Many Men Of Influence

Kelvin Ho

Nick Tobias

To Chiswick in Woolahra for Men's Style magazine's Men of Influence to meet some movers and shakers under the age of 45 from the worlds of business, the arts, design, sports, fashion, management, the media and more.

Top bookmaker Tom Waterhouse & wife Hoda

Michael & Jo Slater

Some of those to make this year's list : actor Lachy Hulme, about to appear in Beaconsfield and later to play Kerry Packer in the Nine network production screening later this year; Josh Lawson, the star of Any Questions for Ben; Daniel Henshall, who scared the hell out of us as John Bunting in Snowtown; the host of Mornings on Nine, David Campbell; swimming’s newest superstar James Magnussen; pop sensation Gotye; Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke; sports presenting all-rounder Michael Slater, and; former wunderkind Kevin Rudd press secretary and now Today show political commentator Lachlan Harris. 
 The night was hosted by Men's Style editor Michael Pickering who says: “Influence can be a hard concept to define but each of these men is inspirational and influential both within and outside their fields. I've found successful people generally have something useful to say about what they have learnt on the journey and that is certainly the case with the men on this year’s list.” 

Paul & Catherine Anderson

Also on the list : founder of the international phenomenon Freelancer.com Matt Barrie, aggressive online retailer Ruslan Kogan and BigCommerce founders Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper. Paralympic wheelchair champion Kurt Fearnley, veteran league champion Nathan Hindmarsh, Wallaby and charity worker David Pocock and GWS co-captain Luke Power.

And one not on the list ; Chiswick owner Matt Moran who has turned Chiswick restaurant into the uber place to be seen. On a blustery Autumn rainy Tuesday evening the place was packed. I'm told on weekends it's almost impossible to get a table unless you book well ahead.

Influential chef and restauranteur Matt Moran surveys a packed Chiswick

25 Years of Wilko

Richard with Tracey Grimshaw

 To Luke Mangan's superb restaurant, the  Glass Brasserie in the Hilton Hotel for a select gathering of Nine Network bigwigs and stars to celebrate Richard Wilkins's 25 years on the telly.

Tony Bennett at Glass Brasserie

Mangan is a great pal of Wilkins so the venue was an obvious choice. And there was a surprise guest who called in to wish Wilkins the best- crooner Tony Bennett.

 Glass is quite spectacular with it's huge glass windows fronting George Street. It was designed by New Yorker Tony Chi and really does conjure up the feel of a Big Apple skyscrapper venue. But it's the food that is the reason to be there and plenty of nibbles created by Mangan were served.

Wilkins like many of our best imports hails from New Zealand where he was once a school teacher who started a band called Wilde & Reckless and travelled to Australia to support Grace Jones. He scored a job as a presenter on the fledgling MTV show which was cancelled after about 2 years. Snapped up by the Nine network, he's been in work for the past quarter decade reporting from the red carpet at the Academy Awards  and travelling the world to interview stars. Lucky man !

                         
 right : Karl Stefanovic attempts to hypnotise Luke Mangan

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Christopher & Fiona Day

Sandersons who have showrooms in Rushcutter's Bay selling Mercedes cars hosted a drinks party for the  launch of the new M Class and B Class luxury motors. Just a small crowd and nearly everyone of them confessed to actually owning a Mercedes.  
Christopher & Fiona Day who own the wonderful Christopher Day Gallery in Paddington say they love their new B Class Merc particularly as it parks itself.

One thing they did note-unlike their car, the model on display had little trays ala Rolls Royce in the back passenger seats. What were they for we pondered? . Is one likely to host a drinks party in the back?. It was a topic that occupied us over 2 glasses of Veuve Clicquot and the Shuttle can't quite remember what the outcome was.
Such trivial matters occupy one when looking at luxury motor vehicles.

The Greens Leader & Jimi Hendrix

Dr Bob Brown (above) the leader who has taken the Australian Greens party to such extraordinary heights with 9 Senators now holding the balance of power in the Upper House for the next six years, resigned today as party leader and as an MP.

