"Off With Their Heads "! Charles & Camilla Attacked & Diana's Portrait

Video has surfaced of the attack upon Prince Charle's and The Duchess of Cornwall as they headed through London streets to the Royal Variety Performance. Apparently Camilla was poked in the chest with a stick shoved through the window. One protester loudly shouts "off with their heads !". No wonder the pair looked so alarmed. That's precisely what happened to many of their forbears.

Still it should have set them up nicely for the show-Susan Boyle, Robbie Williams and Australia's very own Human Nature currently wowing audiences in the USA with their nightly Las Vegas show.

Meanwhile we have uncovered a covertly filmed scene of Camilla having Princess Diana's portrait removed from Clarence House and replaced with her own.

It is of course, a spoof by the wonderful and talented artist Alison Jackson. Check out more at her website.

exclusive photos : Prince Charles & Camilla Attacked In London Demo

Good to see those bullet-proof windows work !

The Shuttle doesn't have enough knowledge of the full facts of the education cost's debate currently being waged in the UK to comment and certainly does not endorse violence. 

These photographs from our British source are quite remarkable though and do raise questions-how could the heir to the British throne get up caught in these circumstances?. Expect questions in Parliament.

Possibly one positive thing to come out of this calamity-a politicised younger generation.  We hope..

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FAMOUS LAST WORDS # 1 :

Headline in today's Daily Telegraph : 

Oprah's motorcade in Melbourne freeway scare

Story :

" Oprah’s car moved past the scene without incident"

The Versace Mafia Claims & The Australian Link

The story is so hot in Italy that the media there has gone into meltdown. On December 2nd  respected investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi published his new book Metastis; A Chronicle of 'Blood & Money".

Gianluigi Nuzzi

In Metastis Mafia godfather Giuseppe di Bella, now a police supergrass says that fashion designer Gianni Versace was murdered by the notorious Calabrian Mafia  N’drangheta, a little known but feared group with close ties to South American drug lords.
di Bella says that he and his fellow mobsters laundered billions of dollars for the South Americans by filtering it through legitimate businesses and one of them was the Versace fashion empire to the tune of $200M a year. 

He claims that Gianni Versace was taking so much money out of his fashion business and taking so much cocaine he was beginning to believe the money belonged to him. di Bella says a hit was ordered on Versace to teach others a lesson.

And he says the reported killer of Versace, Andrew Cunanan was a patsy and was himself murdered by the Mafia.

Giancarlo Capaldo, of the Rome based anti Mafia department, said: 'We have opened a file into what Di Bella says - he is an informer and his information in the past has always proved correct.'

In a statement the Versace family said: 'The declarations from the informer are false and shameful.

Gianni Versace, whose celebrity friends included Diana, Princess of Wales, Elton John,  Madonna and Naomi Campbell was shot at close range in the back of the head on the steps of his Miami mansion on July 15, 1997 in what detectives at the time speculated had the hallmarks of a mob hit.

Cunanan was found dead  several days later on a Miami houseboat. It was claimed to be a suicide.

Donatella

But the Versace Mafia claims are not new.
                                                                               
Ten years ago Santo and Donatello Versace took Australian private eye Frank Monte to court in Sydney after he published a book, The Spying Game in which he detailed the very same claims. The Versaces won their case and the book was pulped.

Frank Monte

While few questions were asked at the time about why the Versaces  bothered coming all the way to the Sydney Supreme Court to take on Monte something quite different was happening in Italy.

Numerous Italian publications said that  it was common knowledge that Gianni Versace and the Mafia were ln bed together.

While Monte was on the receiving end of criticism in the Australian media, the opposite was happening in Italy. He was being hailed as a hero for exposing the Versace empire as a fashion fairy tale just too good to be true. They treated him as the underdog in the Sydney trial. Meanwhile Italian newspapers published photographs of Gianni leaving by boat from his lavish villa on Lake Como accompanied by known Mafia members. 

The local Australian media has all but ignored the di Bello story but in Italy, the UK and the USA the story is gaining traction. At least 2 major British newspapers are to shortly publish new details about the Versace empire and both have contacted Monte.

Now the Shuttle has seen a copy of a manuscript written not long after the Versace shooting-The Miami Jigsaw. The author received several credible death threats at the time and decided not to publish. The manuscript contains  never before published details of the Versace and Cunanan deaths in Miami, much of it sourced from detectives who worked on the case.

There are details that possibly didn't seem that important at the time but with  the Gianluigi Nuzzi book now become very pertinent.

