It's In The Stars

It's a little known fact but one of Australia's most successful businessmen never did a deal with anyone until he had his own Phrenologist check them out. If your  bumps passed muster, you were in. That included the bank manager, prospective partners or a receptionist. When he died around 14 years ago he left a $500M estate.

Astrology believer George Soros

 Since then his family have at least doubled that fortune. Sadly the phrenologist passed away . They now use handwriting experts.

One of America's richest men, George Soros has his own personal full time Astrologer. Soros inherited a superstitious nature from his Hungarian mother. His natural ability to 'crunch' figures , choose stocks and parlay them into a fabulous profit within a few weeks is enhanced by the stars. Before he does any deal he consults his starry adviser for the final seal of approval.

Enter Britain's rising star of Astrology, Victor Olliver who is building a clientele around the world who are commissioning Olliver to work out the most propitious dates to launch new enterprises. Olliver also does the stars for the Britain's oldest published magazine, The Lady as well as appearing on international radio.
Victor has a new star book out : Lifesurfing: Your Horoscope Forecast Guide 2014 and it's a best seller on Amazon. You can either buy the print version for under $10 or get the Kindle version ( as we did) for under $4. Sometimes there is even a free download so grab a copy now and get another as a gift for a friend. Everyone loves reading their astrological forecast. How can you go wrong ?
Visit Olliver's personal website here.
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Pictured right : Sydney society figure Glen Marie Frost, the world renowned neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo and cricketing great Alan Border at the launch of the new Thomas Kelly Foundation named in honour of 18 year old Thomas who was fatally felled by a single punch on a Saturday night, 18 months ago in Kings Cross.
Find out how you can help at the foundation's website.

Triumphant Baz

Despite the nay saying critics, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby looks like being a stellar Box Office success : the only success that really matters.

Yesterday US cinemas had raked in over over $90M in takings in the USA alone and that's before it opens in the UK, throughout Europe and ahead of Australia's gala premier this Wednesday evening when 1000 guests will front up for a sensational premier and after-party.

Luhrmann continues to defy movie snobs with his lavish productions : from his Oscar winning Romeo & Juliet to Moulin Rouge and the critic panned Australia, each production has reaped huge financial rewards and now the influential Huffington Post has given the flick the seal of approval with this article:
 Why the Critics are Wrong About Luhrmann's 'The Great Gatsby'
And get set for a year of Gatsby 1920's fashions as illustrated in the latest The Lady Magazine, the first off the rank. 

exclusive : Royal Baby is a Girl

Rachel Johnson is the editor of The Lady, the longest continually published women's magazine in the UK and she is an impeccable source .

 Writing in the UK Daily Mail she informs us that Kate Middleton's baby is a girl. Her information comes from The Lady's astrologer Victor Olliver who is very very good at these things. He predicted  a definite win for Barack Obama when other astrologers were hedging their bets. 

No Botox For Our Cate

If you have ever (as the Shuttle has often) been up close (but not personal) to Oscar winning actress Cate Blanchett you could not help but notice her extraordinary perfect white flawless skin.

Now Cate has revealed that she won't be going under the knife any day soon and botox is out. From an article in The Lady ( Britain's oldest magazine) : Cate is ‘very old-fashioned’ when it comes to things like that.
‘There’s been a decade of people doing interventions on their faces and their bodies, and now people are seeing that [in the] long term, it’s not so great,’ she said in a recent interview with Fashionetc.com. ‘I’m not standing on a soapbox telling women what they should and shouldn’t do. I just know what works for me. I’d just be too frightened about what it means long term.

‘Looking at women in their 20s doing this stuff, in the end all you see is the work. It doesn’t fill me with admiration; it fills me with pity.’

Cate also appears on the cover of the latest The Economist Intelligent Life we are assured, sans make-up, jewellery and air-brushing, looking quite gorgeous.

Now if we could just teach Cate and her husband Andrew Upton how to behave in the cinema.
The Shuttle sat behind the pair at the Sydney premier of I'm Not There in which Blanchett gives a stellar performance as a rambling Bob Dylan visiting England in the 1960s. After introducing the movie and admitting she hadn't seen the final version, Cate and Andrew chatted all the way through the film, only staying silent when the flick reached her piece which is about two thirds of the way through the film.
 We resisted tapping her on the shoulder and shushing her.

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.