UK's Andrew Gilligan Outed as Pauline Hanson Supporter

With lips quivering in that inimitable manner that makes her appear so brittle that she may shatter at any moment, or at least burst into tears, Pauline Hanson lashed out in the media at the preferential voting system that today denied her a seat in the NSW upper house, the Legislative Assembly.

For days Pauline was ahead on first past the post votes. As absent votes were counted she slipped into second place with a Green and a Liberal MHR finally seizing the last two spots.

Seats in the Upper House are worth their weight in gold and are the cushiest lurk in town . A 6 year term at about $180K  per annum and if you win a second term you qualify for a lifetime pension, gold travel passes and all sorts of goodies.

Pauline has cried foul on the AV system and questioned it's relevence-the same system that millions of Brits will vote for or against in an historic referendum in May.

An unlikely supporter has come forth in the form of Andrew Gilligan writing in the UK Telegraph. In a piece titled "AV- it's nothing to shout about" he gives  a few examples of NSW politicians elected under the AV vote :

"At a drunken party in his parliamentary office, the Police Minister, naked but for a pair of “very brief” underpants, climbed on top of a female MP and pretended to have sex with her. The Health Minister, who was 53, used his office to entertain his 26-year-old mistress. The Ports Minister visited porn sites on his official computer.

The Regional Development Minister – known to the local tabloids as “Sir Lunchalot” – charged taxpayers for a holiday to Dubai and Italy. The Education Minister promised to “stand by” her husband after he was arrested buying ecstasy. Several ministers were implicated in a corruption scandal involving a female town planner who approved illegal high-rise buildings in return for sexual favours and designer handbags. And the Aboriginal Affairs Minister? Well, he is doing 14 years after his conviction on multiple counts of child sex abuse."

Ouch !

(He missed out on the replacement Police Minister who was recently embroiled in a sandal involving a gay bath house)

Gilligan actually gives a pretty balanced run-down on how AV voting works in Australia despite being an obvious opponent of it. He also gets stuck into Question Time in Canberra and the insults that fly back and forth.

But are our politicians any worse than their British counterparts in the insult department ?. We sought out our resident parliamentary insult expert , the great Mungo MacCallum who provided a list of some of the choicest terms used by the master of put-down, former PM Paul Keating who referred to various Opposition members as :

harlots, sleazebags, frauds, immoral cheats, blackguards, pigs, mugs, clowns, boxheads, criminal intellects, stupid crooks, corporate crooks, friends of tax cheats, brain-damaged, loopy crims, stupid foul-mouthed grub, piece of criminal garbage, dullards, stupid, mindless, crazy, alley cat, bunyip aristocracy, clot, fop, gigolo, hare-brained, hillbilly, malcontent, mealy-mouthed, ninny, rustbucket, scumbag, scum, sucker, thug, dimwits, dummies, a swill, a pig sty, Liberal muck, vile constituency, fools and incompetents, rip-off merchants, perfumed gigolos, gutless spiv, glib rubbish, tripe and drivel, constitutional vandals, stunned mullets, half-baked crim, insane stupidities, champion liar, ghouls of the National Party, barnyard bullies, piece of parliamentary filth, lick spittal dogs vomit.

Keating once labelled Treasurer Peter Costello as "all tip and no iceberg"and described John Howard as a 'like a desicated coconut":
When the Opposition attacked him over his late filed tax return Keating said they were "playing the man not the ball" . A Liberal MP exclaimed ": "Oh, for goodness sake, Mr Keating! Only last week you called the Opposition front-bench 'sleazebags'!"
Keating replied "But that was a generic term, describing the Opposition front-bench as a whole. I wasn't insulting any particular person."

We nearly lost Pauline for awhile. She sold up a year ago and emigrated to the UK claiming Australia was full of Muslims and other undesirables ( a DNA ancestry test once revealed her origins as being central Turkey) but soon returned claiming that Britain was "full of immigrants". The irony was lost on her.