The openly gay Brown plans to spend more time at his Tasmanian property with partner Paul Thomas. Needless to say the media, notably News Corp which vowed in an editorial to "destroy The Greens" has already begun to promote conspiracy theories for his resignation, pinning it to the Carbon Price (earth to News Corp-it's a price not a tax) and so on, ignoring the fact that next year Brown would undoubtedly be re-elected and faced serving in the Senate until he was 75.

What is less well known is that Brown in 1970 as a young doctor having graduated from Sydney University was working as a locum at St Mary's Hospital in South Kensington when Jimi Hendrix's body was brought in.

Brown says it was obvious Hendrix had been dead for some hours and the presumption was that he had died from a drug overdose. Despite talk at the time that Hendrix had been murdered, Brown says there was no way of proving as much by an autopsy which he assisted with and he was never spoken to by police over the matter.
And it was Bob Brown who faced the British media that morning to announce that Jimi Hendrix had passed away.
You can hear an interview Brown gave on the subject some years ago to 2GB here on the Greens website.

G.W.Lambert self portrait 1920

Kit Lambert

## Jimi Hendrix who died in at the age of 28 had another Australian connection with some degrees of separation. It was Kit Lambert, the man who discovered The Who who was the first to realise the potential of Hendrix when he saw Jimi performing in a pub in West London. He recalled later :
"He was amazing, not only playing the guitar with first his right hand, then left but eventually with his teeth. I had to have him and in my mind I created an instant record label, Track Records and signed Hendrix before we even knew how a record was produced".

Lambert was the son of the English classical composer Constant Lambert who was the son of one of Australia's first great artists and the Official War Artist at the WW1 Gallipoli campaign, George Washington Lambert.

The Archbishop Vs Dawkins

Why on earth did Cardinal George Pell's minders-the coterie of priests known as Pell's Angels allow the man to go head to head in debate with the boorish Richard Dawkins, let alone the ABC devote one hour of prime time television on the hugely popular Q&A program for the professional atheist to promote his non-religious religion.

Pell, a fierce right winger who was pipped at the post by his pal Joseph Ratzinger to become Pope, is certainly knowledgeable on Catholic dogma and theology and can explain himself when necessary, even if he has some wacky views on women and gays.

But Dawkins has honed debating to a fine point and pulls every trick in the book. Pell just wasn't up to speed and Dawkins cleverly sweeps aside questions he cannot or will not answer, a tactic he uses often and which becomes apparent on repeated views of his act.

One way is to dismissively say "that's just a silly question" when thrown a curly one as he did on Monday night when asked  "what is the point of civilisation ?".
Dawkins brushed off the question with no answer and ignored the fact that man has been asking himself just that since time immemorial.
Pell was just still confused from the hash he had just made of his remarks on Jewish civilisation.

Now the Daily Mail in the UK has completely mis-quoted Pell in this article.

Pell was clearly talking about the past when comparing the sophistication of Jewish life of 2000 years ago with their neighbours, the Egyptians and Persians.
The Mail's headline screams :  

"Australia's most senior Catholic Archbishop sparks outrage after saying Jews are 'intellectually and morally inferior'".

Pell said no such thing. He was plainly talking, in a muddled sense about the past and not today. The tabloid changed one word "were" to "are" giving his sentence a completely different meaning.
And when host Tony Jones asked Pell if he included Jesus in the claim, the Mail says Pell did. He did not. As one person in the comments section says: the article is total bunk. As was Monday's Q&;A.

By Popular Demand

Several female readers of the Shuttle have complained about our penchant for publishing photos of Sydney party girl Sharon Sargeant.

For balance, here are some snaps of our good pal Didier Cohen. All you have to do is ask.

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Distant cousins ?

Hawtrey

Cumming

A reader has pointed out the resemblence between British actors Alan Cumming and the late Charles Hawtrey of Carry On fame. Are they perchance related?

Tinkling The Ivories with One Direction

To the Cosmopolitan Cafe in deepest Double Bay for a special treat. Legendary pianist Chet Clark ( above) had flown in from his home in Santa Barbara to give a concert for invited guests. Clark was big in the 50s, and the 60s and 70s. He appeared on every major rock'n'roll show in Australia and the USA and accompanied legendary names of rock and pop, too many to mention.

