectacular views of the harbour and a state of the art security system so Russ could do simple things like kick a footie ball around the garden with the kids, away from prying eyes.

Russ & Danielle in 2009

Meryl Streep & Nicole Kidman at the AACTAs

He still has the Finger Wharf duplex penthouse in Woolloomoolo (on the market for $6M) but it was becoming increasingly difficult for Russell and wife Danielle Spencer to enjoy those family type events like relaxing in the back yard.

He was also a regular sight walking around the Loo and the Botanic Gardens, sometime wheeling the kids in their strollers.
To nip paparazzi in the bud he kept a wardrobe of 20 similar track suits so one day's photo looked like the rest. These days he still walks around Rose Bay and Bellveue Hill  (with it's punishing hills) but has a minder following in a car.

 Crowe was attending the AACTA Awards (that have replaced the Australian Film Institute Awards ) hosted by Australian Of The Year Geoffrey Rush, presented at a party at Soho House along with Guy Pearce, Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep who picked up a gong for her portrayal as Margaret Thatcher.

Om Tuesday the local AACTAS will be presented at the Sydney Opera House with Cate Blanchett hosting the gala.
In 2009 Crowe challenged the Shuttle's favourite show-biz editor Annette Sharp from Sydney Confidential in the Daily Telegraph to a bike ride around Sydney:

The Iron Lady-teaser

Malcolm : Call Your Cousin Angela Lansbury Now

Malcolm & Lucy Turnbull

Former Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has been having a hard time lately with Liberal Party supporters of the leader, Tony Mad Monk Abbott out to ensure Turnbull never becomes leader again.

Turnbull was never popular with the hard right. The self made millionaire, former barrister and banker (estimated worth : $300M) is seen as a bit of a latte sipping elitist probably more suited to the Labor Party which it's reputed he once tried to join.

The problem for the party is that Turnbull is  popular amongst the rank and file members who see Malcolm as their best bet to return to power, if only he could act like a politician. He does have a tendency to cut to the chase having come lately to politics.

Perhaps he should turn to his cousin  the legendary actress Angela Lansbury for acting lessons on how to present himself as a politician rather than a man in a hurry to get to the top job so he can show the country just how it should be done.

Lansbury was out last week in New York and attended the Actors Fund Annual Gala at the New York Marriott Hotel. As our picture show, she is remarkably fit looking and as large as life at the fabulous age of 87.

Angela Lansbury & Hunter Ryan Herdicka (Rob Rich)

Turnbull's mother was the academic and actress Coral Lansbury who is Angela's cousin. She split with Malcolm's father when he was nine and went to live, like Angela in the USA.

Turnbull is not only the richest politician in the country, he's probably one of the smartest as well. He worked for a  number of years as Kerry Packer's personal lawyer before taking on the might of Margaret Thacher's government in the famous Spy Catcher trial when he successfully defeated the British government's attempts to block publication of the memoirs of the former MI5 officer Peter Wright.

He made a motza with the merchant bank he started with Nicholas Whitlam, the son of former Labor PM Gough Whitlam and then sealed his fortune during the dot.com boom. As chairman of the Republican Movement Turnbull really felt the loss of the referendum when the country voted in 1998 to keep the British royal family as head of state.

Turnbull blamed the loss on the machinations of then PM John Howard  but he joined Howard's Liberal Party as a minister which most perceived as Howard's attempt to 'keep his enemies closer'.
When Turnbull produced an excellent paper on housing affordability recommending the adoption of European style housing associations and co-ops plus spending more on government housing, the paper was quietly shelved by Howard.

Turnbull is clearly in the wrong political party. He should ask his cousin for some tips. The Lansburys have long been on the left of the political spectrum. Angela's father was a politician and member of the British Communist Party and her grandfather was the leader of the British Labour Party.

Angela now lives in a New York apartment having returned from Ireland where she lived for a number of years. She starred in the film Gaslight when she was just 19 and went on to make a string of Hollywood films co-starring with the leading Hollywood stars of the day. She's probably most famous for the long running TV series Murder She Wrote.

At the Actors Fund Gala Bebe Neuwirth was honoured while Al Pacino received The Lee Strasberg Artistic Achievement Award

Parky Declares A Republic is Needed !

One aspect of Sir Michael Parkinson's Australia Day speech last night at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music was the inevitable subject of whether Australia should become a republic after the failed republican campaign led by Malcolm Turnbull in 2000 was defeated in a referendum before the Australian people.