Here's Pauline in her famous 'I'm dead' video :

PR Bitch-Fest Spans Two Continents!

It's been the talk of the town in coffee bars and at smart shindigs over flutes of champers and canapes. Sydney-siders excitedly discussing the slap-down given by Murdoch newspaper columnist Ros Reines of the Sunday Telegraph to local charity boy Rupert Noffs and New York celebrity fashion publicist, author and reality TV star Kelly Cutrone.

 Reines called Cutrone's recent visit to Sydney for Noffs and a Gideon shoe store opening 'tragic' and accused her of 'creating mayhem' and infuriating organisers of the $2000-a-head Prix de Marie Claire Awards when Cutrone and Noffs failed to appear after being given tickets to the event. The full piece can be read here.

Not that the Awards themselves got off easy. The host of that event and editor of Marie Claire, Jackie Frank got a good dressing down as well.

Trying to get anyone to go on the record about the spat though has been a Herculean task. No-one locally seems to want to  upset Ms Reines and in the Big Apple it seems Ms Cutrone's name carries considerable weight as well.

Michael Musto, top columnist on New York's Village Voice responded with an enigmatic : "I don't really know what to say about Kelly. Perhaps you should talk to Patrick (McMullan), he knows her well".

Patrick McMullan, New York's top society snapper, a contributing editor on Vanity Fair and host of a TV fashion show  was oddly silent and didn't return the Shuttle's call. Messages left for McMullan usually bring a response at an ungodly hour when he returns from his nightly rounds of New York's top parties and he's always up for a good natter about the latest happenings.

Reines, whose twitter moniker is 'tabloid terror' and who described herself as 'ruthless' in a Spectator piece continued : "On Twitter last week, Cutrone asked whether I was OK or just "vicious". When it comes to being vicious, it takes one to know one."

Calls to Cutrone's New York People's Revolution public relations firm for a comment were met with "we'll get back to you with a statement eventually". It never came.



Kelly Cutrone at Gideon Shoes. sassisamblog.com

Two other top New York publicists agreed to speak as long as their names weren't used.

One who said he regularly ran into Cutrone socially and at industry events said:



 "Kelly doesn't suffer fools gladly but she can be  forthright at times and has upset some people. But she's so damned good at her job she's readily forgiven. She's had an amazing ride to the top and I really respect her. Reading the piece by Ros Reines though-she should be writing for one of  the New York dailies, they could use her !"

A female publicist who has worked with Cutrone on various projects said :

"there's been quite a bit of chatter about the Ros Reine's piece and everyone thinks it's a bit of a scream. Most people seem to think that if Reines and Kelly met under other circumstances they'd get on like a house on fire, they seem so similar. Gideon's by choosing Kelly to promote their shoes in the US made a wise choice, there is none better at pr"

Rupert Noffs



As for Rupert Noffs he simply sent a diplomatic " Ros is just doing what Ros has to do " reply to our email.

Perhaps the last word should go to a well known Sydney face and a regular attendee of the town's best parties who was at Paddington's swish La Scala restaurant's first year birthday bash last Tuesday evening :

  "oh thank God for Ros. She breathes some sort of life into what at times seems like a completely moribund social scene."

Coming up : Rupert Noffs-charity runs in the family

A Night In New York City

Courtesy of New York Social Diary.


Curtain call

Thursday night : the opening of Robin Williams' Broadway debut in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, at the Richard Rodgers Theater.
 All photographs by PatrickMcMullan.com (c)2011

Mercedes Ruehl



Robin Williams and Susan Schneider



Trudie Styler and Sting

 

Tyne Daly



 

Nathan Lane

Same night same city : at the Barrow Street Theater for the debut of Mike Birbiglia's My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, a new comedy written by (and starring) Mr. Birbiglia.





Mike Birbiglia and Nasim Pedrad


Sunday on the Shuttle :
The PR War of Words stretching from Sydney to New York



The Great Dissenter

He's been described as a paradox - a conservative monarchist and radical left leaning activist -Justice Michael Kirby, recently retired judge in the highest court of the land.

