Suprise guest Kylie Minogue

at the Qantas Airways 100th celebration dinner tonight at Sydney Airport. She sang the Peter Allen song "I still Call Australia Home".

They doubted us..

Several loyal readers doubted Whisper's tale that they encountered a very young James Murdoch asleep at a party at the home of the late Lady Mary Fairfax, Fairwater in Sydney's Double Bay.
But it's true and we now show a pic we snapped at the event.
From left to right is billionaire James, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Primrose Dunlop and well known News Ltd photographer Frank Viola.

Young James was just 15 a the time and doing "work experience" on his father's newspaper The Sunday Telegraph and accompanied the other two to Lady Mary's. At the time Primrose was writing a social column for the newspaper.
We told how Primrose met the Qantas Trolley Dolly and Egyptian royal Prince Lorenzo Giustinian at the shindig.
Often known as Prince Montesini, Lorenzo says his title is a very old one from the Ottoman Empire.
Sometime later the pair decided to get married and organised their nuptials to be held in Venice as half of Sydney and Melbourne's high society travelled to the canal city for the wedding.
Alas, Prince Lorenzo got cold feet and decamped the night before they were to be married and ran off with his best man Richard Straub while assorted media searched Europe looking for the errant bridegroom.
Meanwhile Primrose, heiress to a considerable stockbroking fortune in Melbourne nabbed a European noble and is now known as Countess Zofia Krasicki v Siecin.

exclusive: QANTAS drama over Breitbart News

Following on the heels of the drama over the US cereal manufacturers Kellogg pulling their advertisements from the Libertarian website Breitbart News where President Donald Trump is fond of getting his 'news', comes word that one of the world's biggest airlines the Aussie owned  QANTAS are pulling their ads from the site as well.
When a concerned shareholder contacted QANTAS via their Twitter account, the response was rapid which you can read below.

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And even more fun & games over the US election, the Inauguration of President Trump and the amazing marches around the world the following day when apparently 3 million women attended the protest in the capital.
 Daily Mail pundit & British TV host Piers Morgan was up in arms with the following tweet:

 It received a quick response from our favorite Woollahra based Hollywood star Sam Neill:

Alas for poor Piers there was a further humiliation to come from reality TV star and multi-millionaire Lord Alan Sugar of the UK's Apprentice fame:

 

 

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The  following message popped up on Facebook (and presumably elsewhere and posted by the high profile lawyer Chris Murphy:

Whispers has seen this couple about town so many times and they looked very happy as recently as 3 months ago as our photograph shows. Below: Kelly Landry & Anthony Bell

Neil Perry is The Tops

The luxury travel magazine Gourmet Traveller has chosen Neil Perry's Rockpool Restaurant as the countries top eatery for 2015 with the judging panel proclaiming it as the“most sublime” dining experience in Australia. And that's not a decision we would argue with having dined there several times.

Perry also overseas Qantas' flight catering and now has a stable of 5 restaurants, two in Melbourne and three in Sydney including the award winning Rockpool in The Rocks (pictured).

Travolta Jets Into Town

Our favourite Qantas pilot John Travolta has flown into town (piloting his own 727 jet) to celebrate the new union of Qantas and Emirates Airlines, the new Qantas uniforms and to christen a new hanger at Mascot.

Qantas laid on a dinner for 1000 guests at Sydney Airport in a massive hanger that houses the brand new A380 Airbus . Beef of chicken ?. We aren't saying.

 left : Miranda Kerr, John Travolta & Kelly Preston at the Qantas /Emirates dinner

Melissa Hoyer & Skye Leckie at the Qantas / Emirates dinner.   (pic : Melissa Hoyer)

Flying With Miranda

She may no longer be spuiking for David Jones department stores or Victoria's Secret but supermodel Miranda Kerr joined forces with Qantas today to promote their snappy new Martin Grant designed uniforms.



                                                 

Martin Grant

Yoko, Jagger, Vanity Fair & A Fashion Fail

People are gearing up for the under-whelming Mercedes Benz Fashion Week that will be upon us next week.
Following the announcement that Qantas and the Emirates have joined forces, British Airways flew in model Georgia May Jagger on a promotional flight and she hit the runway at Mascot Airport to showcase the new British Airways 777 300ER jet.

Only 1st Class for Jagger

Georgia May demonstrates the
new Economy Class seats on BA

Jagger will be on the runway next week modelling for what has become a sort of Groundhog Day of Aussie fashion designers with the usual suspects showing off their wares. The brains behind Sydney's Fashion Week must feel international publicity isn't required this year having rejected, or ignored, a request from a Vanity Fair correspondent to cover the event. He's off to Melbourne and Hamilton Island instead, still puzzled why giving him a square foot of space at a few fashion parades was beyond the capabilities of the powers that be.
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Meanwhile as a parting gift our Vanity Fair scribe has supplied us with some snaps of our favourite wacky Japanese artist Yoko Ono lighting up the Empire State Building in New York yesterday.


