Floods, Cyclones and Lavish Dinners

One glamorous guest at the Lavazzi calendar launch on Monday evening in Potts Point was hotelier to the stars, Terry Schwamberg.

Terry Schwamberg

Terry owns a few boutique hotels here and there along with some luxurious houses you can hire by the night or month-Paris, Byron Bay, Bali, Palm Beach , the Amalfi Coast, and some of Queensland's most beautiful tropical  beaches and of course, the Medusa Boutique Hotel just near Kings Cross-a favourite with Hollywood movie stars filming at Fox Studios including Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen during the Star Wars trilogy and Keanu Reeves who called it home for a few months.

Terry reports that one of her Bedarra Island beach huts was borne aloft by the terrifying Cyclone Yasi and vanished in the wind as it swept through QLD twelve days ago. But fortunately that was the only damage and considering the island was in the eye of the storm she reckons she got off lightly.

Sadly business will preclude her from attending tonight's Rose Bay Flood Relief Fundraising Dinner at the Rose Bay Promenade to aid victims of the dreadful floods that preceded Yasi. 750 guests at $1000 a head with food prepared by Michael McMahon's Catalin and other prominent chefs. It should be something quite amazing. Providing the weather holds.

Bedarra Island

Also raising funds for flood and cyclone victims in Queensland were 400 prominent businessmen at the Hilton Hotel last week at a lunch hosted by the Hon Bruce Baird AM , chairman of the Tourism and Transport Forum and sponsored by Qantas.

Anna Bligh

Guest speaker was the QLD premier Anna Bligh who through adversity in her home state has surely resurrected a faltering political career with her approval rating jumping a whopping 35% . There are whispers that a Federal Parliamentary seat now beckons.

Anna's heartfelt speech at the lunch , just as she has delivered on several TV news broadcasts, some that were  screened on the BBC has impressed all with her ability to empathise with the flood victims. Watch out Julia Gillard. A competitor is on the horizon.

                                                      

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In the interests of always bringing Shuttle readers the latest in gossip and innuendo with the knowledge that today's tittle tattle is tomorrow's news, we can report the latest  rumblings in both state and federal politics.

Our mole disguised as a Qantas trolley dolly reports on a conversation overheard on a recent flight from Melbourne to Sydney between two very senior Labor Party identities who know what's what and whose tongues loosened as the Chardonnay was sipped.

If Prime Minister Julia Gillard has Anna Blair already breathing down her neck, party heavies have given her just six more months to impress the electorate. Should she fail and the axe falls-Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten, former union heavyweight is waiting in the wings with a lot of support.

And it's not so rosy for Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. The very strong mail out is that Shadow Treasurer, the large and cuddly Joe Hockey is ready to takeover, sooner rather than later.



Joe Hockey

Not that Joe will around for long. Step forward- Malcolm Turnbull, the man who would be king and as predicted by the Shuttle many moons ago, will finally claim the crown.

Stateside-when ruling NSW Labor is swept aside in 5 weeks and the ever so nice but dull state Liberal leader Barry O'Farrell who could surely win a gold medal with his Olympian efforts at boring an audience witless becomes premier, he shall remain for 12 months which is about how long Coaltion heavies figure it will take NSW voters to realise they have elected a dud of Titanic proportions. Which takes us to March 2012-the Ides of March and all that as knives come from all directions aimed at Barry's ample back.

In his place will be the member for Manly, the clever, young and good looking Mike Baird, co-incidentally the son of former MP  Bruce Baird, host of last week's flood lunch.

That gives Mike 3 years to consolidate the Coaltion's 10 years of power to come.

You have been warned !

Nice Coffee-Neat Calendar

We love this calendar. It's a bit late in the year to release it  but one should always time their promotion to a date as Lavazzi Coffee did-Valentine's Day.



Layne Beachley, Wendy Harmer Kym Wilson at Lavazzi



Lavazzi have been publishing a calendar for 19 years now and this year's snapper who took the beautiful and subtle photos is world famous Mark Seliger whose work you see in publications like Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone.

The theme of the calendar was 'Falling In Love With Italy' with Seliger's work depicting different scenes each set in a different part of Italy where as any romantic worth their salt knows it is impossible not to fall in love. And that's just with the food.

Mark's work is often seen in galleries and museums all over the world and he's especially known for his creative shots that transform real life into art.

Past photographers have included Annie Lebowitz (currently in Sydney for her MCA exhibition that will soon tour the country ).