 A biography of m'learned judge has just been published with Kirby's backing.
The Shuttle has read the book and it's a cracking read.

At the launch of the book Kirby described himself as a gay man who is still a 'second class citizen' in Australia. He's been an active supporter for gay marriage rights and often addresses young gays and lesbians speaking out on civil rights.

On the High Court he was known as the 'great dissenter' in many cases that changed law. His judgements were regarded as 'liberal while written with thoughtfulness and compassion'. It's said the PM Paul Keating appointed Kirby to the High Court to "upset the Tories"

As a young lawyer just out of Sydney University in the 1960's, Kirby was defending Aboriginal activists and student demonstrators. In one case he took on the defence of 24 students who had been arrested demonstrating for black civil rights in the USA outside the US Embassy. He got everyone off the charges and soon moved onto local civil rights cases. As President of the NSW Court of Appeal Kirby was the first judge to issue media releases and was an advocate for Human rights, animal rights, HIV-AIDS and Aboriginal land rights.



Johan van Vloten & Michael Kirby

In 1999 Kirby really shocked few when he quietly 'came out' whilst still sitting on the bench of the High Court of Australia, revealing a fact that was common knowledge.  In his Who's Who entry he listed his long term male partner as Johan van Vloten, a Dutch newsagent.

The outcry from the right wing was deafening. Calls for impeachment came from every angle claiming that Kirby, by announcing he was gay had obviously broken the law when homosexual acts where illegal while he had been sitting as a judge for two decades.  Most including numerous journalists seemed to completely overlook the fact that Kirby had simply announced that he was gay and made no mention of sexual acts.

And then came the great 'rent boy' scandal when PM John Howard's bovver boy Senator Bill Heffernan announced late one night in Parliament that a High Court judge had mis-used government hire cars to cruise an infamous under age male hustler spot in Sydney.

Kirby kept quiet during the fracas while Howard 'suggested' he step aside and that he may call for a Commonwealth Police investigation into Kirby's fitness for office. The great manipulator Howard soon had egg on his face.  When the matter was found to be a fraud Heffernan made a sincere and unequivocal apology. Howard demonstrated his innate meanness by remaining silent.

 Kirby's scalp was one the right wing had been after for ages but he says he wasn't the real victim of the crude scandal, but that the Parliamentary system had been damaged. Kirby said that the long held tradition of Standing Orders in the Westminster system was that sitting judges should be immune from attacks by parliamentarians.

 Heffernan was censured by the Senate and afterwards apologised for making the allegations. Kirby promptly responded: "I accept Senator Heffernan's apology and reach out my hand in a spirit of reconciliation. I hope my ordeal will show the wrongs that hate of homosexuals can lead to"

 Following this gracious acceptance, Who Weekly magazine named Kirby among the 25 Beautiful People of Australia. Kirby however feels aggrieved that his name and Heffernan's are forever linked on Google.

Since retiring in Kirby has travelled the world speaking at law symposiums where he has a reputation  as an eloquent and powerful orator, having given a vast number of speeches over his career on a diverse range of topics. While President of the International Commission of Jurists he encouraged that organisation to give more consideration to human sexuality as an aspect of human rights

You can buy A.J. Brown's biography Michael Kirby: Paradoxes/Principles here

 Kirby's life has been fascinating and he is a man who is regarded as one of the world's great jurists.

You can listen to or download a podcast of an interview with Michael Kirby on the ABC here.

The Most Expensive Book In The World

After the ninth guest rocked up in a Ferrari the Shuttle gave up the count.

Shindigs at auto showrooms usually follow a pattern. A mixture of social faces, a show biz star or two and handful of people that buy the product. We just didn't realise how many Sydney-siders can actually afford these Italian toys. Even a pre-loved model will set you back well over a quarter of a million dollars.

