Ahoy Newcastle residents: the fabulous Jackie Loeb is back in Oz for a series of shows. She lives in Los Angeles where she is a popular face in the various comedy clubs so this is chance to catch some side-splitting comedy. And crikey-look at the sponsers- this is serious.

Macquarie Street fire

A building has burst into flames in Sydney's legal and medical specialist district Macquarie Street almost opposite Parliament House.as our exclusive snaps show.
It's not as bad as first thought- the flames are actually consuming plastic sheeting stretching up the side of the building currently being renovated.
The scaffolding was also in flames. The irony is that the work being carried out was to remove flammable cladding that has caused so much grief in London's deadly Grenfell Tower fire.
Fortunately there were no casualties with today's blaze.
pictures: Douglas S. Thompson‏ @tsdhe 

Quelle Horreur !

An almighty row has broken out after the UK gay & lesbian publication Pink News labelled Prince

George as a "gay icon".
Really?. He looks more to Whispers ( as does Princess Charlotte) as delightfully 1950s in that Windsor way. Surely his Father Prince William and uncle Prince Harry are obvious candidates for gay icons.
Anyhow our aging NSW parliamentarian the Reverend Fred Nile is completely outraged and says :  “The article is an underhanded attempt at promoting a divisive agenda of radical social reform by abusing the symbolism of the Royal Family. No child, especially a potential future Monarch, should be exploited for ideological purposes in this way."

Heaven forbid that Australia's (and the Commonwealth's) Royal Family should ever be exploited for ideological purposes.
What to make of this budding scandal? We have no idea.

Disclosure : Whispers once interviewed the Reverend Fred in his NSW Parliament office. He was most friendly, pouring tea and offering biscuits but as we were about to depart he insisted we join his Parliamentary prayer group with his Christian Democratic Party colleagues. A Bible placed in our hand and a gentle shove in the back made it clear a refusal would not be accepted.

We are most honoured to say that the Reverend Fred Nile prayed to The Lord and requested He (She)  place Whispers into his (her) gentle arms when That Time comes.

Vivid Sydney

The amazing light show is almost upon us. This is what you can expect:

Eleven Bridge opens

Despite Sydney's nightlife seemingly vanishing before our very eyes with the new Lock Out laws, celebrity chef Neil Perry re-opened his Rock's restaurant as Eleven Bridge on Monday night. Previously named Rockpool, Perry closed the eatery six months ago.
A favourite with celebrities and fine diners- Whispers once sat at a table next to Joan Collins , Russell Crowe and media mogul Lachlan Murdoch (and that was a slow night), the foodie world was stunned when Perry suddenly closed up shop with a restaurant in a prime location and famed the world over.
But always one step ahead of his rivals, Perry had always planned to turn Rockpool into a more informal diner and Eleven Bridge was born.
You can peruse the new restaurants menu here but don't be too shocked at the prices. Hey, it's The Rocks and the NSW Government has just announced plans to spend $200M on refurbishing Circular Quay and The Rocks. Already a major tourist area it badly needs a re-vamp and Perry who also designs menus for Qantas is not one to miss a trick.

Enter Lady Georgia Campbell

What a treat is in store for northern New South Wales as one of England's Grande Dames Lady Georgia Campbell is to grace our shores as a contestant in the British reality program I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
Whispers knows Georgia fairly well and have been to many parties with the aristocrat. Indeed we once shared adjoining seats on a Lear jet owned by Saudi mega billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, on a flight to Monaco to attend a gala party on his sumptuous yacht The Nambila (Whispers was writing a social column at the time for a European magazine owned by Khashoggi.)

Campbell's history has been well covered in the past in articles like this. Born in Jamaica she married Lord Colin Campbell the son of the Duke of Argyle but the marriage only lasted 14 months. Since then she has written hugely successful books about the British Royals. Georgia now lives in a petite townhouse in London's Kennington with the 2 young Russian boys she adopted - Mischa and Dima who were whisked away from Moscow poverty to be brought up amongst minor British aristocracy



More recently Georgia featured on the Aussie TV show Ladette to Lady where her good friend publicist Liz Brewer -left, (Liz was married to Australian John Rendall of Christian the Lion fame) brought in Lady Campbell to introduce the ladettes to the British upper classes that included a successful used car dealer, an aging Count and a handful of golly gosh Hooray Henry's. What fun.
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 And the excitement just keeps coming. Manager of Double Bay's Casablanca nightclub Karim Gharbi, above- a regular fixture on these pages, has been snapped up to write a monthly lifestyle column in Maxim Australia called OZ HOT SPOTS. It pays to have several irons in the fire these days especially as the owners of the building where Casablanca is located have a proposal with Woollahra Council to turn the building into private apartments

The Wit & Wisdom of Eddie Obeid

The family companies may be feeling the pinch- son Moses Obeid looks set to lose the lease of the Rushcutters Bay Marina, but our favourite ex-Labor Power Broker & ICAC witness Eddie Obeid retains his sense of humour.
As the Shuttle revealed in LatteLife Newspaper , if Eddie were to face again any sort of formal tribunal, he has a 6'4" transvestite nephew who once belonged to the legendary Sydney drag troupe, Sylvia & The Synthetics who is very fond of his uncle. Said nephew is itching to turn up in short black dress, huge sunnies and a large picture hat to lend support to Eddie.
We digress : Mr Obied has been tweeting lately his views, not only one of Sydney's top nosheries but shows he also has a cracking sense of humour as you can see in his second tweet.