(left : Jenny Main,John Foreman & Maria Venuti at the Cosmo)

Joining Chet at the piano was the musical director of some of television's and live theatre's top shows John Foreman who flew in from Melbourne for the night.
The night was put together by producer Jenny Main and hopefully will be the first of many musical evenings to come
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The Shuttle will be at the Ch 7 studios in Martin Place tomorrow morning for One Direction's appearance. Are we looking forward to it ?. Not as much as Tony Bennett's final show tomorrow night at the Sydney Opera House which we managed to score a rare ticket for.

There is one thing everyone must do in this life. And that is see Tony Bennett sing live.
There is a reason Frank Sinatra said Bennett had "the best tonsils in the business". His voice is like pure honey and washes over you with a purity never experienced before. In our lifetime we have not seen a live singer with such perfection and poetry in their voice. There is no man or woman on this planet that is better. Bennett's recordings do not do his voice justice, as wonderful as they are. This is the singer who thrives on live performances and at 85 years old, by all accounts he is as good today as he was 50 years ago.

Oh yes, Rihanna is in town and attended the premiere of Battleship last night and went shopping in Paddington during the day before boarding a luxury yacht for the obligatory Harbour cruise. Perhaps she waved to One Direction who were also on the Harbour.

Leveson, Murdoch, Zac Efron and Richard Branson

In February the Shuttle pondered as to why the most disliked paparazzi, both in Australia and the UK, the Big Picture agency lads had seemingly gone to ground.

Their boss, the tubby Darryn Lyons appears to have set up house in Geelong where he originally came from and has toned down his act even resorting to just one colour in his dated Mohawk hair cut.

We already knew some details of the scandal that eventually broke around ten days ago in the British media-that a Virgin Airline employee had been selling celebrity travel information to the agency.

 Our source says Virgin legal eagle's have gone into extended huddles to see if any other employees have engaged in similar behaviour. Word has come down from high-Sir Richard Branson that no stone is to be left unturned and that there are to be none of the debacles that have surrounded Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in the phone hacking scandal.

But is it just the tip of the iceberg?. The Shuttle hears that two more airlines have begun investigating staff after tip-offs that claim similar practises were underway. Closer to home, a local photographic agency may be in the frame for paying airport employees for confidential information.

A firm which supplies security personnel and drivers for visiting celebrities is conducting internal reviews over long time claims that employees would supply selected paparazzi with celebrity movement details in exchange for cash. One Sydney car hire business hires drivers who have held dual roles in the past-driving around celebrities like Rupert Murdoch and working in their spare time as paparazzi.

# Just to show we have no hard feelings towards the paps-here are some snaps supplied to us of movie heartthrob Zac Efron in Sydney yesterday.
There is (mostly) no truth to the rumour a publicist notified photo agencies that Zac would be breakfasting on the balcony of his Park Hyatt Hotel suite at a certain time.

Titanic-How It Sank

Vale The Silver Duchess

Some said she was a snob. Rather, she had impeccable manners and expected the same in return and woe betide those that came within her orbit and exhibited anything less than the perfection Sheila Scotter demanded.

Scotter has passed away at the age of 91 in her Melbourne home in Port Albert.

A product of the age of the Raj in India -she was born in Calcutta in 1920,and growing up in England, Sheila moved to Melbourne in 1949 and became a buyer and commentator on fashion which she described thus :


"When people ask me what is fashion? I try to sum it up in one sentence; it's an expression of contemporary thought and taste in the form of women's clothes," 

She became the founding editor of Vogue Living and moved amongst the rich powerful in Australia and the UK and was awarded an OBE and Order of Australia for her services to journalism. 

But one of Sheila's admirable traits was her ability to treat all persons no matter what their background, as equals. Peter Jansen the former racing driver and Melbourne socialite best known for hosting Melbourne Cup parties in a Double Decker bus, dubbed Sheila the 'Silver Duchess' after her penchant for wearing black and white and her shining silver hair.

The Silver Duchess will be farewelled at St Silas Church near her home on Thursday.