Such as the fact that ownership of the houseboat on which Andrew Cunanan's body was found , linked back to a known Mafia member and was a base for mob members. Despite the well publicised details of Cunanan's trip across the USA from California to Miami on a serial murder spree, no publication at the time mentioned  his stay in Las Vegas before the trip began.

In FBI records there are details of Cunanan receiving large sums of money  in Vegas despite having no job or income with photos of him meeting with mob members. In police reports the pathologist who examined Cunanan's body said that the claim that he had died 8 days after Versace was dubious and that he may have in fact, died before Versace.

Witnesses say the man who shot Versace yelled a known Mafia curse in Italian. Cunanan did not speak the language. Nor did any of those witnesses identify Cunanan as the shooter. Beside Gianni's bod lay a dead pigeon, a known Mafia symbol.

In The Miami Jigsaw it's clear that Miami police held little faith in the Cunanan murder theory, particularly as Versace had been killed in a classic Mafia style hit in broad daylight.   Added to this was the manner in which Cunanan had killed all his other victims-shooting them front on while facing them or torturing them first.

The book has  FBI records to show the federal agency thought similarly.

Last night Santo Versace confronted  Giuseppe di Bella on Italian television and poured scorn on di Bella's claims. But when di Bella said that he had met Santo on a number of occasions which Santo denied, he revealed intimate details of Santo's home. Today talk back radio in Rome was running hot with callers on the side of Giuseppe di Bella.

Journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi talks on Italian TV about the N’drangheta and the Versace murder.

Koalas F**k For Oprah, Wikileak's Chic and John Lennon

The Oprah jet & Gayle & Oprah on Hamilton Island

 * If you haven't noticed, Oprah Winfrey arrived by private jet in Cairns in Northern Queensland today. She didn't alight as the plane was cleared by Customs but flew onto Hamilton Island where she and her great friend Gayle King visited a zoo where they were confronted by 2 mating Koalas !.

According to Oprah as she cuddled one Koala "oh it feels just like the ones in the stores back home". Shops that sell Koalas in the USA? .

** Overheard by our spy in  Parliament House in Canberra in the Member's Bar : 2 Labor politicians  were discussing the Wikileaks cables and the ones where US diplomats describe former PM Kevin Rudd as a "control freak".

One, a well known cabinet minster said to the other " no, it's very disappointing. I haven't even been mentioned. It's like the kiss of death, I feel like a complete nobody !"

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John Waters

*** It's 30 Years since John Lennon was gunned down in New York City. Rolling Stone Magazine is to publish the very last interview with the great song writer recorded by Jonathan Cott on the 5th December 1980. You can hear much of the material on the magazine's website.

Cott recorded nine hours of interviews with Lennon but had forgotten all about them and most of the material has never been heard before.

**** Local actor John Waters is to tour his brilliant and successful one-man show  Lennon in Word and Music: Looking Through a Glass Onion. Water's sings just about every song Lennon wrote and talks through the show about Lennon's life. It's a superb show-the Shuttle first saw it it in 1998 and now Waters has the blessing of Yoko Ono.

Today Waters  was at the  Hard Rock’s Sydney Rock Shop, Harbourside, Darling Harbour to launch the Imagine There’s No Hunger in co-operation with Yoko's Why Hunger campaign.

The campaign was launched by Hard Rock International in November at the Hollywood Cafe and featured performances by Ringo Starr, Dave Stewart, Booker T, Joe Walsh and many more.

Waters is one of Australia's hardest working stage and film actors. Born in the UK he became fascinated by the entertainment industry while watching his father work in his  own movie studio very near Thames TV . His first break-as a child in the first Titanic film A Night To Remember.

Check out dates for Looking Through A Glass Onion at the website.

A video of John Waters in Looking Through A Glass Onion

Arise Gina Rinehart -Media Baroness

What is happening with Australia's richest woman Gina Rinehart ?. 

2 years ago she was content with quietly cruising the Mediterranean after a protracted legal  battle with her ex-mother-in-law Rose Hancock Porteus, the Filipino maid who married Gina's dad, the late West Australian mining magnate Lang Hancock when he was 70. Gina, who was left a $4.5 billion fortune by her father claimed there had been skulduggery over her father's death although it came to nought.

Now she has embarked on media buying frenzy and looks set to join her Perth friend the billionaire Kerry Stokes who moved east and swept up the Seven TV Network along with Pacific Magazines which he purchased from Rupert Murdoch's nephew Matt Handbury.

Today Gina bought just under 5% of Fairfax Media, publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Melbourne along with several chains of suburban newspapers. Fairfax are the only serious rivals to the News Ltd empire. 