Yoko is ambassador for World Autism Awareness Day and over 3000 buildings are participating in an Light It Up Blue campaign to raise awareness about autism.

Ellen Downunder

Ellen DeGeneres is bringing herself and 400 fans to Australia in March to film segments for her show.
She made the surprise announcement yesterday with guest Nicole Kidman (who did a good impression of a Kookaburra on the show ) ala Oprha Winfrey in 2011. Hopefully the visit will do more for Ellen than it did for Oprah whose O network ratings have been dismal since she graced our shores.

I'm Tiffany-Come Fly With Me

One always groans as the Christmas season approaches. It's the silly season in Sydney which means everything basically shuts up shop until February next year and one goes into a sort of social de-tox mode. We suffer for our art.

Tiffany Farrington

Alan Joyce ?

Ace PR Tiffany Farrington gets first prize for the first party signalling that Christmas has arrived.

Tiffany also runs the very successful Social Diary and her yearly party, this one her fourth, has become one of the zappiest and best attended. This year is was at Bungalow 8 at the Jones Street Wharf.

There isn't much to say about this shindig-you just sort of go with the flow. Great food, great music, great champagne. We drank, listened and ate and eventually made it home in one piece.

Plenty of inventive costumes including an Alan Joyce look-a-like (Qantas CEO). Tiffany must have been thanking her lucky stars she had Virgin Airlines as a sponsor instead of the Flying Kangaroo.

Have balloon will travel

Bianca Dye,Chrissy Bray & pals

Bungalow 8

C.Kent,L.Lane, S.Man

Computer says nooooo...

If you were planning to fly south today for the Melbourne Cup, as tens of thousands do from all over the country and as far away as Ireland, the UK and New Zealand, you will know by now you can forget it courtesy of Qantas boss Alan Joyce who cancelled all worldwide Qantas flights yesterday (while 95% of shareholders bizarrely voted him a $5M salary the previous day).

Virgin Blue and others will try to fill the gap but many will be disappointed.
There are plenty of functions on in Sydney though but book now if you want to get in.

Variety, the children's charity has a gala day at the Sofitel Hotel at $195 per ticket or $2950 for a corporate table of ten with seats still available.

Artist Charles Billich is hosting a party at the splendid mansion Swifts in Darling Point. Ring the Billich Gallery on 02 9252 1481 The Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo is always popular with every restaurant hosting a party but get in fast.

Prime Ministers, Book Launches and Slapped Faces

Last Monday Sue Pieters-Hawke launched her book Hazel: My Mother's Story at the SH Erwin Gallery and it was a fairly quiet affair.

Hazel & Bob in happier days

There was none of the fanfare that accompanied the launch of the book her step-mother Blanche d'Alpuget authored -Hawke, The Prime Minister about Sue's dad, former Prime Minster Bob Hawke who is still regarded as the most popular leader Australia has ever had.

The current PM Julia Gillard did the honours for Blanche's tome in front of a number of notable guests like actors Geoffrey Rush and Rhys Muldoon and former Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett who is now the Minister for Education.

Last June it was alleged that Blanche and Sue had encountered each other in the Qantas's exclusive Chairman's Lounge at Brisbane Airport and each had slapped the other's face before being separated by authorities. Both denied the claim but witnesses say the incident was fairly heated although it's claimed the two have since made up.

Blanche, Julia & Bob

Despite this neither Bob Hawke nor Blanche attended Sue's book launch which Pieters-Hawke has written in retaliation to d'Alpuget's impliction that Hazel only stayed married to Hawke while he was PM so she could stay in The Lodge at Canberra and enjoy her role as first lady. 

Sue Pieters-Hawke's book covers Hazel's life from a schoolgirl in Perth, her life with Bob -''the love of her life'' - her career in welfare, life at The Lodge and her sad decline into Alzheimer's disease in 2001.
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Meanwhile the man who deposed Bob Hawke in a party room coup, former PM  Paul Keating launched his own book After Words on Sunday.
Keating, who was dubbed The Lizard of Oz by the British media in 1992 who accused him of manhandling HM The Queen has likened Australia to "a child clasping at the Queen's coat-tails, waving an embarrassing little flag' in a Daily Telegraph report.

                                        
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Not to be left out, former PM Kevin Rudd, himself deposed 2 years ago by Julia Gillard has been entertaining a crowd at a function following a meeting of Foreign Ministers at the CHOGM conference in Perth. The audience demanded Rudd break into song but he informed them "I sing like a cow".
(What does a cow sound like when it sings?)

Dame Edna Attacked

There has been much chatter around the coffee bars of Double Bay about Dame Edna Everage's appearance at the Black &  White Charity lunch last Tuesday.