The calendar was launched the same night at a private party along the Navigli the historic and once navigable canals that are now Milan's most romantic settings within a venue transformed into Cupid's garden.

Sydneysiders settled for a huge terrace house in leafy Challis Avenue, Potts Point transformed into-well a large room with plenty of good eats, champers and delicious coffee based cocktails surrounded by huge billboards of some of Selinger's romantic photos. This calendar is a great size-6" x 8" but can the general public get a copy ?. We forgot to ask.



Blair Milan



## Naturally a top Italian coffee firm like Lavazzi wants only the best for it's guests and that was evident with the parties catering staff supplied by the award winning Stedman's team led by Mandy Quinn who has won numerous awards.

 They may soon have competition. Blair Milan one of their major, majordomos is about to set  up a catering and staff hire firm of his own.  Hugely talented Blair's dad is the media personality Nigel Milan who once ran New Zealand's top television network and transformed SBS TV into the sensational multi cultural outlet it is today.

And Blair's mum is one of TV's most popular chefs and foodies-Lyndey Milan who writes for the Australian Women's Weekly and appears on Kerri-Anne Kennerley's Morning TV Show. Lyndey once presented Gordon Ramsey with a 'swear jar' at a Sydney party into which he was to deposit gold coins for charity every time he swore. Ramsey fumbled the jar upon presentation and it smashed to the floor in a thousand pieces as he exclaimed "oh f*ck !"

An Award for Dame Edna !

She's been thrilling and entertaining West End audiences for 3 decades as well as fronting numerous of her own TV series on the BBC and other British networks.

Now Australia's grand Dame Edna Everage has received another award that she has said is as great an honour as when the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam declared the Moonie Ponds housewife to be a Dame of the Empire at a ceremony at Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport in 1975.

At London's Simpsons-In-The-Strand restaurant during a ceremony presided over by TV  personality Terry Wogan for the 'Oldie Awards', Dame Edna was declared Oldie Of The Year  while HRH Prince Philip was declared Consort of The Year.

The Oldie is the stablemate publication of the hugely successful British satirical magazine Private Eye. It was started by Private Eye publisher Richard Ingrams in 1992 and presents  the type of articles written by the personalities that often appear in the BBC series Grumpy Old Woman/Men (screened in Australia on the ABC). Where else could one find on sale a DVD of programs with comedian Eric Sykes ?.

As Ingrams says :""After editing Private Eye for over twenty years, I decided in 1992, along with a group of friends (Auberon Waugh, Alexander Chancellor and Stephen Glover), to launch The Oldie. The aim was to produce an antidote to youth culture but, more importantly, a magazine with emphasis on good writing, humour and quality illustration..."

It's an entertaining magazine and well worth reading. You can subscribe by going here and find out who else received awards.

And here once again is Dame Edna in a moment of brilliance :

Stepping Out in the Big Apple



Rose Byrne



The delectable Aussie export Rose Byrne wearing a delicious pale pink Ralph Lauren  gown was at the uber smart Ciprianos on Wall Street, New York on Thursday evening for a ball to launch this year's New York Fashion Week. Rose arrived on the arm of honorary Aussie citizen actor Liev Shreiber.

No scandal here- Liev did the gentlemanly thing and escorted Rose a good pal of his wife Naomi Watts who had filming commitments and couldn't make the event. Rose is currently filming X-Men: First Class while Naomi is filming the bio-pic J.Edgar  which stars Leo DiCaprio as the famous cross dressing FBI boss J.Edgar Hoover.



On the same night in the same town Geoffrey Rush was being honoured for his role in The King's Speech at a dinner at the 5 star Mandarin Oriental hotel in Columbus Circle. Amongst the gum-leaf mafia were 2 of New York's newest residents Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin who moved to the Big Apple last September so Baz could work on his next project The Great Gastby.

 Luhrmann shot down in flames the recent claim that his movie had been shelved and told the Shuttle's mole that he had 2 studios after the project- Sony and Warner Brothers and that he would be making a decision on which studio to go with as early as the end of next week.The Great Gatsby also stars Leo DiCaprio in the lead role.                                                    

Meanwhile closer to home our gal Jackie Weaver who is being wined and dined from New York to Santa Monica and winning awards on the strength of her Oscar nomination for the film Animal Kingdom  is the recipient of another accolade.