2 months ago, as the young tycoons Lachlan Murdoch and James Packer banded together to purchase 17% of the Ten TV Network, 4 weeks later Reinhardt  stumped down a few million for a 10% stake in Ten.

Just 6 months ago the normally reclusive Gina clambered aboard a pick-up truck in a Perth park opposite the Hyatt Hotel  to protest then PM Kevin Rudd's proposed 40 % mining tax. Reinhardt was joined by fellow miner and billionaire Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest. She helpfully handed out printed placards to the arriving protesters-all mining workers. 

Has this new public profile sparked of a deisre to become a player and power broker in the media world ?

Has PM Julia Gillard Gone Bonkers ?

Whether you vote for Labor or the Coalition parties in Australia (both right of centre parties), the latest announcements by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Federal Attorney General Robert McClelland should ring alarm bells and raise questions not only about their fitness to lead but whether these 2 lawyers really understand  the law.

The number of trained lawyers in the Australian Parliament is estimated to be around 60% of the elected representatives. Government is about making and producing law. But if those making the law do not understand it, where do we stand ?.

The case of Julian Assange goes beyond the usual rhetoric and daily news cycle that we are all subject to and which our politicians hopelessly play to.

Assange-whatever anyone thinks of him , is no different to the dozens of journalists from the New York Times. De Spiegel and Australia's New Ltd publications who have published the Wikileak's material. Indeed, most of the world's newspapers and media outlets published before Wilkileaks did.

In a country that usually stands up for the underdog and the so-called 'fair go', for Gillard to publicly and ignorantly announce that Assange has committed 'illegal' acts ( of which she now refuses to reveal what she thinks those acts are) and for McClelland, who time and time again has proven himself to be the Labor Party's greatest disappointment after the Howard years of lawlessness with his "business a usual" attitude, to call for an Australian Federal Police investigation into 'illegal' acts (not one of which he can think of)  really is beyond the pale.

(Does anyone remember how during the Howard years the Australian Wheat Board paid over $200M in bribes to Saddam Hussein -money undoubtedly used to purchase weapons to kill Australian and Allied soldiers and how former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer professed ignorance of dozens of emails informing him of these illegal bribes for which not one single person has been charged ?)

Numerous media pundits and US politicians have called for Assange's assassination.

The Wilkileaks cables reveal that US Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton, a recent guest in Australia, called for US diplomats to illegally steal UN Officials (including Australian diplomats) credit card details. These are admissions of a conspiracy to commit the crimes of theft and  murder.

Of course we all know that Gillard and McClelland are gutlessly parroting the US line. And that is what is so depressing. Is it any wonder that former Prime Minister Paul Keating once refered to us as the "arse end of the world".

In about 1 hour The Australian newspaper will publish a special editorial penned by Julian Assange. The following letter has been sent to  Prime Minister Gillard and appeared tonight on the ABC TV website.

 Dear Prime Minister,

We note with concern the increasingly violent rhetoric directed towards Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.

Noam Chomsky

Jeffrey T Kuhner- "Kill Him!"

Julian Burnside QC

“We should treat Mr Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him,” writes conservative columnist Jeffrey T Kuhner in the Washington Times.

William Kristol, former chief of staff to vice president Dan Quayle, asks, “Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are?”

“Why isn’t Julian Assange dead?” writes the prominent US pundit Jonah Goldberg.

“The CIA should have already killed Julian Assange,” says John Hawkins on the Right Wing News site.

Sarah Palin, a likely presidential candidate, compares Assange to an Al Qaeda leader; Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator and potential presidential contender, accuses Assange of “terrorism”.

And so on and so forth.

Such calls cannot be dismissed as bluster. Over the last decade, we have seen the normalisation of extrajudicial measures once unthinkable, from ‘extraordinary rendition’ (kidnapping) to ‘enhanced interrogation’ (torture).

In that context, we now have grave concerns for Mr Assange’s wellbeing.

Irrespective of the political controversies surrounding WikiLeaks, Mr Assange remains entitled to conduct his affairs in safety, and to receive procedural fairness in any legal proceedings against him.

As is well known, Mr Assange is an Australian citizen.

We therefore call upon you to condemn, on behalf of the Australian Government, calls for physical harm to be inflicted upon Mr Assange, and to state publicly that you will ensure Mr Assange receives the rights and protections to which he is entitled, irrespective of whether the unlawful threats against him come from individuals or states.

