Heil King Henry IX !

 

 Well that's according to Nostrodamus and Mario Reading's

The Complete Phrophecies of Nostradamus.

King Charles III will abdicate in 2022 (yes-it will be Camilla's fault) and Harry takes over (no word on why William is by-passed). Expect Buck House to become fun city and a cross between Annabel's and your local boozer.

       Not for long-the Royal Family is gone by 2040 and Britain becomes a Republic and naughty France rejoices ! (don't worry-by 2098 France has descended into utter anarchy)

   

   

 tSS telephoned our regular psychic Mandy Miami ( right ) who is currently in Melbourne for our new century predictions but she wasn't giving anything away. 'Not since my run-in with Uri Geller over Michael Jackson" she said."

 " I keep my predictions to myself now", Mandy had written a raft of predictions for that august publication the National Enquirer and correctly predicted the winner of the Kentucky Derby, the next host city of the Olympic Games but one piece raised the hackles of thousands. Words to the effect of "within the coming year Michael Jackson will be involved in a huge scandal that will forever change his life and he will need to re-invent his image. He will marry but never be the same again".

       Sounds innocuous but at a charity dinner a few weeks later Geller declared his "close friend" Michael would never get himself involved in scandal  and to shove home his point he bent Miami's dinner fork, house key and stopped her watch.

       Nine months later the Jordan Chandler story erupted and the rest is history.

   Nostradamus,according to Reading's book, says there are rocky times ahead including the flooding of the Aegean Sea in 2016 .
       Things aren't looking too rosy for Pope Benedict with a new younger, liberal and more hip Pope taking over in 2012. That rules out the ultra-conservative Cardinal Pell of Sydney who was pipped at the post by his German pal.

        Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes president in 2015 with the prediction in the following quatrain :

The Masculain woman will exert herself to the north.

 She will annoy nearly all of Europe and the rest of the world

 (surely Sarah Palin ?.)

   Meat will be banned by 2031 and we'll all be vegans. Or maybe eating

Soylent Green. And the following year the new Anti Christ is born !

     Islamic terrorism is on the rise and new weapons will be actually secreted inside their bodies-forget body scanners. A waste of money.

         And finally the fear of White Australia will come true in 2037 when Oz and Indonesia go to all out war over who dominates the Indian Ocean.

    And a victory for the UK Independence Party in Britain when England leaves the Eurpean Union in 2064.

        

There are endless climate disasters ahead for us and most of New York disappears in an earthquake in 2083. There are tsunamis , locust plagues wiping out crops worldwide, earthquakes in Europe and a re-emergence of the black plague that wipes out huge amounts of the population throughout the world and Europe.

       But Britain is spared !. Not so fast folks. Over populated, the UK suffers from a famine. (remember-the locusts )

            And did I mention the asteroid that hits planet earth in 2069 ? So don't even worry about the global nuclear war that begins in 2070 and lasts for 20 years.

       

The Protestant and Catholic churchs will be kaput by 2070 and Buddhism is the new faith. And maybe Scientology with Tom Cruise as the new Messiah.

 It just gets worse after that so there's no point in being too pessimistic.

     

Basically we're all going to hell in a handbasket. So all in all-nothing much changes for the next ten decades and it's business as usual.!

 Happy New Year and have a great century !

              

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# our thanks to a regular reader Mr P.Taylor who pointed out some shocking spelling mistakes. Mildred Pierce is banished from the office yet again . Staff are hopeless these days.

But you have worse things to worry about really-the Anti Christ is on his/her way !

Earth to the Channel Ten TV network....

     The Magic Millions -one of Queensland's Gold Coast social events on the racing calendar wasn't the 'brainchild' of advertising man John Singleton and billionaire Gerry Harvey.

 It was the brainchild of publicity guru Angela Belle McSweeney . Angela conceived of the idea-put it together and launched what is set to become a race with the biggest cash prize in the world. Angela also helped build the Dubai Cup into a world major racing event and is often a guest BBC reporter at the Ascot races.

  Do your research folks- Singleton and Harvey took over the enterprize only recently and Singleton's most 'brilliant' idea to date was to bring American Pie actress Tara Reid ( who she?) out as the 'celebrity' guest a year after he launched his Bondi Blonde Beer with the oh-so-yesterday Paris Hilton.

Gerry Harvey & John Singleton demonstrate that adopting the late Kerry Packer's motto "always play to the lowest common denominator" pays off !