Last week's party at Nevile Crichton's Waterloo showrooms was fairly unique. Twenty of the guests were Ferrari drivers.

The bash was to launch the Ferrari Opus limited edition- an 852 page book bound in red leather. There are three versions of the tome-the Enzo, Classic and the piece de resistance-the Cavallino Rampante that comes with the the diamante studded Ferrari signature stallion on it's cover.

The first two can be bought for about $250,000 each while the Cavallino Rampante will be auctioned for charity and is expected to fetch well over a million dollars.

The three books feature some superb photographs from over the years of Ferrari's racing history or appearances in advertisements and movies and lots of snaps of the legendary Enzo Ferrari . His office at the Ferrari headquarters in Italy is untouched and remains just as it was when he passed away in 1988 as an homage to the great auto designer.

Kerri Anne Kennerley was on hand to pose with the book and there's one Ferrari Opus book for every country.

Not sure how that will go down in Botswana but it should be a hit in the Middle East. The ultimate coffee table book for the Sheik who has everything.

Peter Ikin Accused Gets Bail

ALEXANDRE DESPALLIERES the French husband of the late Australian music identity Peter Ikin has been granted bail in a French court.
As we reported recently a bail application in February was refused but now Despallieres has walked free from Fresnes prison but must report to police each day.

John Reid,Alexandre Despallieres & Peter Ikin

Ikin was the former head of Warner's Music Australia and had re-ignited an affair with Despallieres with the pair marrying in a civil ceremony. Shortly after, Ikin fell to his death down a flight of stairs. Despallieres gained probate on Ikin's $20M estate in a London court and moved into his Chelsea home but that will was successfully overturned by Ikin's family.

 Elton John's former manager, John Reid an old friend of Ikin's hired detectives to investigate the manner of his friend's death and not long after Despallieres's was charged by French police.

 As our picture shows, in former days Reid and Despallieres appeared to be good friends.

Prince Alfred

   ******************************
# A telephone call reputedly from the new premier Barry O'Farrell's office informs us that Henry James O'Farrell who attempted to assassinate Prince Alfred in 1868 was "not a relation of the premier although Mr O'Farrell remains fiercely proud of his Irish roots".

Asked to comment on Prince Andrew's "appointment" as NSW Governor (our invention) he responded : "I have nothing to say about that ". Strange.

Punishing Prince Andrew

Our tale yesterday on April Ist was slightly misleading. We meant to say HRH Prince Andrew should be appointed as Governor of NSW.

It's the ideal punishment. Four years opening endless garden fetes and charity bazaars, signing local government bills into law and meeting new Cabinet Ministers of the Coalition-with a threat of a further 4 year appointment should he not mend his ways.

Our apologies to the one London tabloid scribe who sent a fierce email castigating the Shuttle for the 3 hours he spent checking on the tale. The other two British newspapers were much more jovial about it.

The crafty Madame Arcati spotted the ruse immediately. One would have to get up early to  pull the wool over her eyes unlike the Times of India which ran the story on page three.

The excellent website Anorak.co.uk was sensibly sceptical.

Anorak also got stuck into our good pal the multi-millionaire adventurer  Dick Smith with his "2 children only" policy and pointed out who would never have been born under such a rule- Don Bradman and Ned Kelly being just two.

Unfortunately they linked to that opinion writer for hire Andrew Bolt, climate denier pal of the dotty Lord Monckton and right wing mouthpiece for the Melbourne Herald Sun. Andrew is also a stolen generation denier who makes Pauline Hanson look like an old lefty.

He once famously challenged left wing Professor Robert Manne of La Trobe University to Be a Manne and name just ten (sic) stolen children whereupon Manne produced 4 pages of names.

Bolt has spent the last few days in the Federal Court where 9 Aboriginals have filed a claim under the Racial Vilification Act over his columns and blog in 2009 when he got stuck into mixed blood indigenous folk who identify as Aboriginal.