One tabloid journalist has ripped into the Dame over the reputed $35,000 fee charged by manager Barry Humphreys. Odd given the same hack is noted for their free-loading at charity events.

Although she received loud laughter throughout the room and was the draw card for the $295 ticket price, at a time when the charity dollar is hard to get, she has come in for criticism over her digs at  the Double Bay set, senior citizens and one lady in a wheel chair.

One prominent couple told the Shuttle today they were still fuming about Edna wishing she could "speak Hungarian" and other comments in reference to that large Eastern Suburbs ethnic community which they perceived as anti-Semitic remarks.

However the lady in the wheel chair who was the butt of many of Edna's digs was former B & W president Marno Parsons ( in our pic greeting Dame Edna in the Green Room after the show) who also sponsored the event. Marno and Dame Edna warmly embraced and chatted like old pals.

And we thought we recognised Dame Edna's stunning red feathered creation she wore on the day. Here she is wearing it at an Andre Riel concert where she sang the Peter Allen song 'I Still Call Australia Home'. The song was huge hit for the late Allen who gave the rights to Qantas for their advertising campaigns and in return received first class travel on their flights throughout the world.

Dame Edna Everage is Pregnant !

B & W president Susan Diver with Dame Edna

That's the stunning disclosure Dame Edna Everage revealed yesterday at the Black & White Charity's Women of Achievement lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney.

Mrs Barry Humphries-Lizzie Spender

The Dame was in top form as she gave the audience some unique insights into her life and made some other stunning revelations.

We heard about her daughter who has shacked up with another female, her son who is a fashion designer and has a very close male 'friend' and for the first time Dame Edna told us of the daughter she had named Lois whom she has never spoken of before.

a big favourite-Governor Marie Bashir (left) arrives

Before she was famous Edna and her husband Norm went on a holiday by the sea. They left Lois in a cot on the veranda of their holiday home and forgot about her. In the morning they discovered that Lois had disappeared and the awful truth soon became clear. Lois had been stolen by a rogue giant Koala and was never seen again.
 And on and on it went with an audience of 600 in stitches.

One poor elderly lady came in for the Edna treatment when she was  asked where she was from and replied that she had come for a day out from a retirement home just to see Dame Edna. Edna asked if her security guards were close by.

B & W regulars : Baron & Baroness Boyd

Sadly copyright restrictions prevent us from posting the film we made of Dame Edna's talk today-the show was filmed for a Qantas in flight film. So you need to take an international flight to see her and that may be difficult at present as flights have been cancelled yet again due to ash cloud from the Chilean volcano.

 And the Dame saved the Shuttle from mistakenly purchasing a very expensive rug when we waved to a friend during an auction and it was accepted as a $2800 bid for a floor rug. She bid $2850 and saved the day !. One bidder also paid $6000 for the chance to dine with Edna at the restaurant of their choice.

An amusing moment: as Dame Edna posed on the grand staircase of the Four Seasons to record an introduction for the Qantas film surrounded by helpers and a film crew, an American tourist asked the Shuttle "is that Julia Gillard ?".

Camilla Franks new model : Oprah Winfrey

Oprah at her Sydney party last night

Kaftan designer Camilla Franks goes from strength to strength. After opening a new store in Paddington just 3 months ago, an assistant for Oprah Winfrey waltzed in on Friday and snapped up a dozen gowns for Winfrey  to wear whilst in Sydney and for the holiday she plans to take in the Northern Territory after filming 2 shows at the Opera House this week.

Last night Oprah threw a bash for her 300 American guests at Mrs Macquaries' Chair. A huge fenced off marquee shielded out prying eyes (except the Social Shuttle of course).

Since arriving the Americans have been swept off their feet after the surprise trip was sprung on them during Oprah's US show 8 weeks ago. They've travelled to Ulhuru in Central Australia, Byron Bay, North Queensland and attended non-stop parties and harbour cruises and then laden with goody bags of products.

Camilla Franks (second from right).

 Frank's designs sell in 300 outlets around the world. She has a boutique on the luxury liner The World and is planning to open stores in St Tropez and Miami.

# One detail overlooked by the media salivating on every movement of the Big O is the absence of movie star John Travolta who was to pilot a new Qantas 787 transporting Oprah's US guests.

He was booked into the Hotel Intercontinental and 6 security guards had been hired to watch over him whilst in Oz. Now he's gone  MIA with nary a word of explanation from Camp Oprah.

Exclusive: Our Secret Weapon in Oprah's camp

He's been Working behind the scenes for 2 years to pull off the Oprah Winfrey Australian trip. Peter Walsh, a 54 year old Australian designer and professional organiser who lives in Los Angeles.