The Sport of Kings and queens

Mark down Friday 26th February as a Day at The Races not to be missed.

Royal Randwick Racecourse will hold the world’s first gay and lesbian race day.

The Pink Stiletto Race Day will be the ultimate social event in the lead up to the 2010 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Randwick normally attracts it's fair share of "colourful racing identities " (old gangster slang for a person of no fixed employment but loaded with cash) but this should bring thousands of racegoers, gay and straight, who will be‘coming out’ to Royal Randwick on the eve of Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade.

And the colour,the frocks,the stilettos !. It will give the jockey silks a run for their money and any race day at Randwick is like a fashion contest between well heeled gals trying to outdo each other but expect drag like you've never seen before.

Expect to see most of Sydney's best known drag stars-they'll be there-Kitty Glitter, Minnie Cooper, Miss Understood, Courtney Act, Sarah Pax.

Even our favourite neighbour Carmen should be there-pictured here at the funeral of the late Sydney King's Cross identity Abe Saffron.

Top horse trainer Gae Waterhouse ( centre below) is giving her support.

She's pictured with a couple of blokes in frocks and an escort who looks suspiciously like society hairdresser Joh Bailey's boyfriend Adam Williams. It's all for a good cause-the Bobby Goldsmith Fund which provides support for people living with HIV.

The Pink Stiletto, Royal Randwick Racecourse on Friday, February 26. Gates open at 11am. Tickets $15 from bgf.org.au.

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Stars lined up for 2010 Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras party so far include Whitney Huston. But don't forget you read it here first-George Michael will put in an appearance also.

"Why'd ya let her suck your cock.."

  It's a line from our favourite Marianne Faithful song Why'd Ya Do It written by the great poet Heathcote Williams. Why Williams never wrote another song for Faithful is a mystery.

 Hopefully she will sing it plus a batch of songs from that brilliant album Broken English when she performs at the Sydney Opera House on the 3rd February. Faithful's tour begins in Queensland on the 30th January.

The shows, with her full touring band, will showcase her critically acclaimed new album Easy Come, Easy Go  as well as drawing from the wealth of material from her expansive career.

  Reputedly Marianne dictated many of the words of Why'd Ya Do It to Williams when she found out her then boyfriend Ben Brierly, of the punk band The Vibrators was having an affair with a neighbour in Chelsea.

     And little did tSS know when we called in for Christmas lunch at that neighbour's house one year, that the owner would soon feature in a song that outraged the BBC which refused to give it airplay. They settled for the much more acceptable Ballad of Lucy Jordon.

       The house, a 4 storey mansion, was being rented at the time by the late brilliant Australian make-up artist Richard Sharah who created Zandra Rhode's amazing look.  During lunch Marianne called in for a few drinks and carried a bucket-to collect some coal from the cellar. She was down on 'er uppers at the time.     

           She transported at least 6 bucket loads of coal backwards and forwards from memory, saying "fuck the cow-she'll never miss it !". So Dickensian.

                 And she didn't even know at that stage that Ben was knocking off Sharah's landlady !

We aren't too sure about Marianne's heavily air-brushed publicity snap above-we prefer our own pic (at top)taken with Richard Sharah that Christmas day when she was on the coal shuttle.
               There is also a heavy rumour running about town the Environment Minister Peter Garrett-currently avoiding the media over the Whale War between Japan and Greenpeace and the ramming of the Ady Gil yesterday- is going to join Marianne on stage. Perhaps he'll do a duet on Why'd ya do it and dedicate to Japan. Or maybe the Ady Gil.

Here's Faithful's live version of Why'd ya do it but it has a habit of disappearing from youtube and below is our glorious Federal Minister of the Environment, the Hon Peter Garrett MP in one of his Midnight Oil Moments

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more worries for a Royal dynasty

        The world's tallest building is unleashed upon the Middle East in a blaze of fireworks in Dubai.  What would the view be like from that 124th floor ?

       As radio king John Laws ,
spotted yesterday lunching at Aria Restaurant deep in conversation with yet another 2GB boss (which may confirm rumours of his imminent return to radio) would probably say .."sand..lot's of f**cking sand!"

But largely unnoticed with the celebrations was an interview in a recent Dubai magazine aimed at the top end of the market with glossy avderts for the latest Rolls , Bentley or Aston Martin for the more sporty type.