Andrew Bolt

 In one piece titled White Is The New Black Bolt suggested “white Aborigines” were illegitimate and therefore not eligible for prizes and benefits"

As one of the claimants pointed out "what prizes and benefits does one get for being black ?"

Yesterday Bolt lost his cool under questioning in the witness box  and slammed the claimants who he said brought the anti-discrimination case brought against him as an “unforgivable travesty” designed to “smear me.”

That brought a swift rebuke from Justice Bromberg and Andrew was forced to apologise. Bolt actually said at one stage "some of my best friends are are gay Aboriginals".

It's not looking too good for Bolt.

Today former Former Federal Court Judge Ron Merkel who is acting for the nine prominent members of the Aboriginal community linked Bolt's writings to the eugenics movement saying :

“Mr Bolt’s assumption is because you’ve got mixed descent or you are white you have a choice to renounce who you are,” “But they never had the choice that Mr Bolt ascribes to them…throughout their whole lives they have identified as Aboriginal persons.”

“That’s the real sting that you’ll see in these articles.”



James Murdoch

 Which brings us back to Anorak.co.uk and their "third child" syndrome.

On Wednesday News Corp announced that James Murdoch is now Deputy COO, Chairman and CEO of News Corp International which makes him 3rd in line and the presumed heir to Rupert Murdoch

James, 38 is the Third Child of Rupert Murdoch and the former Anna Murdoch !

exclusive : HRH Prince Andrew To Be Appointed Governor of NSW

The fun-loving but  troubled British royal HRH Prince Andrew, the Duke of York is to be appointed Governor of NSW by the new premier Barry O'Farrell, taking up his appointment in November this year when the current incumbent Marie Bashir retires.

The official announcement is expected to be made by HRH The Queen when she visits the country in October for the CHOGM conference. And the O'Farrell family and royal family have been linked by an incident from over 140 years ago (see below).

O'Farrell has always said that Government House, perched high above the Opera House with it's sensational views of Sydney Harbour would be rightfully restored as the Governor's home if he won the election. With his convincing win on Saturday when the Coalition swept into power with 68 seats to Labor's 20, the new premier has a mandate to implement most of his policies.

It's been 15 years since former premier Bob Carr closed the Governor's mansion . Since then it's been available for everything-weddings, parties , barmitzvahs and so on. The Coalition has always claimed it was a scandal and the Monarchist's League has been outraged that NSW Governors would live in their own homes rather than the official residence.

Although ex-convict architect Francis Greenaway was originally commissioned to design Government House it was eventually built by English architect  Edward Blore and finished in 1890.

 Blore working in the romantic Gothic style, produced a mock castle which matched the crenellations of the existing nearby Greenway stables. The new building immediately became the talk of the town and helped establish the romantic Regency style in residential architecture which became popular in the colony over the next twenty years.

Prince Andrew, a man used to luxury and who has been the butt of numerous scandalous tales in the British media over his association with the New York millionaire Jeffrey Epstein should feel right at home in his new abode. It has style and plenty of space and beautiful gardens for entertaining on a large scale. With maids, butlers and 2 Royal Equerries plus his own staff and several official limousines he will want for nothing.

There are 28 rooms and the large reception area is a richly decorated two-storey hall with a musicians gallery. Government House also reputedly introduced the first modern water closet to Australia. The porte-coche was added in 1873, and the two front rooms extended about 1900. Although there had been earlier proposals (c.1900) to move the vestigial Governor into more modest premises, it was not until 1996 that this finally occurred under the premiership of Carr.

Numerous Royals have stayed there in the past including The Queen and Prince Phillip and Prince Charles and Diana when they were together and Pope Benedict slept there for 2 nights in 2008.



Jane & Sarah

It's been long rumoured amongst royal circles in the UK that Andrew would have to packed off somewhere sensible to re-create his crumbling public image. A spell as Governor of NSW for the normal 4 year appointment would seem the ideal solution.

And he should feel right at home. Sister-in-law Jane Ferguson lives a short drive away in Bondi and ex-wife Fergie is a regular visitor.