Proudly displayed at the concierge counter at the smart Horizon building in East Sydney where any number of well known Sydneysiders lay their heads including Weaver, a large framed photograph of a beaming Jackie is displayed with a congratulatory note from the building's management.

Murder Suspect Remains In Jail



Alexander Despallières

 The French husband of the late Australian Peter Ikin, Alexander Despallières remains in a cell  in the gloomy Fresnes jail after an application for bail in the Paris Court of Appeal  on the 18th January was rejected.

Ikin was a much loved music industry figure who was pals with a host of big names like Elton John and Rod Stewart. He died after a suspected heart attack and a fall down a flight of stairs.

However suspicions were raised especially after Ikin's body was cremated without family permission and Despallières managed to gain probate on a will he presented to a London court naming him as the sole beneficiary to Ikin's estate.

Enter John Reid, fiery Scot's show business entrepreneur and friend of Ikins who hired investigators to look into the matter. An examination of Ikin's stored blood showed alarming amounts of paracetamol that could have been fatal. Despallières was charged with Ikin's murder and with forging his will.

An alleged accomplice Jeremy Billien was charged with uttering forged documents in respect of the will that Despallières had used to gain Ikin's reputed $20 Million fortune. Billien and another were named as witnesses to the purported will. Billien remains on bail.

Adding a sinister note to the case was a letter from a relative to the French prosecutor alleging that 5 people including his parents and grandparents had all died in Despallièrs' sole presence. The case is expected to be back in court at the beginning of April when Despallières will have the noted French lawyer Olivier Metzner defending him.

Despallières enjoyed brief fame as a pop star in France and had ambitions to develop a TV series. Here is a video we have uncovered of an audition where he appears.

Dannii and Friends

Courtney Act with Dannii & Kris

To Matt Moran's Aria Restaurant balcony for a small party to launch Foxtels' Danni Minogue: Style Queen, a three part documentary series following Dannii as she prepares to embark on one of the biggest challenges in her career and a brand new chapter of her life – launching her brand-new fashion range Project D.

Dannii allowed cameras access in the run up to her dream business at the same time juggling all the other important elements in her life; TV, music, writing her autobiography,red-carpet events, modelling, her boyfriend Kris Smith, travelling between London and Australia for Australia’s Got Talent – and her most important job – impending motherhood.

Dannii was in top form and she was joined by partner Kris  and her partner in Project D Tabitha Somerset Webb with a surprise visit from Courtney Act who has just returned from a tour of the USA and the UK. We loved Kris's spectacles even though he admitted he doesn't actually need them but they do make him look intelligent.

One small faux pas - Dannii having a Tony Abbott moment  when responding  to a question while being interviewed : "sh*t happens!"..not a popular phrase today.

Dannii also revealed that she is eager to have another baby.

Fashion Brings Out The Big Names

David Jones was first cab off the rank with their Autumn Winter Fashion Launch at the Elizabeth Street store.



Dannii



Just to show there were no hard feelings now that the fashion duo from Sass & Bide, Heidi Middleton and Sarah Jane Clarke have decamped to the Myer chain of stores, a DJ's spokesman happily told any interviewer who would listen that sales of Sass & Bide fashion had been just a tiny, teeny fraction of DJ's income.

Myers must think otherwise having forked over $42M for around 65% of the brand.

Melissa George

Trundling through the grand marble floored store and past a photo station and then in circles around the ground floor and up 7 sets of escalators to DJ's former floor of boutique shopettes were Jane Ferguson , Harry M.Miller, Jan Logan, Grant Pearce, Mark Patrick, Lyndey Milan and Skye Leckie amongst the usual suspects who front Sydney and Melbourne's fashion parades.

Dannii Minouge was there and so was actor Melissa George , both looking trim and glam. ( If you have a spare few hours catch up on Melissa in the excellent HBO series In Treatment in which she stars opposite Gabriel Byrne).

Leggy beauties Sarah Murdoch and Megan Gale waltzed by. Alex Perry and Collette Dinnigan sat with Camilla Franks-all had their wares featured in the parade as did George Gross and Harry Who (both with deep suntans). Akira Isogawa. Carla Zampatti and her equally talented daughter Bianca Spender showed their latest and it wouldn't be a fashion show without Alex Perry, Alannah Hill and Josh Goot.

Needless to say, the gallons of Veuve Clicquot were eagerly quaffed.



Supermodels collide !