                                                                                             .....continued at The Real News

The Oprah Bandwagon Arrives

They're streaming in from all over the country. The 7000 who have won tickets to attend the 2 Oprah Winfrey shows to be filmed at the Sydney Oprah House. Later today another few hundred arrive from the USA in a Qantas 747 piloted by movie star John Travolta.

On Wednesday Oprah herself and her personal staff arrive  in Cairns in QLD on Oprah's own jet.

When she finally arrives in Sydney on the 10th, a cavalcade of limos will speed her and the entourage to the Four Seasons Hotel near Circular Quay in an extraordinary move that is reminiscent of a US presidential visit. Accompanying Oprah is her great friend Gayle King who is also editor-at-large of O Magazine. Oprah and Gayle will share adjoining hotel suites.

Not only will police give Oprah an escort, traffic will be stopped along the motorway to ensure her trip, normally a 20 minute drive gets the US chat show host to her hotel in 10 minutes.

A dozen local security personnel (armed with pistols) have been hired to supplement Winfrey's own security guards and local and Federal police will be on hand. All locals who have been hired to work with Oprah have been required to sign confidentiality agreements. If anyone is found to disclose personal information and it's proved to have come from them, they are required to pay back twice what they are paid to work for her.

And the Sydney Harbour Bridge will be adorned with a giant O sign during her stay .Welcome to the Oprah roadshow.

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The historic Sydney Barrack's  Mint last night hosted the after party for the film  premier of Love and Other Drugs with the stars of the film  Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway on hand. They were a pretty friendly couple, chatting to guests and circulating at ease for about 15 minutes.

Naturally both love Sydney (when has any visiting celeb said differently ?...Eminen the only one who hated the place).

# actor Ryan Kwanten has returned to the USA after winning the GQ Magazine Man of The Year Award. Kwanten's star continues to rise in the States with the success of the vampire series True Blood. Oddly no Australian TV outlet has yet picked up the popular cult series.

And actor Firass Dirani who portrayed the 'colourful' Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim in the hugely successful series Underbelly 3 won the Actor of The Year Award. Dirani has just finished filming The Killer Elite with Robert de Niro.

Vale Mr Squiggle

Norman Hetherington the creator of the famous Mr Squiggle character on ABC TV has died in Brisbane at age 89.  Mr Squiggle was a pencil nosed marionette who lives on the moon, as one does. 

He squiggled drawings sent in by viewers with his nose. He first appeared on television in 1959 and the show ran until 1999 making it the longest ever local TV show.
Long before Jim Henson, Hetherington created a series of puppets -the first Mr Squiggle being operated from below like Henson's puppets later were.

Norman Hetherington began life as a cartoonist and illustrator appearing in The Bulletin alongside artists like Norman Lindsay. Not every kid loved Mr Squiggle-some were terrified of him, especially when he roared off in his rocket ship back to the moon !

Gianni Versace Death Was A Mafia Hit

A new book written by a powerful Mafia godfather claims Gianni Versace, shot dead on the steps of his Miami villa was gunned down by the Mafia over debts.

 Giuseppe Di Bella, a former member of the Calabrian Mafia known as the 'Ndrangheta, says in his book "Metastasis" (Italian for 'a spreading cancer') a hit was ordered on Versace who Di Bella claims was laundering money for the mob. 

He says: ‘There were rivers of money from drugs, extortion, protection rackets, loan sharking, mountains of money and it had to be made clean. Bars, restaurants, property and luxury goods were used but also clean businesses like that of Versace.'

The Ndrangheta clan were lesser known than other Mafia groups but are said to have been extremely powerful and intricately linked with the South American drug cartels and ran operations to launder billions of dollars in drug money. Di Bella says the Versace empire was used by the 'Ndrangheta to launder funds to the tune of $200M a year .

He also claimed the ’Ndrangheta plotted to steal Versace’s ashes on New Year’s Eve in 1997 but it was never carried out.

The Versace family are denying the claims but  the anti-Mafia department in Rome said it had opened a case to investigate the claims.

In his international best-seller Gomorrah, journalist Roberto Saviano who now lives under 24-hour police  protection documented the violence of the Naples and Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, which he said  is considered by many experts to be the wealthiest and most feared of the Italian Mafia.

   

It is characterised by secretive blood ties and a vast global network with an estimated annual turnover of more than $70 billion. Its international branches are in many western countries including Germany and Australia.

Will Jackie Weaver win an Academy Award ?

The small independent film Animal Kingdom is already a runaway success and looks like winning some Oscars if the latest awards from the prestige National Board of Review in the USA are anything to go by. These awards are a good indication of how voting will go in the Academy Awards.

