Hot Dogs

The Winery

 During March a number of inner Sydney bars raise money for the Animal Welfare League serving great cocktails and delicious food. John Duncan's Winery in Crown Street, Surry Hills is a popular spot with it's outdoor bars and several indoors to choose from including the Gracelands bar which is dedicated to The King-Elvis Presley. They held a launch party for the month long event (hopefully an Indian summer will unfold!) and many guests brought their dogs who were well behaved on the whole !

Emmanuel Ordillo

Penne Dennison & TV vet Katrina Warrem

                                                        

Gracelands

Kylie's a Living Treasure

The National Trust has just announced 7 new Living Treasures in association with that esteemed organ of repute Woman's Day and although some are predictable, others may surprise.

Dr Karl Kruzelnicki

No list would be complete without Kylie Minogue who wowed them at the Sydney Mardi Gras last night and has been elevated to almost Sainthood status in the UK. Olivia Newton John is one along with racing driver Jack Brabham, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki the scientist and ABC broadcaster (his wife makes those lurid shirts he is fond of), conservationist Dr Harry Butler, cancer expert and pioneer Professor Ian Frazier and mining billionaire Clive Palmer.

Clive Palmer?. Just days ago Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan was warning us against the dogged pursuit of power and wealth by the handful of mining magnates Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart (on her way to become the world's richest person) and Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest. 

treasures: Clive Palmer

Swan called them a 'danger' to democracy with their capacity to affect government policy as they did in 2010 by funding a multi-million dollar advertising campaign to derail the new mining tax. Clive and the other two billionaires said it would break them although Twiggy Forrest confessed he hadn't actually hadn't got around to paying tax yet but "soon would". The campaign successfully dispatched PM Kevin Rudd's career to history and just to show there were no hard feelings, Palmer splashed out and gave 55 treasured employees a brand new Mercedes each for Christmas that year.!

Palmer's latest campaign is to destroy the Football Federation (run by Australia's second richest person, Westfield owner Frank Lowy) with his new soccer association. A real treasure!

Kylie Conquers!

 At times the rain teemed down but it didn't dampen the spirits of a few hundred thousand people who lined Oxford Street for the 2012 Sydney Mardi Gras. And the Queen of the show was definitely Kylie Minogue with a four float tribute surrounded by over 150 dancers. Tonight the party rages on at Fox Studios and by Sunday afternoon Darlinghurst will be littered with sequins, lost stilettos and collapsed bodies.
Go to SMH for more great pics. (picture by Janie Barrett)

Margaret Olley Exhibition Opens

An exhibition of the late Margaret Olley's paintings that have never been publicly displayed before opened on Thursday evening at Sothebys in Woollahra. Prices on the 27 works range from $60,000 upwards although most have already been sold. The one at the top which looks suspiciously like Margaret's living room is available for $440,000.

Amongst the guests were long time friends of Olley's including retiring NSW Art Gallery director Edmund Capon, Barry Humphries, movie director Bruce Beresford and artist Ben Quilty who became a good friend of Margaret;s after he won the Archibald Portrait prize for his painting of Olley last year.
2nd-17th March 118-122 Queen St Woollahra.

left : Margaret with Ben Quilty                                                        ********************

Best Look at The Oscars : Forget Angelina Jolie's leg, Rick Rubin pictured with Amanda Santos had the look with his famous whiskers combed to excess when he attended the Academy Awards and the Vanity Fair after party last Monday.

Rubin is the co-president of Columbia Records and possibly one of the greatest record producers in the world with a fortune estimated at $300M.
                                                     

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Madame Tussaud's has just unveiled one of it's waxworks that will appear in it's new Sydney exhibition that will open in Darling Harbour in May.

Nicely timed for today's Mardi Gras it's Felicia Jollygoodfellow from The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, in red, yellow and white feathers. Hopefully they will also include Guy Pearce who played Felicia in the film-he's much better looking.

Letter From Dubai

The Shuttle's Dubai operative disguised as a date palm has sent a report on the Cartier International Polo Challenge held over a few days last week at the luxurious Desert Palm Retreat & Polo Club.

Sheikh Mansour Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Hosted by Bernard Fortas of Cartier and under the patronage of HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, wife of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, four pro-am polo teams competed in the 7th International Challenge

Leading names from the world of polo flew in for the event and some high profile locals attended like Farez Al Yabhouney, Saudi national Amr Zedan, who regularly leads the Gulf Co-Operation team to victory in the UK, leading Swiss player Adriano Agosti and Guards Polo Club's own patrons Kassem Shafi and Gary Shepherd . Joining them was a patron who made his debut at this event, Saad Audeh.  Unfortunately regular Cartier International Day patron, Saeed Bin Drai, was forced to pull out due to injury - he was scheduled to play for the Cartier team - but his place was taken by his younger brother Mohammed Bin Drai.