Sarah Murdoch & Megan Gale





Nicole Trunfio models





Sophie Faulkner in tight leather



no party is complete without Lara Bingle



Playwright David Williamson Honoured at US film Festival

With less than three weeks to go to the Academy Awards, tributes continue to flow in for Australian film identities.

Jackie & Hailee at Santa Barbara AP

On Sunday at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival David Williamson (right) was part of the team that received the prestige Panavison Spirit Award for Independent Cinema for the film he wrote, Face to Face directed by Michael Rymer-the first time in the festival's history a non-mainstream Hollywood film has received the award .  

Face to Face stars Vince Colisimo, Matthew Newton , Sigrid Thornton and Luke Ford.

And at the same festival Jackie Weaver received a Virtuoso Tribute Award for her performance in Animal Kingdom.

Phil Noyce & Jackie Weaver AP

Also honoured with a Virtuoso Award was newcomer Hailee Steinfeld for her role in True Grit. Both Jackie and Hailee will be competing for the Best Supporting Actress award at the Oscars.

On Monday Jackie was the guest of honour at a lunch at a Santa Monica restaurant with a host of Hollywood types-director Phil Noyce and actors John Lithgow and Billy Baldwin with director Quentin Tarantino paying a flying visit.

Jeanne Little's Health Battle

Just last May TV star Jeanne Little was telling New Idea magazine that rumours of her failing health were greatly exaggerated.

Sadly today her daughter Katie has been giving a series of media interviews to inform the world that Jeanne's health has rapidly deteriorated in the past few months and with her mother suffering from a  particular vicious form of Alzheimer's disease, Jeanne no longer recognises her own family members.

Jeanne Little has been appearing on our screens for over 40 years beginning with the Mike Walsh Show in 1974, the Ray Martin Show, a number of variety shows fronted by her and as a panelist on Beauty & The Beast .

Noted for her outrageous voice she was once flown to London to appear on Michael Parkinson's chat show and was such a sensation that the Evening Standard newspaper TV critic said: "what a woman ! with Jeanne Little in the house, you wouldn't need a TV"

Her successful tribute show about Marlene Dietrich, Marlene toured Australia and the USA to critical acclaim.

Ironically, in the interview Jeanne gave to New Idea eight months ago it was the health of her husband Barry Little that concerned her. Barry had just had two knee replacements and suffered complications. Now fully recovered, Barry who met Jeanne when they were both teenagers is said to be devastated over Jeanne's condition.

Neuroscience Research Australia has set up the Jeanne Little Alzheimer's Research Fund and daughter Katie is urging people to donate :

“Mum always poured so much energy into supporting many, many charities for which she was awarded an Order Of Australia." says Katie. "She had huge compassion for people and was always trying to lift people's spirits and inspire them to make a difference. I know she'd love this research fund and would be thrilled to know she's still helping people even when she can't get out there and do it herself." "Can you imagine what she would be saying? It would be like ‘Daaarlings! You've just got to help! You've just got to!'"

Here is a clip of Jeanne Little singing 'Kingsford Smith. We're Proud of You" in 1988 :

Great Scacchi :"Driven out of my Dream Home"

Australian actress Greta Scacchi and her family have been driven out of their million dollar country cottage in England over a dispute with neighbours.

According to the UK Daily Express newspaper the dispute has cost the actress nearly $300,000 after she and the owners of a neighboring stables battled in court over the surfacing of a private road owned by the actress but used by the stables:

Greta, Carlo & Mateo at the 2009 Flickerfest in Bondi 

(c)

“I have loved this valley since my golden childhood memories and chose to raise my children in this simple idyllic cottage,” she told the Daily Express.

“It should have been a refuge, a peaceful family home, but our harmony has been so compromised that I was recently forced to move my family to get away from the stress the situation has caused us.”

Greta, her husband Carlo Mantegazza and their 12 year old son Matteo and Scacchi's daughter Leila have moved into rented a house in nearby East Grinstead. The family regularly travel to Sydney to visit Greta's mother who lives in the Sydney suburb of Randwick.

Read the full story here at the Express.

Fear & Loathing in Oprah Land

She swept into Australia and took the country by storm. Well certainly the media that is who all sang from the one song sheet as the Oprah Winfrey tour Downunder descended upon the nation with over 300 guests and 200 staff (and Gayle of course) and spread to points all over the land while the collective readers of the nation's tabloids were treated to every thrilling encounter with a wallaby, barbecue or rutting Koala and so on.