Parky leans to the left of politics- born in working class Yorkshire and the son of a miner- he once told the Shuttle in 1998 over dinner in response to the question of what he thought of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher :

"she was a perfect example of total power corrupting. I'm with the Queen on this-she couldn't stand Maggie !"

Sir Michael reckons that Australia, where he is spending more and more time in retirement , should become a republic but not until after the death of his favourite Royal, HRH Queen Elizabeth 11.

And the reason ?. "Just think" said Parky, "and you should put this jingle to the tune of The Beatles 
"We all Live in A Yellow Submarine":

"your -next -Queen- is- Camilla- Parker- Bowles, -Camilla -Parker -Bowles ".

If you have forgotten the tune-here is the original:

Kylie's London pad for sale at a bargain price !

Further to our story on the London property developers Candy & Candy (see below) and the falling value of their empire.

 

Our favourite songbird Kylie Minogue has put her London apartment up for sale at a reduced price of $6.6M (although a little budgie tells us any offer over $5M will seal a deal !). Kylie bought the apartment from the Candy's in 1998 paying $5.4M.

The Social Shuttle has been to Kylie's lovely flat twice (she's an old family friend) and although the gorgeous pad is impressive, it seemed indicative of everything that was wrong about the era of New Labour Thatcherism in England where style triumphed over substance, consumerism was on steroids and an  American style of flaunt your wealth crassness consumed the British persona when it had survived for centuries on the very opposite

Kylie says she found the place a bit austere and when her brother left some years ago, a little on the lonely side. And especially when little sister Danni moved out in 2004. She wants a cottage somewhere which is really more her style. The extended Minogue family are extremely close and she wants to be able to have room for family to stay. In fact we reckon Kylie is seriously thinking about having her own family-she adores Danni's new baby.

Property prices sky-rocketed under Blair & Co's corporatism and every man and his dog became a developer as reality shows pushed the fable that all could become rich and that the ' inevitable bubble will burst' day would never arrive, as it did in the USA under the Fannie Mac (or is it Freddie May ?) fiasco . The British population should be gearing themselves up for a correction still to come in the property market.

You can read about Kylie's beautiful place here :

Here's the gorgeous Danni talking about her new book out soon. 

Batty Lord Departs

British Joker

And so we bid a sad farewell to one of the most amusing visitors to this land in the last year, Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.

The Shuttle was delighted to meet the charming peer at a small farewell drinks party recently where he illuminated us on the latest quest for world domination via the very dodgy proposition that the world's climate is rapidly about to turn upon man and seek revenge for our unthinking decimation of Mother Nature's natural recourses.

"It's all a plot" he says "and just the new face of the extreme left who have found a new way for world domination". 

Monkton put up finance for the popular film feature fantasy  The Great Global Warming Swindle. (the Great Rock' N' Roll Swindle with the Sex Pistols was more fun) and says US President Barack Obama plans to cede US sovereignty to a newly created world government.

Many of these pearls of wisdom were delivered on the most insane TV station in the world-Fox News in the USA via the wacky host Glenn Beck. (Even Fox boss Rupert Murdoch is expressing doubts about Beck's delivery but that is possibly more to do with advertisers fleeing from his show.) Needless to say, the venerable Lord found a willing listener at the home of Australia's radio king Alan Jones who has taken up the cause with gusto.

The Shuttle's probing inquiry to his Lordship never received a full answer-he was pulled away to meet other less troublesome guests. If, as he claims. global warming is part of a communist inspired plot to destroy manufacturing which they hate, how does he explain the USSR's extraordinary surge forward in the early part of the 20th century when Russia went from a feudal society to a mechanized miracle in a few short decades?. It's something we will need to ponder on our own. In the past Lord Monkton has announced that AIDs sufferers should be isolated on an island and that he, as adviser to PM Margaret Thatcher, helped win the Falklands War.

British Aussie joker

Still, as one comedian departs, we welcome the newest Aussie citizen to our shores-Ben Elton.

PS: Today, federal Climate Minister and proud lesbian Penny Wong MP has announced that airports and a few thousand houses in Sydney will be underwater within 50 years as seas rise. 

Now you know why Lachlan & Sarah Murdoch purchased the cities most expensive mansion on the tallest hill in the eastern suburbs.