And our associate reports some good news that will please fashion entrepreneur Simon Lock who flew into Sydney from Dubai last week to attend the Australian Fashion walk of Style launch in Paddington. Dubai is buzzing about Lock's Dubai Mercedes Fashion Week that will premiere later this year.

Mona Abou Hamzeh with Nada Mirza

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And what a shocker of a night Thursday evening was-rain pelting down, howling winds. Whatever happened to summer?

There is only person who could get us out on a night like that-our very own pop royalty Kylie Minogue who hosted an intimate party at the Sheraton On The Park for her Sydney Mardi Gras appearance. Amongst the guests-Mark Trevorrow and Kath & Kim star Magda Zubanski.
                                                                    

The Only Gay Is In The Village

exclusive : We can reveal that Little Britain star Matt Lucas has quietly slipped into town and will be a guest at this Saturday's Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras.

And plans are afoot to get Matt to join George Michael, (living in a  Potts Point apartment and not the Northern Beach's house he didn't buy last year as reported by a major daily newspaper) on the beloved Kylie Minogue's  own Mardi Gras float on which she will travel from Whitlam Square to Fox Studios via Oxford Street during the parade.

Rev Fred

The Shuttle has also had a confirmation from the Reverend Fred Nile that he will pray for rain this Saturday and reading the weather report, Fred's prayers sound like they will be answered.
 Sadly for Fred whenever they are it simply means more clothes are taken off as the Mardi Gras participants love nothing more than cavorting and dancing in the rain.
Still, it's the thought that counts.

Clover

There are also major rumblings over the Mardi Gras committee's insistence that the media pay a $200 fee per person for covering the event. This fee which it's claimed 'covers expenses' has long outraged much of the media particularly as the parade takes place on a public street with large injections of money from the NSW state government.

The Shuttle's round of inquiries have produced little response apart from Lord Mayor Clover Moore's office where a representative expressed "shock" at the fee. Wake up folks, it's been there for 15 years now. As for the Media Alliance, they ignored our request for a comment but that's the usual way for them.
This is the same union which purportedly looks after the affairs of professionally employed and freelance journalists and photographers who are union members. Yet they famously went into battle for the non-union paparazzi when police claimed they had found bugging devices outside Nicole Kidman's Darling Point house in 2005. Note to Media Alliance-you can find the Leveson Inquiry here.

Below is Kylie's Mardi Gras message:


Feature: Kylie Sydney Mardi Gras 2012 Announcement from mardigras on Vimeo.

Spot The Difference # 1

An occasional quiz:  match the face with the story !

(a) this man is the head of a controversial organisation that released information sent to it by whistleblowers  which was subsequrntly published around the world. He is fighting for his freedom in London. Clue: MasterCard, Visa, etc refuse to process donations to his organisation.

(b) this man is the head of a controversial organisation that criminally hacked thousands of voice mail messages for information that was subsequently published around the world. He arrived in London recently to launch a new venture ? Clue:You can access many of his products via MasterCard, Visa etc.

Oscar Update

 
Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska shines in an Antonio Berardi gown at the 2012 Vanity Fair Party held at Sunset Tower on Sunday in West Hollywood, Calif. 
Mia has four films soon to be released : Oddboy, The Double, Wettest County and the Stoker. As her star continues to rise so does her bank balance. In 2010 she tied with Johnny Depp as the second highest grossing actor after their appearances in Alice In Wonderland.


Mia first hit the public eye in the TV series In Treatment that also stars Melissa George. She's also an amateur photographer and her portrait of co-star Jamie Bell from Jane Eyre hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
              

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If you aren't a regular reader of New York snapper Patrick McMullan's online  PMc Magazine  start now!

McMullan is a contributor to Interview, New York Magazine , The Village Voice and he's a contributing editor on Vanity Fair.

PMc features an exclusive interview with Oscar winner Demian Bichir from The Artist. It's by Tyler Malone..click here.                                      

Abbey Under The Knife

She was the face of Versace's 2011 Spring campaign and this year the face of Gucci but gorgeous Australian model Abbey Lee Kershaw was absent from much of the catwalk at the recent New York Mercedes Fashion Week.

Now Patti Huntington of the [frockwriter] blogspot has revealed that Abbey is to undergo an operation in the Big Apple today because of a knee complaint that has troubled her for several years. Kershaw has taken a tumble at a few fashion shows which would not have helped her ligaments and fainted once at an Alexander McQueen parade.

Huntington also speculates the world's no 5 top model may be working on a project with Stephen Spielberg. Read more at [frockwriter] and see more of Mario Testino''s wonderful pics of Abbey here.

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     Duty Calls...

 An odd thing has been happening in the local media scene over the past few months.
Amongst the loose  gaggle of  paparazzi who attended every media event in Sydney and Melbourne, several of the more eager (read aggresive ) members have been no-where to be seen.

The lads from Big Picture seem to have vanished into the mist, coincidentally just as the Leveson Inquiry in the UK went into second gear.