  The sister of His Highness Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman worries yet again that the Sultan has produced no issue and from whence will come his successor ?. She has form here-and intimated before various aspects of her brother's life mainly aimed at his on-going bachelorhood status with nary a potential Sultana on the horizon.

 

   tSS did work in Oman for 3 months, around the same time as the noted gumshoe-or "the world's most famous private eye" as the Sydney Morning Herald recently called him, Frank Monte.

      Our paths didn't cross with tSS having secured employement via Britain which required signing the Official Secrets Act which also fortunately precludes us from disclosing the lowly position we held, unlike Monte who provided security for Omani Royal Family members and hunted out terrorist bases forming there(as detailed in his book The Spying Game).

     The Royal lineage of Qaboos dates back a few hundred years and Oman has been one of the most stable Middle East countries-rarely talked about-before and after  G.Bush Jnr & T.Blair hatched a plot to make the  friendly and generous Arab nations distrust us westerners forever.

      Qaboos only has around 3 million subjects and the capital city-Muscat is mysteriously beautiful and one of the most ancient cities on earth with traces of settlement dating back 5000 years. The people are few but friendly and His Highness has plenty of oil-wells which he has used to transform life for his people.

        In 1970 Qaboos,educated in Britain  at Sandhurst was locked up in the Royal palace upon his return by his father Sultan Said III bin Taimur. He was a suspicious old soul who sniffed a family coup in the air. He was right. The only visitor the young successor was allowed was Brigadier Timothy Landon, (right) a close friend from  Sandhurst and together they informed the old Sultan his reign was over, whereupon he pulled a pistol and accidently shot himself in the foot.

Whisked off in a waiting RAF plane to London, the old Sultan was ensconced at the Dorchester Hotel in a grand suite where he died in 1972-some claim while watching Coronation Street.

      With Landon's help (known in Oman as the "White Sultan") Qaboos transformed Oman into a pleasurable cross between modern living whilst preserving it's ancient customs. Landon was richly rewarded during his lifetime and became the go-between for the Sultanate and just about anyone who wanted to do business there.

   Ever loyal to Qaboos , he died at 65 in 2007 at his grand country estate in England and left a fortune estimated at nearly £80M  ($A140M), aided somewhat by what was claimed was a £IM gift from His Highness on each of his birthdays. At Farnborough airport he maintained his own Boeing jet and crew to visit Oman when summonsed.

Lawrence of Arabia could have been his role model-in more ways than one.

   Sultan Qaboos is hugely respected in the Middle East and much loved by his people-but as his sister says "what becomes of Oman when he passes ?". He is only 69 so there is still time to find a young bride, Perhaps that's what the succession of American male models who fly in for brief visits, advise him on.

From one palace to another for Sultan Said III bin Taimur-the Muscat Royal Family home and the Dorchester Hotel

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a brickbat arrives to put us in our place

       Following our story on the decline of the "paparazzi"-or the bunch of hooligans who have partly made the whole media business a complete nightmare, an email arrives to castigate tSS from someone who scarily, certainly knows tSS only too well.

       It's difficult to re-call the timeline of the events but tSS  aways carried a pocket Box Brownie in London and took the odd snap that occasionally appeared in such revered outlets like the legendary William Hickey column in the UK's  Daily Express or the World's Greatest Living Englishman Nigel Dempster's column  in the Daily Mail .

      tSS has been accused of many things including only recently by a former London scribe of note, of being a "peripheral character' on the London scene-whatever that scene was . We've always regarded this lifetime as sort of peripheral . We have been here before and most likely will visit again. You know-reincarnation and all that.

    Indeed at the recent event in Sydney at which the Dalai Lhama spoke and tSS had the opportunity to ask a  question-which was "will I return in another life and what will I be ?"-the answer from his Holiness was "yes ..as you !"..Brrrrr.

         Nigel Dempster was regarded as the man who invented the modern gossip column which was hugely successful until his latter years. Sadly he died relatively young at 65.

        He once hauled tSS over the coals on a Sunday afternoon at the Mail office when we delivered a snap which he ran the next day.