There are plenty of nightclubs and attractions for the Andrew's fun loving daughters should they visit and if Andy wants a casual drink there's always the Lord Dudley pub in Woolahra, a favourite of Prince Harry.

Andrew's appointment follows in a tradition of packing off Royals to the colonies for further education and royal duties.



a depiction of the attempted assassination: National Gallery



The

1867 visit of Queen Victoria's son Prince Alfred to Australia was the first by a member of the British Royal family and was tumultuous, to say the least.

It produced an outpouring of national exaltation and then of national shame following an assassination attempt on the Prince.

 On 12 March 1868 an  ancestor of the new premier-Henry James O'Farrell shot the Prince in the back at a public function in Clontarf, Sydney. O'Farrell was immediately arrested, and was convicted and hanged on 21 April that same year.

Aussie Bitch Fest Shocks Brits!

Viewers of Britain's Dancing On Ice 2011 are up in arms over Australian choreographer Jason Gardiner's remarks to contestants. Jason is a judge on the show.They reckon he's far too bitchy and mean. Some have even started face book pages to get Gardiner sacked although few people have joined.

While Jason makes panelists like X Factor's Simon Cowell  look tame, he's standard fare for Australian TV where he honed his art.

Visitors from the UK and USA are often shocked at the sheer bitchiness that passes for normal discourse between colonials.

Where this was inherited from we aren't too sure.  It's been speculated that  it developed in the first hundred years as working class Irish, East End and other British convicts developed a sort of secret language to speak derogatorily about their British jailers without them understanding.

Gardiner trained at the Australian Ballet School and New York's Steps academy and the Actor's Centre in London. He's choreographed West End shows and worked  with Kylie Minogue, Elton John and Shirley Bassey as well as appearing on dozens of English TV shows.

He's actually a nice chap off stage without a hint of the bitch about him and his act is pretty deliberate.
Producers must absolutely love him for the ratings.

Jason follows in the footsteps of local performers like the late Bernard King-one of the nicest and kindest people to meet in person but wow-could he dish it out when on the judging panel of a talent quest. Beneath Dame Edna's mega star exterior runs one of the most vicious and bitchy dialogues ever uttered by man.

Below are 3 videos- one is Jason Gardiner ticking of competitors. It's pretty tame stuff compared to local shows.

The following is the wonderful Bernard King who could talk through mud and have an audience collapsing in tears of laughter. He demolishes a hapless contestant on the 80's Pot Luck (fast forward is recommended)

The third is really how the contestants should settle matters - take a leaf out of broadcaster Ron 'Won'Casey page when he got stuck into former pop star Normie Rowe on the Midday Show.
(note the wonderful and very British Diana 'Bubbles' Fisher wife of Sir Humphrey Fisher-in the background saying "no no no!")

Dancing On Ice 2011 Jason Gardiner offensive comments to Karen Barber

The High Cost of School Bullying

While the Seven and Nine TV networks bicker about each other nicking parts of their respective interviews with the lads in the famous case of school bullying that swept the world when a film of the fight was posted on youtube, we can reveal the true price:

Amount paid by 7's A Current Affair to the older boy who is hit by the younger boy      : $40,000

Amount paid by 9's  Today Tonight to the younger boy who hits the older boy               : $40,000

A "When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife ?" Moment

The verdict is in and Labor has been removed from the NSW political landscape having captured a probable 21 seats while the Coalition have at least 64 seats. There are oddities as usual in this state election. Although the Greens picked up over 10% of the vote they won no seats while the Nationals with just over 12% win 17 seats.

For all the doomsday predictions in the media this isn't too different to the '96 John Howard election when he crushed Federal Labor in a 'landslide' which reversed itself within 3 years with Labor winning over 50% of votes in '99 but still failing to take office. It does mean however that it will be a probable 8 years before Labor has a hope of winning although the voters belief that the Coalition is going to deliver them Paradise has the power to backfire badly.