Run by the self styled Mr Paparazzi Darryn Lyons of implanted six-pack fame, the Big Picture crew were all over the place in the last few years, exasperating the oldtimers of the pap scene who relied on keeping a low profile. In the UK they were equally disliked by the regular celebrity snappers who hang around outside the homes of the famous.
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Lyons is currently starring in Excess Baggage, the bizarre TV show where viewers watch a bunch of  minor celebrities like Ajay Rochester and Kevin Federline (Britney Spears's ex) try to lose weight. It's a bit like watching paint dry.

Could the low profile of the Pig Picture snappers and Mr Lyon's extended stay in Australia have anything to do perchance, with the fact that Justice Leveson wishes to call a representative of the paparazzi to the witness box and interrogate them over their relationship with the late News of The World and accident prone The Sun ?.

Lyons has claimed he got his start in photography after a 'chance meeting' with Rupert Murdoch (although the great man when once asked said he'd never heard of Lyons). Whatever happens the name Murdoch is probably not the best one to drop should Mr Paparazzi end up in front of M'Lud.

Aussie Picks Up Oscar

Sydney born film editor Kirk Baxter has picked up his second Academy Award along with partner Alan Wall for their work on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

It's the second Oscar for the pair who won in 2010 for The Social Network.



left : Alan Wall & Kirk Baxter

Skating To Victory

Corbin & Dree

 JUST FOUR YEARS ago he was living with his mum in a southern Sydney working class suburb. Now Corbin Harris is Australia's skate board champion and is squiring a Hollywood movie star with a legendary name.

Corbin was a guest at the Australian Fashion Walk of Style last week along with his girlfriend the actress and model Dree Hemingway, daughter of actress Marguax Hemingway and great grand-daughter of the writer Ernest Hemingway.

Harris has some serious sponsors like Redbull and Nike and has just launched his first book :Corbin Harris' Ultimate Guide to Skateboarding.

 On Thursday he and Dree hosted a party at the Bondi Beach Road Hotel to celebrate a new sponsorship deal with Element and to launch a DVD on skate boarding and friends like Brian McFadden, Vogue Williams and Chris Joannou joined the happy pair.

As for Dree, her new film Starlet will be released later this year.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Kerry Jones' circle of  friends is rapidly widening if the celebrations at her 57 room Darling Point mansion Swifts are anything to go by.

Shuttlers may recall we have written before about the parties, antique fairs, conferences, product launches and charity fundraisers that have been happening at the rate of two a week at the 3.5 hectare property in the suburb.

On Wednesday Fox International threw a roaring bash with former Beverley Hills 90210 star Jason Priestly as the guest of honour to celebrate the launch of his new series Call Me Fritz that airs on Fox's FX channel later this year. 150 guests rolled up to the house where they found roulette and backgammon tables, a supply of cigars from a humidifier, a whisky sampling bar and plenty of cocktails and champagne.

The Shuttle's spy disguised as a Darling Point senior citizen reports the noise was deafening especially when Priestly took to the microphone and appeared to scream for a full five minutes at the top of his lungs.
 Kerry Jones has denied the parties are commercial events and says they are functions held for 'friends' including two wedding receptions last month.

Even more disturbing was an odd event held last weekend and our spy dusted of her Box Brownie and supplied these snaps taken from her bedroom window on the 11th floor of a neighbouring block of apartments that overlooks Swifts gardens.

" I don't know what was going on " says our pensioner" but the guests appeared to be firing guns at each other and then police arrived to round them up and lay them handcuffed on the ground. I'm told it was some sort of game but the fake gunshots scared the hell out of my cat who disappeared into a  wardrobe for 2 hours and the racket went on all day"

Kerry Jones, the daughter of nursing home tsar Doug Moran (both left) who lives at Swifts with her extended family has called the claims that the house is operating as a defacto reception centre as "mischievous" but that has enraged the already seething residents of the genteel suburb who in a flurry of letters to the local Wentworth Courier newspaper demanded Jones retract the statement.

Another who wishes to remain anonymous but lives beside Swifts said " she must think we are stupid if she thinks we believe all these people attending parties are friends. I've counted over 2000 guests in the last 3 months".

And indeed Mrs Jones has claimed the party for Jason Priestley and Fox International was a “private party” for her friend, Fox International Channels managing director Karin Simoncini.

On Tuesday at the launch of the Australian Fashion Walk of Style in Oxford Street, the Shuttle button-holed a Woollahra councillor who refused to comment on the resident's claims but did say "it's all coming to a head".

Now it seems the Jason Priestly party was the last straw and on Friday Woollahra Council's planning office said they would take legal action in the Land & Environment Court unless Kerry Jones gave a written undertaking that she would hold no further events at Swifts without council planning permission. Mrs Jones has responded angrily and said she is thinking of cancelling an upcoming charity fundraiser in March for the Cornucopia Committee.