         He accused tSS of being a "dreadful Australian who probably calls a dress "a frock"-and did you fuck this woman to get the snap ?". (a movie star who shall remain nameless..and yes we sort of did-but we didn't- if you can work that out )  A right dressing down if somewhat bizarre. Or perhaps a "get frocked"

        It was most peculiar, especially at the time we didn't know Dempster's own dad was an Aussie-just like the sensational Mick Jagger who has an Aussie mum .

        tSS 's origins are far more murkier and mysterious although a few colonials do feature. It was always Dempster's favoured insult as we appeared in his office.."oh here comes that tiresome Aussie"

But being  accused of calling a dress a "frock". There really was no answer to that . What could one say ? . Dempster spat it out like it was the worst insult he could have hurled.

      

        But we digress. After our attack upon the paparazzi which the The Times saw fit to take up- a real blast from the past arrives that rips into tSS over a snap we took eons ago with a story so innocuous-which was duly reported by a Fleet Street rag, that 2 of HRH Prince Andrew's ex-girlfriends had  arrived at the same small soiree in a  house just of the Kings Road in Chelsea.

        Koo Stark  (left) was in one corner (not looking like that of course) and Katie Rabbet appeared at the door. Ms Rabbet popped her head in, and presumably on spotting Stark, immediately left.

      For God's sake £40 was a lot of dosh in those days-it paid the week's rent and a good night out at El Sombrero in Ken High Street. One had to sell the story and the picture and we doubt we sold our soul at the same time.

  Fast forward to New York 2 years later and tSS is at a party or some sort of gathering and receives a withering glance from Baroness Francesca Von Thyseen (right)-for it was she who held the party that Andrew's ex-girlfriends had attended.

 "How dare you" she said ,"reveal to the press what happens at a party you have been invited to !".      

            Well yes quite-one might agree if it hadn't been  her own publicist who had invited tSS in the first place, presumably-as we imagined-that publicity was what she sought for her then husband, a struggling a rock musician. (who seems to have been wiped from wikpedia's entry on the Thyseen family)

      As usual tSS did the only thing a gentleman can do-mumbled something incomprehensible and reached for another drink..

 Later, recounting the tale to La Dolce Musto writer Michael Musto (right) who now rules the world from a column in New York's  Village Voice he exclaimed.."my God !..she should talk..the Thyseen name is persona non grata in New York !" . We have no idea why.

 Amazing-after all these years you can still be tracked down !

And sub-editor Mildred Pierce -who opens all emails-is not a happy pussy.

          

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On a lighter note-

what you have always wanted to see :

Homer Simpson does McBeth !

Sydney can look forward to a fantastic appearance of MacHomer at the Wharf Theatre from January 5-23, before touring to Brisbane, Wollongong and Bathurst.

Rick Miller’s side-splitting and inspired one-man Macbeth transplants Shakespeare into Springfield, home of television’s favorite dysfunctional family, The Simpsons. With Homer in the lead and Marge as Lady MacHomer, Miller recreates the voices of more than 50 characters from the iconic TV series. It is very very funny.

check out this brief video :

finally Britain's TIMESONLINE catches up to the Shuttle

     Twice in early December we reported on the collapse of the dreaded paparazzi who until the death of Princess Diana were making a decent living. But when that car crash happened, something else strange occured.

     A whole new breed of semi-professionals were unleashed-the majority being obnoxious kids with a new digital camera who thought they were out to make a fortune and adopted an attitude of such arrogance they simply became a complete pain in the butt.

        Even worse, a new breed of so-called "publicists" began to take them seriously and put them at the top of every guest list.

      It peaked for us in Sydney about 6 years ago when a buffoon of a PR 'consultant ' refused tSS and guest, entry to a store promotion he was grandly managing (with the usual suspect guest list that make up the 'd-list') , whilst inside at least 10 shabby "paps"  grinned away almost triumphantly.

      And thus Count Paolo Zegna, (pictured left) Chairman of the legendary Zegna Group in Milan and tSS trudged off for supper at Aria Restaurant at Circular Quay.

        tSS has worked for the elegant Count Zegna for many years when he travels to Australia to present awards for the finest of the world's wool.    We made hurried excuses that it was the wrong function but it was difficult not to notice the boutique we were about to enter, was a franchise of one the world's major Italian designers-a close friend of Zegna's.

The party was a PR disaster. The only person worth photographing had been booted.  No publicity ensured.

 tSS hexs are very strong. Be warned.

We finally threw in the towel when the late actor Heath Ledger was squirted with water pistols by a bunch of gung-ho paps at a film premiere which literally drove him to sell his Sydney beach-side house and flee to the US. "You need us" they yelled. Not any longer.

