Aussie Publishing Wars

High drama as an ex-pat Aussie media man takes legal action against high profile journalist Ronan Farrow (pictured right) who wrote the 2017 New Yorker "expose" on Harvey Weinstein that kicked of the so-called @MeToo movement. He won a 2018 Pullizer Prize for that reporting.
Farrow is the son of actress Mia Farrow and director Woody Allen and the grandson of legendary Australian film writer and director John Farrow who found fame in Hollywood in the 1940s.

Enter from stage right heavyweight publisher Dylan Howard who was brought up in Geelong outside Melbourne and who studied journalism at Deakin University. After working on the daily Geelong Advertiser in 2009 Howard decamped to the US to work as a TV reporter for Kerry Stokes' Seven Network.

Howard left, has become a pretty high powered media personality over the years managing publications like Us Weekly and OK! as well as editing the hugely popular celebrity gossip tabloid the National Enquirer which no US supermarket worth it's salt would dare not feature at the check-out counters.
Recently, with a weekly circulation of over 270,000 the Enquirer was sold for $US100M.

Back to Ronan Farrow who is this month releasing an anticipated tome called Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators which rumours say will document claims Howard attempted to dig up information on Weinstein accuser Rose McGowan ( well he is a journalist- sort of his job really..a bit like Farrow's) along with other tales about US president Donald Trump.
Apparently M'Learned Friend has been contacted by Howard with high powered US, UK and Australasian law firms telling all and sundry in the book business..publisher, retailers etc they could be in line for a legal rumbling should anything untoward appear about their client.

Ronan is the image of his grandfather John Farrow. His book is due to be published on October 15th.

Tales from The Dreamtime # 2

"I think JFK was murdered"

Thus concludes an article in the Aussie Who Magazine. It's a quote from the colourful ex-mayor of Geelong, former "King of The Paparazzi" and "media personality" Darryn Lyons, he of the hot pink cockatoo hairstyle.
We reckon Darryn's pretty spot on with this observation. A quick perusal of the shocking Zapruder Film shot on the day the US President died clearly shows something dreadful happened.
Apparently Lyons also believes the late Princess Diana may have died because of a conspiracy.

Whispers worked with Diana for three days on her last ever charity appearance : the launch of the Victor Change Institute in Sydney in 1995.

It was quite a shock to read some time later she was apparently having an affair with Dodi Fayed. Whispers had known Dodi in London for years and formed a quartet of party-goes and clubbers that included the actress Britt Ekland.
Most nights of the week we clambered into Britt's tiny black Mini, a gift from her ex-husband Peter Sellers and did the rounds of the West End clubs, like Maunkberrys and  Annabels.

One day out of the blue Whispers was invited to lunch with the then relatively unknown Mohamed Fayed. Mr Fayed had heard of our nightly jaunts and was perturbed about our mode of transport. He doted on Dodi. Fayed loaned Whispers a Mercedes for a year from his collection and requested we drive our little group about in what he said was a much safer vehicle.

When the ill-fated pair died in that Paris tunnel Fleet Street tabloids beat a path to Whispers door wanting the low-down on Dodi's' nightly activities, offering  big bucks for the story. We declined out of respect of Mr. Fayed's feelings even though there was much to tell.

Lyons says Princess Diana appeared on his doorstep one day to request that he photograph her ex Prince Charles and not her. Odd really as Lyons Big Picture photo agency was only created in London in 2002 and was dissolved in 2012. Diana died in 1997.

Darryn says he has photographs of Diana dying in that safe Mercedes taken by a paparazzi who worked for him, stored in safes around the world. We always believed the French police confiscated the paparazzi's film on that dreadful night.

In 2008 at the British inquest into the tragic accident the jury concluded Princess Diana and her companion Dodi Fayed had been unlawfully killed by a combination of the driving of their Mercedes by their chauffeur Henri Paul and the driving of following vehicles - the posse of paparazzi photographers who were dogging their final journey.
We'll just leave that one there.

Dreamtime

Melbourne has  Geoffrey Edeslten and Geelong has it's new clown town mayor 

Darryn ("Yes, I knew the Princess of Wales very well") Lyons (who gives jumping onto a trend ten years after it fizzled out new meaning). He's been featured in a Sydney Morning Herald piece titled The Emperor Of Geelong.
 My sources say the piece was heavily legalled and it would seem so as the article by Susan Chenery has less of the usual bite we can expert from the experience interviewer.
Still it gives us some insight into the label dropping (they should sue) , name dropping fantasy that now governs the lives of Victoria's second largest city. Probably the most pertinent sentence comes from Lyon's own lips in respect of Geelong's current troubles with collapsing businesses : "I am certainly not the saviour and I haven't got the magic wand".
# Is that a tasteful Charles Billich work of art on his wall ? I think we should be told.
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Kylie Minogue did a surprise concert last night at the Beresford Hotel in Surry Hills after she spent all day tweeting that should be there.

Arrivals #2

Having fled back to his native Geelong leaving behind a broke Big Picture Agency in the UK, the unfashionable haired Darryn Lyons who labels himself Mr Paparazzi has announced his candidacy for Mayor of the illustrious Victorian city.

Lyon's Agency went bankrupt in the UK last year with photographers claiming they were owed unpaid royalties.  In 2008 Lyons was ordered to pay actress Sienna Miller $40,000 in damages for harassment and he lost an appeal against Harry Potter author J.K.Rowling who won a court case against his agency,
Virgin Atlantic also launched an inquiry after it discovered employees were feeding Big Pictures confidential celebrity travel details. Last year Lyons left his garish London flat with it's Warhol prints ( although how Andy managed to paint Lyons when he died in 1987 is a mystery) by co-incidence just as the Leveson Inquiry was getting underway.
Now settled in Geelong Lyons has joined the Liberal Party (have they no shame ?) and a few days ago announced that he would " call upon ideas from overseas, particularly London, and use my high-profile contacts to benefit Geelong. "My ideas from worldly knowledge and travel knowledge about looking at other cities and how it works and looking at the concept for success is my key platform for the future,". Yes dear. Whatever.
Alas the voters of Geelong may have other ideas if comments in the local newspaper are an indication: these are some of the nicer ones.."No way", "Good grief, please get us a leader with business smarts and a personality. Blue hair belongs at Bingo sessions". "Ratepayer funded cosmetic six packs for all council members as the first priority."

Geelong

 " craves attention, delusions of grandeur and no style what so ever"..."Geelong must be the laughing stock of Australia over this farce"....."People were stupid enough to vote for Tony Abbott so anything is possible."...."It's not often you see mutton dressed up as mutton."