Walsh was born in Adelaide and holds a Master's Degree in educational psychology. Finding little use for his talents in Australia, he moved to LA in 1995 and found work immediately as a professional 'organiser' for numerous Fortune 500 companies and wealthy individuals including the Russian oligarch Vladimirovich Deripaska .

Walsh's speciality is coming into a person or companies life and completely re-organising it. He now heads his own corporation and has published 4 best selling books-How to Organize (Just About) Everything; It's All Too Much; Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? and Enough Already!

4 years ago he secured a regular spot on the Oprah Winfrey show. Next year he will host his own show on Oprah's channel-OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network)

But it was 2 years ago that he conceived of the plan to get Oprah to visit Australia. His first contact-apart from Winfrey who had already expressed the desire to pay a working visit-was the NSW Tourism Board. Timing is everything. After several failed campaigns like Tourism Australia's So Where The Bloody Hell Are You TV adverts with Lara Bingle, it was a slam dunk.

NSW jumped at the opportunity and Qantas came onboard immediately. Oprah's visit will cost the government $3M but the resulting publicity is estimated to be worth 100 times that. Plus the visit should inject at least $10M into the local economy.

While Oprah's 300 hand picked studio guests will travel on a new Qantas A380 jet piloted by John Travolta, Walsh will travel with Oprah and personal staff in her private Bombardier jet .

And after the 8 day tour, Oprah and her entire staff will be holidaying over Christmas at the El Questro resort (below) in the East Kimberley's. That's her yearly treat to her staff.
Below : watch Peter 'de-clutter' a house in Inside The Lives of Hoarders !. It basically involves putting things in boxes. Nice work if you can get it !

avoid Los Angeles this week..

Is Skippy on the menu tonight ?

           LA must be thrilled with it all-'G'Day USA' kicks off today with "Come Walkabout in Beverly Hills'. No it ain't a guided tour of movie star homes but an Australian 'cultural' event at the The Paley Center for Media, where the general US public is invited to sample Aussie wines, take walkabout travelogues and view cultural performances. Presumably a didgerdoo player-that always dazzles the crowds and maybe a few indigenous kiddies dancing.

         Tonight is the gala black tie dinner at the Hollywood & Highland Grand Ballroom where invited guests include Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward, Nicole Kidman and hubby Keith and acting brothers Chris and Liam Hemsworth. Liam is currently dating Miley Cyrus and the pair just jetted out from Melbourne after a secret visit.

        Other guests have been invited to accept an inevitable award-Greg Norman for sport, Toni Collette for 'Excellence in FIlm and Television' and the USA's current TV heart-throb who has just been voted the most popular man on television, ex -Home and Away star Simon Baker whose series The Mentalist may be pulling small audiences in the UK but is the USA's current Number One show.

 

There is no way the organisers could get away with not inviting Olivia Newton John of course and Honorary Aussie John Travolta who literally parks a vintage Qantas Boeing 707 in his backyard

 And it would be impossible to get this one of the ground without Avatar star-Sam Worthington.  Oh, and needless to say Russell Crowe along with Rupert Murdoch and wife Wendi.

    

But where is our favourite lady Dame Edna ?. Sadly her manager Barry Humphries says she has other duties back home to perform which also means no diplomatic representation in the form of Minister for The Yartz, Sir Les Patterson.

Entertainment sounds fine-with boy band Human Nature -but celebrity chef Peter Evans who will be feeding the guests ominously specialises in Kangaroo recipes and may present his take on the prawn cocktail-'prawn and avocado stack'.

Tickets-at from $5000 to $10,000 each sold out weeks ago.  And yes, of course Hugh Jackman will be the MC !
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ps : an email arrives to inform us we forgot to mention another star guest at tonight's LA dinner-former Miss Universe winner Jennifer Hawkins who will be with her boyfriend, the handsome model Jake Wall who has become a gay pin-up in the USA. Very re-miss of us, particularly as Hawkins hit a few headlines around the world recently with her Marie Claire magazine "un-air brushed" photo shoot.

The cover was the concept of Marie Claire's brilliant editor Jackie Frank, daughter of Melbourne social scribe Lillian Frank.

         tSS accompanied Jennifer on her triumphant 2 week tour of Oz when she won the title. Having been up close and personal on numerous occasions and in back stage dressing-rooms with Jennifer we can assure there are few imperfections that need to be air-brushed. Yet another superb campaign by Frank who fronted interviews stating she couldn't understand all the fuss !.
     tSS's snap of Hawkin's unscripted wardrobe malfunction (above) during that tour also hit a few front page newspapers worldwide earning tSS enough for a recuperating rest in Bali after the hullaballoo died down.
       Hawkins has gone onto to become the most successful Miss Universe ever, earning up to $5M a year in endorsements. She recently told tSS she has been offered a role in a US TV series. More about that soon.