 Common wisdom is that huge landslides really mean little in the way of a party's power to govern but do mean the electorate expects much and heaven help those who don't deliver. The claims of a mandate complicate matters when no-one actually knows what the Coalition intends to do apart from widen one highway as they announced. Labor had 11 new young MPs elected which gives them a chance to quickly re-invent itself.

As usual the local media-particularly the giant News Corp tabloids have performed woefully and spoken in soundbites that resemble Liberal Party press releases and have let new premier Barry O' Farrell slide into office without revealing one single policy.

The Fairfax Media, publishers of The Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne's Age newspapers seem desperate to descend to the same levels.

One report we noticed in the last days before polling was this piece about a well known personality who features on the Shuttle often-private investigator Frank Monte who stood unsuccessfully for the NSW upper house.

The Shuttle spoke to Monte yesterday and he was still annoyed. The previous week he had mentioned to us a tale of how the Herald had phoned him and asked why he was standing for politics.



Frank Monte







He gave them a quick run down of his policies and revealed that in the past he had worked for two state premiers and believed he could do a better job himself

The journalist's reply was "oh everyone around the office says it's only so you can get your hands on the electoral rolls."

Monte scoffed at the idea and responded that the majority of his work is now corporate investigation where local rolls are of little use and indeed, he spends more time working in the USA than Australia. And the very idea of spending $30,000 on a political campaign to get a copy of the electoral rolls was pretty silly.

Having set up the scenario (as our headline explains) -the Herald duly printed the outrageous slur without one scintilla of proof apart from some hacks in the Herald office deciding that must be the case. Office gossip became news.



Solomon Lew

 When the DJ's harassment case broke last year Monte announced (and it's presumed that it was a deliberate strategy by the client) that he was investigating the girl who made the claims which were eventually settled with no admissions made by the ex-DJs boss Mark McInnes who was recently described as the "disgraced" former DJ's CEO. Disgraced ?. Who says so ?. Certainly not Solomon Lew who just hired McInnes for a salary of $5.5M to oversee his fashion empire.

As we reported last year- during the infamous Versace court case, Donatella Versace said in an Australian High Court witness box in 2001 while being questioned by Monte's barrister, that she had never, ever taken drugs but just 18 months later revealed in Vogue that she had been addicted to drugs before and after Gianni Versace's murder.

Learned legal minds say that had Donatella told the truth about her drug use the trial's outcome may have been entirely different and in Monte's favour. The Herald amongst other newspapers got stuck into Monte at the time and have used every opportunity to bash him in print ever since.

They have gone strangely silent since the new verification that Gianni was indeed murdered as Monte had originally said-by the Mafia and which concurred with local confidential Miami police reports at the time that voiced the same suspicion .

We Love Our Bollinger

When Bollinger began as far back as the 16th century in the Champagne region of France, no-one would have thought that by the 21st century Australia- a nation that didn't even exist then- would become the 3rd largest consumers of the excellent fizz outstripping the USA which languishes at 7th place. With our population at about 23M compared to the USA's 300M that means we certainly appreciate the premium French champagne.



Guy de Rivoire

We learnt this fact and others on Monday evening at the Inglis Stables in Randwick when Bollinger threw a pary hosted by their marketing expert from France, Guy de Rivoire.

 The occasion was a shindig to try out 3 excellent vintages and Monsieur Rivoire had flown in from the centre of the Champagne district , Reim for 4 day visit.



Inglis Stables

One bit of good news-the rumours that Inglis will be moving their world famous stables that host the top horse breeders and owners who fly in from all over the world -to Windsor in the outer suburbs are a furphy and they are staying put where they are. Another piece of NSW history saved from  property developers.

Even better news was that Mr Rivoire informed us that Bollinger will be promoting a whole lot more in one of their most important markets. We intend to help them out !

As Lily Bollinger said of her tipple when she took over management of the vineyards in the 1940's :

"I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it—unless I’m thirsty."

An excellent motto to live by !