Giles Hattersley writing in the Times says it all better here..

 an exert :

    

Paparazzi: A flash in the pan

The paparazzi used to earn big bucks from snapping celebrities, but their moment in the limelight is over

Dan Weir, a 20-year-old paparazzo from south London, heads into the West End most days at 6pm. This is the unofficial handover hour, when the daytime snappers stop bothering the Wags on Bond Street so the night shift can start bothering them outside Mahiki.

As ever, the same worries race through Weir’s mind. Is Kate in town? Will Cheryl be out? Will she wear a scandalously teensy ensemble guaranteed to boost his bank balance? “It isn’t glamorous like it sounds, though,” he says. “It’s a job, and it’s getting harder.”

                                                        

He’s right. Stifle your sobs, people, but thanks to dwindling reader interest and a ferociously litigious gaggle of pap-suing harpies (never say the words “Sienna” and “Miller” to a photo hack: they’ll rip your ears off), the pack is in trouble.

After a decade of steady pay for any old snap of celebrity detritus, in the past 18 months the spoils have shrunk. Dramatically.

“It’s got tough,” says Ken Goff, who runs GoffPhotos, a top agency that supplies candid sleb shots and red-carpet fare to the tabs.

“A year ago, you could get a picture in one of our main daily papers — The Sun, Mirror, Star or Mail — and it would be worth £500. Now, with one of those papers, you’re lucky to get £170.” One picture editor tells me that rates can fall as low as £40 for a half-decent shot. That’s if he deigns to publish it at all.

                                           ********************************

                                                  

### Count Zegna has announced that his Wool Awards in Australia -suspended in 2009 over the great muesling of sheep scandal, will resume this year for Zegna's centenary celebration.

the things people say...

    A political moment overcomes tSS as we read today that the Sydney Morning Herald reports: Iraqi rage at Blackwater decision in US court by their Baghdad correspondent Michael Hastings.

A speech by former PM John Howard to Parliament in 2004:

 " I again take the opportunity of reaffirming the correctness of the government’s assessment in predeploying our forces, and I record the bitter opposition of the  Australian Labor Party when that decision was taken. Not only was the military operation completed quickly and successfully but it is also worth recording that all of the doomsday predictions, particularly the many that came from those who sit opposite, were not realised.

     The oilwells were not set on fire; there were not millions of refugees; the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were not breached to bring on catastrophic flooding; and there was no long, drawn out, bloody, Stalingrad style street-to-street fighting in Baghdad. For all of this we must be immensely grateful, but it is a reminder of the hysteria and the doomsday predictions that often accompany operations of this kind. And, just as many of the predictions about a Western Front style holocaust that were made in 1991 when the land war commenced were proved wrong, so the predictions on this occasion have been proved wrong.

       The decisive  victory of the American led coalition reflects enormous credit on the strength and the determination of the leadership of President Bush.

      Again I remind the House of the way in which his role was vilified and traduced by many of those who sit opposite and of the way in which speaker after speaker from the Australian Labor Party impugned his integrity, assaulted his judgment and called into question his ability to lead the United States in this very difficult conflict. History has proved them wrong.

The performance of the President has illustrated how infantile their protests were, and the leadership that he has given on this occasion, I believe, will bring about a permanent change in attitudes in the Middle East."

Yeh, sure.

update ## my favourite green-grocer in Kings Cross was very excited after the fall of Saddam and made a trip back to Iraq in 2005 where he was born. He returned within a week and said he had secured a job in a government ministry and was off again within the month. His family in Australia..or relatives in Iraq have never heard from him again.

If you think the noughties were fun...wait until we bring news of what is in store for us all according to Nostradamus !

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Apologies accepted !!

  And it was nice to see the same newspaper yesterday finally picked up our tale of Nicole Kidman attending the Carols by Candlelight delivered by us on 22nd December after she had previously claimed life in Sydney was a living hell because of the media (we politely left her alone on the night) and demolished the utter nonsense printed in an unnamed newspaper ( the Daily Telegraph ) that actor Matt Damon and his family were cutting a swathe throughout small holiday townships on the south coast of NSW during their non-existent cruise aboard the giant liner The World. He was skiing in the US.

                          Check out The World's website-there are still plenty of apartments for sale including the 6 bedroom penthouse where for a lazy few million dollars you can sit and watch the sea for hours on end. What fun

.

