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.

Nearly Time

2015 is going to be a really fab year. That's according to the Shuttle's trusted astrologer Victor Olliver and our resident mystic the mysterious Madame Guyon, a Roman Catholic nun channeled via a spooky old lady who lives downstairs.
The Shuttle will see in the New Year in style (?) at the Sydney Opera House (after picking our way through 200,000 revelers- surely golf carts should be provided) at the Lord Mayor's Party. We may pop into the celebrations upstairs where they are serving Pommery & Bollinger (try and keep us away!).
Here's a little snap from earlier tonight of the esteemed Lord Mayor Clover Moore, our favourite Hollywood movie star who is organising tonight's party, Jack Thompson and the gloriously named Fortunato Foti of Foti Fireworks who is responsible for the most sensational fireworks on the planet. 
And a Happy New Year to all our readers.

Good Reads

Dean Dudley & Marie Sutton

DIANA-SURVIVOR. This book was brought to out attention by Princess Diana's Aussie pal Marie Sutton who organised Diana's last official function before she was to retire- the Victor Chang Institute fundraiser in Sydney in 1996. It's the debut book by British writer Dean Dudley and is available in paperback or Kindle version.                         
Diana-Survivor tells the story of Diana surviving the car crash and giving birth to Dodi Fayed's Muslim son. Some years later, in the wake of 9/11, her child is kidnapped.
 "I can almost imagine this happening " says Marie. "it's a completely believable tale with twists and turns.I loved it". Along with Marie's endorsement it also gets a seal of approval from the Scottish Herald. Buy it here

Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay: The dodgy business of popular music  by music figure Simon Napier Bell is a complete history of popular music from the late  1700s- when composers first obtained legal copyright - to the present day. Simon is the best selling author of Black Vinyl White Powder which is described as the definitive history of pop and was included in the UK school curriculum in 2013. 

Simon's books are never boring. His I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch which charts his successful endeavours to get the band he managed WHAM ! as the first Western pop music band to give a concert in China is fascinating. Napier-Bell is also a writer of huge hits for Dusty Springfield & Elvis Presley. Buy it here.

 As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by actor Cary Elwes who starred in the Princess Bride and Robin Hood Men in Tights, Glory, Days of Thunder, Twister, and Saw and dozens of movies since. Elwes is to direct his first film about the late Kit Lambert the discoverer of The Who & Jimi Hendrix who died in mysterious circumstances in 1983. Cary's book takes you behind the scenes of the making of a Hollywood film and has received rave reviews from the New York Times and US Weekly. Buy it here.

 

Lifesurfing : Your Horoscope Forecast Guide 2015 by noted Astrologer Victor Olliver is an invaluable guide for the coming year. We at the Shuttle still consult our 2014 guide and swear by Olliver's accuracy. Buy it here.

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.
                                   *************************************

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.

It's Rudd by a Whisker

In all matters astrological we usually turn to Britain's up and coming top stargazer Victor Olliver but so busy is he with his new book Lifesurfing: Your Horoscope Forecast Guide 2014 , now an Amazon bestseller, we have turned to another expert, Marjorie Orr  for a forecast on the September 7th General Election.
It doesn't look too hot for either Tony Abbott or Kevin Rudd but Marjorie seems to see Rudd holding on. Another 'hung' parliament ?. Both leaders have said they won't deal with the minor parties- well they would say they wouldn't they - personally, the Shuttle reckons hung parliaments are all the rage and keep our politicians on their toes as exampled by Julia Gillard's tenure where she managed to negotiate over 300 pieces of legislation.
Over to Ms Orr :

Australian Election - hums and haws  From: Marjorie. (07 Aug 2013 17:48): 
The Australian Election on 7 September will now be two days before the bad tempered Mars in Leo square Saturn rather than a few days after when it was set by Julia Gillard for 14th Sept. So not a generally happy result. Indeed the Australia country chart has tr Pluto conjunct the Sun/Saturn midpoint then so feels like a real drear. Aussies not in chipper spirits.

There's the usual mixter maxter on both charts with no birth time for Tony Abbot.