The movie has won best Independent Film and a star of the film, Jackie Weaver (right)  has won Best Supporting Actress in her role as the matriach of a blue collar crime family in the locally made drama that has already won a swag of AFI Awards.

The Social Network, the drama based on facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg has picked up the Best Film with director David Fincher picking up the  gong for direction and Jesse Eisenberg getting Best Actor for his role as Zuckerberg.

And the documentary about Social Shuttle favourite Joan Rivers has come in amongst the top five !

Seeking Out Desperate Housewives !

There is an old maxim amongst Sydneysider socialites-"do not cross the bridge, do not go north", in reference to the leafier suburbs over the Harbour Bridge and along the North Shore where lay endless suburbs of impressive million dollar McMansions but little in the way of entertainment.

Sharon Sargeant joins the Desperate Housewives

With that in mind, the Shuttle sent one of it's more naive operatives into the far reaches of the mysterious southern suburbs of which we know little, in the search of Desperate Housewives.

 Our man in the field found them-at a charming little inlet nestled by the Georges River in Como and at of all places, a Thai restaurant.

100 locals and some from further afield had gathered to see (as our mole reports) a fab show of entertainment by 2 multi-Mo Award ( they're the gongs for live entertainment) winning performers, Krissy Stanley and Lizzie Taylor.

These 2 sing up a perfect storm with an endless patter of wit and anecdotes. Our chap was particularly taken with their impressions of Elaine Page and Susan Boyle complete with coughing fit as seen on Oprah Winfrey ( a report soon on the extraordinary security arrangements for Oprah's Oz tour-bigger then George W. Bush and Bill Clinton).

But there was more. An amazing medley from Ms Taylor as Tina Turner, Shirley Bassey and Cher had the crowd leaping to their feet to roar approval. Apparently the best impressions they have ever seen.

If you aren't as adventurous as our office boy doubling as a seasoned hack, in  early 2011 the Desperate Housewives are bringing their show to ritzy Double Bay which is in desperate need of their talents, having lost most of it's nightlife now that the Ritz Carlton Hotel has closed.

We'll bring you dates and all the info as it comes to hand.

Bono, A Love Match and Son of Christian the Lion

They've been spotted around town arm in arm several times now and it's official- they are an item.

Glen Marie Frost and John Rendall of Christian the Lion fame. Glen-Marie is one of the most powerful PRs in the country and a political fixer.

 Rendall recently found fame when old footage of he and his partner Anthony Ace Bourke being greeted by a lion in Africa received 50M hits on youtube after someone put schmaltzy music to it. Before that he was-as the Londoner's Diary on the UK Evening Standard newspaper called him, "an Australian socialite" living in London.

Both have been married twice before. Glen Marie to 2 high flying businessmen .Rendall was once married to top London PR Liz Brewer. Aussie viewers will have seen her in the local Ladette's To Lady where she introduces the rough and ready local gels to the cream of London society- a retired Major, a used car dealer, some young Hooray Henrys from a minor public school and Lady Colin Campbell, an aristocrat with a startling deep voice.



At Nic Cerrone's- Kerrie Ann Kennerley and John Rendall .



Our new lovers were at the diamonds launch at top jeweller Nic Cerrone's lavish boutique in Martin Place last Thursday. And again today at the Black & White Committee's charity lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel where Rendall treated the guests to a (thankfully) short slide show on Christian.



 Carmela & Nic Cerrone



John has just returned from Kenya where he hosted a safari. He says on the last day he and the group were trekking in the George Adamson Wildlife Reserve when they found an abandoned lion cub on the spot where Christan lived out his last days.
John's having the lion cub DNA tested to see if it is related to Christian!.

                                         

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Singer Bono flicked a switch last night to bathe the Sydney Opera House in red lights for the launch of World AIDs Day. Accompanying him were NSW premier Kristina Keneally and Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Bono quipped that he felt like the "third member of Charlie's Angels".



Julia Gillard, Kristina Keneally, Bono



He leads the charge over the next 2 months that will see an influx Down Under of celebrities . Oprah Winfrey arrives on the 10th of December for at least 2 weeks accompanied by John Travolta. Nicole Kidman and hubby fly in to appear on Oprah's show with Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Hugh Jackman.

Golfer Greg Norman is in town to play golf and threw a bash last night at the Astral Bar at Star City while in Melbourne Jay Z & Beyonce went ten-pin bowling.



George Michael arrives soon for summer. Actor John Malkovich arrives at the end of December to appear at the Sydney Festival and expatriate True Blood star Ryan Kwanten flew in yesterday to attend the GQ Man of The Year Awards.