Bodies Everywhere-Floating In Water

To our favourite art gallery in Woolahra-the Tim Olsen Gallery for a new exhibition by Martine Emdur (pictured below).

Vee & Grant

Fran McPherson & Sarah Grant

Martine is known for her oil paintings executed on a grand scale with the main subject being nude swimmers submerged under water.
Emdur, from Bondi Beach captures her great love of water and presents timeless images of the human form enjoying expansive surfaces of uninterrupted water. The languid nudes surrender themselves to the ocean, their warm bodies juxtaposed against the cool water.

She's been exhibiting at major galleries around Australia for over ten years and is a collector's favourite with prices ranging from $6000 for a smaller work and up to $80,000 for one of the large canvases.
Isn't there some sort of Freudian treatise on all this water-something to do with sex?. Perhaps we'll ask her famous brother, the TV star Larry Emdur next time we see him. 

PJ Lane & Ashley Talbot

You can be sure when Martine exhibits the gallery will be packed and the red dots numerous. Amongst what looked like a well heeled crowd: top auctioneer Tim Goodman, model agent Grant Dwyer with a stunning blonde named Vee Troyak. (is Vee his new discovery?). P.J Lane turned up with his new girlfriend Ashley Talbot but they don't really want folks to know they are an item. So we wont tell a soul. Also there- photographer Rex Dupain (right with Tim Olsen) and one of Australia's hardest working models Sarah Grant who brought her pal Fran McPherson. 

You may have heard of Fran's oldest daughter who is also a model-Elle McPherson.

Martine Emdur at the Tim Olsen Gallery 4-22nd April.
 63 Jersey Road, Woollahra 61 2 9327 3922  

More From Morocco

Following our story on the visiting hotelier Prince Fabrizio Ruspoli  from Morocco, a missive arrives in the form of a card and some snaps of Sydney party girl Sharon Sargeant who is currently holidaying in Marrakesh.

Ms Sargeant says she has been to Prince Fabrizio's hotel, La Maison Arabe for lunch and it truly is splendid :
"if I wasn't staying with friends in their villa I would certainly stay at La Maison. It's quite gorgeous".

Sharon says she and her fiancee, the 'world's most famous' private eye Frank Monte spent a week in Tangier before driving to Marrakesh via Casablanca which she says she was slightly disappointed by :
"I was really expecting something out of the movie of the same name, you know with Humphrey Bogart and Rick's Cafe but it's quite a modern city. But Marrakesh is wonderful"

Ms Sargeant assures us that the two snaps taken at the front door and inside her friend's villa are definitely not how she appears in the streets :
"I cover myself from head to toe in caftans which are perfect for the climate and I certainly don't want to cause a commotion when I am in the local market"
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Prince Fabrizio Ruspoli

  Although Prince Fabrizio Ruspoli has now left Sydney it  was a successful visit in more ways than one. Visiting Sydney's top Thai restaurant Spice I Am in Darlinghurst which specialises in Issan food (from Northern Thailand ) he was so taken with the food he has invited the chef Sujet Saenkhan to visit La Maison Arabe for a few weeks to holiday and oversee some banquets.

Archibald Still Pleases

The Archibald Portrait prize never fails to shock and delight, always with a tinge of controversy. This year's recipient was Bathurst artist Tim Storrier with his self portrait (minus head): The histrionic wayfarer (after Bosch) .

Lucky Tim-for the first time the prize was raised to $75,000 although that's a fraction of the price he receives for a painting.

Above is Adam Cheng's portrait of film producer Emile Sherman who picked up an Oscar for The King's Voice.

The launch was also an opportunity to meet the new News South Wales Art Gallery director Michael Brand who will take over from Edmund Capon in June. Brand is the current director of the Aga Khan Museum which is being built in Toronto and formerly the J.Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Below are some of the finalists:

(left) Martin Sharp's painting
 'the thousand dollar bill'

and right: Garry Shead's 'Martin Sharp and 
his magic theatre'

Adam Cullen's 'Nelson & Koko'

 right : Michael Vale's 'Night of the wolverine – a portrait of Dave Graney and Clare Moore'