Marjorie Orr

Kevin Rudd, 21 Sept 1957 12.07pm, has the strongest influence of tr Pluto trine Jupiter/Uranus which helped oust Julia Gillard tho' it disappears briefly in the days following the election. Aside from that he has tr Saturn conjunct his Venus which can denote unpopularity and conjunct his Solar Arc Mercury which can be discouraging; a couple of droopy tr Neptune trine Saturn midpoints which don't look reassuring; and tr Saturn moving to conjunct Jupiter/Saturn a few days later which again is minorly downbeat.

Tony Abbot has tr Neptune trine one Mars midpoint and tr Saturn conjunct Sun/Neptune, neither of which look cheerful. But he does have tr Jupiter trine and sextile Jupiter/Saturn and Jupiter/Uranus. And he may have useful aspects to Ascendant and Midheaven which we don't know with no birth time.
He is certainly running into major problems within a year as his Solar Arc Pluto is then conjunct his Mars/Neptune midpoint. But the same is true of Rudd since he has Solar Arc Neptune square Sun Mars within a year as well. 
Rudd was elected on the party switch round on a Sun Jupiter conjunction trine Neptune trine Saturn which should stand him in good stead. Abbot's opposition party is just ahead in the polls but I wouldn't be surprised if Rudd hung on. But it isn't a clear cut call at all even given the normal uncertainties of election charts."

'Queen of One's Own Realm'

We like to think that would be the occupation that the new Prince of Cambridge's Great Granny would put down

should she be asked to fill in a form like the one pictured here: Prince George's birth certificate.

What is in store for the new heir to the British (and Australian) throne ?. For expert advice we turn to the Astrologer of choice Victor Olliver, Britain's rising star of the stars :
"Born on 22 July 2013 , at 4.24pm (London), Prince George is a ‘watery’ fellow – he will be hypersensitive, compassionate, intuitive if not psychic, possibly artistic, temperamental and abundantly focused on the people.                                                                                     
If you want to know whom he most resembles, tremble not (too much) if I say that he will be a cross between grandparents Charles and the late Diana. Just about a Cancerian (Diana), with one minute to spare, he has Scorpio (Charles) rising: prepare for a deliciously bumpy national ride as baby grows into manhood and courts controversy. Cool on the surface, he’ll try to disguise unusually intense feelings and reactions, the trigger for many battles with authority. But George will be both a valiant and lucky champion for the UK and an internationalist. And immensely popular, globally.
With his Venus on the same spot as regal fixed star Regulus at birth, he’s a Royal superstar of the 21st century." You can read more detail here.

For your own astrological outlook we suggest you check out Victor Olliver's new book at Amazon :
Victor Olliver’s Lifesurfing: Your Horoscope Forecast Guide 2014.
 It's currently No 1 on Amazon and there is a handy Kindle version available for $4.99.

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. 

Fairfax Mergers - The Smage ?

Do they employ a psychic at The Guardian newspaper or perhaps they have called upon Britain's top astrologer Victor Olliver to cast the runes ?

Their timing is perfect to enter the Australian market and seize the left-of-centre ground abandoned by the once great Fairfax empire.

Now a war of words has broken out between newsmen as former Fairfax editor Andrew Jaspan today told the mUmBRELLA website that The Age & Sydney Morning Herald will combine and  "switch their editorial positioning away from the high ground occupied in the past by Fairfax’s metro mastheads and towards what is referred internally as ‘Middle Australia’. That means more mid-market fare: sport, showbiz, gossip, and fast news. He describes this as"like 2 bald men fighting over a comb".

Andrew Jaspan                 Garry Linnell

Current editor Garry Linnell has hit back and described Japser's claims as "complete fiction" and accused him of having taken The Age downmarket during his tenure.

 The Guardian's Australian editorial team are already in Australia and preparing the new local Guardian website.Many of Fairfax's best writers who last year took redundancy have been offered work on the new web newspaper.
Fairfax would do well to actually take Japser's comments as good advice. Well that's what we reckon.

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.

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.

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.