How pleasing it is to find that
the Social Shuttle's research assistant and sub-editor,
Mildred Pierce, a dyslexic moggie rescued from the Cat Protection League one year ago is on-par with the
Daily Mail , the great British tabloid. The
Mail, slightly right-wing, is one of the best presented tabloids amongst a sorry lot but it does give good show biz.
Today they have run a story on that great Australian icon
Paul Hogan and wife Linda (who both left Oz 20 years ago) who are currently holidaying in
Byron Bay..yes that's
Byron Bay not
Bryon Bay as the
Mail on Line reports.
We know the wonderful resort well as
tSS worked for a short period on the local rag, the
Byron Echo- started over 20 years ago by a dear
tSS friend
Nicholas Shand, heir to a British publishing fortune who went all bush and started a commune in that magical spot, when he purchased a few hundred acres in the Byron hinterland and decided the only thing the area lacked was a newspaper for the 'alternatives' or 'ferals' , like Shand, as they were referred to by puzzled locals.
The ferals were the band of city folk who had flocked to the beautiful old fashioned fishing town where houses now command multi-million dollar prices. Sadly Nicholas died in a car accident but his newspaper went on to become the area's dominant new's source.
Hoges is pictured walking on Belongil Beach (we once flew there to cover a nude protest and made a small fortune selling the pics in Japan) and on the balcony of the town's best hotel. the Beach Hotel which was once owned by Hoges and his business partner John Cornell. Hogan and Cornell have made a fortune out of Byron Bay real estate, possibly more than they both did from their successful Crocodile Dundee film ventures.
When the Croc films first went ballistic world-wide at the box office in the late 1980's, Hogan built a mansion at Possum Creek, just outside Byron, on a 132 hectare lot which he finally sold to Hong Kong British based banker Duncan Mount and his ex-model wife Sally in 2006. Possum Creek is back on the market for $8M as the Mounts are anxious to move back to Sydney.
The
Daily Mail reckons Hoges looks a bit old at 70-you can judge their pics
here, while we present our latest Hogan snap from 2008.
As an aside, tSS once covered a concert for the Byron Echo when former Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten hit town (with a larger paunch than that sported by Hoges in the Mail pics). In mid-song, as tSS snapped away with a camera, Rotten-or John Lydon , his real name, leapt off stage and proceeded to throttle tSS at which point we pointed out -"hey it's me-your old drinking pal from Soho !". John relaxed his grip and said "great to see you again-play along please-the crowd loves it !"
The resultant confected struggle between us was later described by Shand as "like a weird gay couple doing the Pride of Erin-badly", but at least the audience was convinced Anything for art's sake.
As the Daily Mail says, age catches up on one.