No-one could possibly deny that Oprah did the country proud with her TV specials recorded at the Sydney Opera House which were broadcast in the US last month. It remains to be seen if the expected tourist flow-on is forthcoming and certainly having what could be the world's most powerful media personality spruiking for Australia has to be seen as a major publicity coup.

But can one image what it's like when that  power is turned against you ?.

The writer Kitty Kelley found out when she published her best selling book Oprah : A Biography. Doors slammed shut all over the place as she details in this piece just published in The American Scholar titled  Unauthorised But Not Untrue:

 "I had felt the chill of media disdain when my publisher began booking my promotion tour. Larry King barred the door to his CNN talk show because, he said, he didn’t want to offend Oprah. Barbara Walters did the same thing, proclaiming on The View that the only reason people wrote unauthorized biographies was to dig “dirt.” There was no room for me at Charlie Rose’s roundtable and no comfy seat next to David Letterman. The late-night comic had recently reconciled with Oprah after a 16-year rift and did not want to risk another. On my 10-city tour I made few, if any, appearances on ABC-owned-and-operated stations because most of the stations that broadcast The Oprah Winfrey Show are owned by ABC or its affiliates. No one wanted to displease the diva of daytime television"

There is much much more in her article as Kelley writes about researching biographies of the Bush family, Frank Sinatra, Jacqueline Kennedy and more. Read the full story here.

courtesy Kitty Kelley (c)

Pairings and Partings

The former Premier of NSW Bob Carr once described him as "the Rumpole of the Lower Traffic Court"- colourful barrister Malcolm Duncan has passed away suddenly at the age of 54.

Duncan was a regular sight around Kings Cross and Potts Point where he was born and lived his entire life.
Taking on what some said were lost causes, he regularly tackled in the city courts issues that he saw as  'attacks on democracy' . One of his regular targets was the Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore who Duncan told the Shuttle was"out to turn Sydney into a bureaucratic nightmare where one will have to file a form in triplicate to the appropriate council office just to cross the road"

Duncan, a conservative was an adamant opponent of the Kings Cross  Medically Supervised Injecting Room but despite this he attended the launch of a book about the centre by it's director Ingrid van Beek.

Earlier in the week he had unsuccessfully attempted to obtain an injunction to prevent it's publication. The book described him in less than flattering terms during the very public political battles to keep the injecting room open. Malcolm was particularly miffed at being described as 'florrid' in the tome. but he couldn't keep away from the party and on spotting Clover Moore there he said "does she have the appropriate planning permission to be here !"

Despite his professed conservatism Duncan moved in many circles, supported the new nightclubs and discos springing up in the Cross with their extended drinking hours, successfully railed against Town Hall plans to redesign Fitzroy Gardens and wrote a blog on the left wing writer Margot Kingston's Webdiary where he described former PM John Howard's 11 year term as The Howard Drears and filed amusing chapters on his two books-The Great Australian Novel and The Chronicles of Nadir.

Duncan will be sorely missed-certainly by his political opponents who begrudgingly put up with Duncan's regular measuring of their campaign posters. Perched perilously atop a ladder in the busy Kings Cross streets during elections with a tape measure Malcolm would check the posters adhered to the rules and more often than not, would place his own above theirs at the same time.

Malcolm stood as an independent at almost every state and Federal election usually getting around 500 votes. He'll miss the appointment he had early next month with the private eye Frank Monte to give him some of his election tips for the March 2011 state election and next week the political rally he was staging in Kings Cross against the ruling Labor Party.
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Oliver and Roxy

Anthony & Terry

They were both at the recent Hermes beach party and they have just announced their engagements. Shoe designer Terry Biviano has told the world she and her current beau the Sydney Swan's footballer Anthony Minichiello will be getting hitched . Terry is also due to join the cast of the new Foxtel reality TV show WAG Nation which will follow the daily lives and adventures of sportsmen's wives and girlfriends.


And the effervescent boss of top PR firm Sweaty Betty Roxy Jacenko was sporting a sparkler on her hand that our diamond adviser says "looks like 5 carats to me!" when she arrived at the bash with her fiancee stockbroker Oliver Curtis. Perhaps these two should get their honeymoon in early. The Shuttle's legal mole says Curtis may soon be called to appear before some sort of official body over the affairs of his friend John Hartman who was jailed recently after being found guilty of insider trading.