"If you don't know Patrick-you should go out more" : Andy Warhol

      What better way to start a new year off than a shameless plug for a pal. The above quote is genuine-tSS was there when the late Andy Warhol said it. Patrick McMullan has been New York's top society snapper for going on 20 years now-in fact he's probably the USA's most sought after photographer for social get-togethers.

     Patrick has regular columns in Warhol's Interview Magazine, Vanity Fair (for which he's a contributing editor) New York Magazine, Ocean Drive,  and a few others. His pics appear in basically every US newspaper and around the world. He's one of the guys on the inside. Even Paris Hilton 2009's 2008's famous party girl says no party is complete without Patrick in attendance. He's also published 7 best selling books of party snaps. tSS can't quite remember where we met Patrick-it was most likely at a very disreputable Greenwich Village bar called the Ninth Circle.

        For the past 2 decades we've made an annual pilgrimage to visit Patrick in his Fifth Avenue apartment near Washington Square where he's lived since he left college. Soon we'll bring you a video of interview with Patrick conducted there. When we first started crashing on Patrick's sofa we usually had to cobble together a few dollars for breakfast the next day, Now McMullan employs around 40 people and 20 photographers around the USA. tSS occasionally helps out. I think he might own the building now.

       tSS once flew Patrick to Sydney for an exhibition of our snaps of various celebrities at a King's Cross gym transformed for the night into a gallery. He was a huge hit with the local media and our own party guests like the late Michael Hutchence and Kylie Minogue, who signed her snap which was later sold at a charity auction for the Bobby Goldsmith HIV charity bringing around $8000. Kylie loved the pic and asked us where we took it.."somewhere or other" was our reply, not wanting to remind her that it was in a bar when she trying to be incognito and she told tSS to "fuck off" at the time.

       Afterwards we all retired to a restaurant that is now the uber-chic Hugos Lounge (the bar and the only one not owned by 'nightclub identity' John Ibrahim). Joining us were our favourite former First Lady, Lady Sonia McMahon and Min Keating, mother of the then Prime Minister Paul Keating.(left) Everyone got along famously.

      right :   Lady Sonia McMahon with son , Hollywood hearthrob Julian McMahon

 In the morning Patrick received an urgent phone call from Min Keating.  "I left my beautiful rain coat behind" said Min. "Paul (Keating) will be furious " she said. " He bought it for me in Paris when he was on a state visit". Said raincoat was quickly found but as the half a dozen of us who had slept around Patrick's hotel suite arose, McMullan decided we should all pose in Min's leopard print raincoat for a future exhibition. "No-one will believe this" said Patrick...."the Prime Minister's mother waking me at 7am looking for her raincoat-it's like getting a call from the White House". Hopefully the snaps are locked away in a safe.

       Heaven forbid they should emerge. At former PM Bob Hawke's 80th birthday bash at the Opera House  a fortnight ago tSS earned a withering smile from Keating as we caught him trying to avoid the media upon arrival.

  Surpassing Patrick's photographic snaps now are his fashion reports for NBC TV. If you want to know the latest about New York's fashion scene go here to watch a few of McMullan's interviews.

    

a little scandal for New Year's Day

        As tSS saw in the new year perched high in the air from a 20th floor apartment which gave a commanding view of the superb fireworks, a little contretemps was occurring at the nation's top radio station 2GB to add to the woes of the diminutive but fiery A Current Affair reporter Ben Fordham who has received his fair share of kicks to the bollocks as he confront's fleeing dodgy builders or financial planners who have purloined the savings of a few hundred pensioners and so on.

    Down at the Woolloomooloo Wharf , retired radio king John Laws and his wife "Princess" Caroline were quietly seeing in the new year from their favourite table at Ottos with a few friends.

      Ben is currently filling in at 2GB for regular host, the ranting Ray Hadley who is on annual hols and for hours Fordham announced an up-coming interview with Lawsie-once the world's highest paid radio star. But then the interview was suddenly cancelled, embarrasing Fordham.

John and The Princess

     Various scenarios are being bandied about. Part owner of 2GB is current king of the airwaves Alan Jones who for about 12 years was Law's stablemate at the rival station 2UE where between them, they captured the nation's listeners.

       The emnity between the 2 radio stars was no secret. Laws referred to Jones as 'The Parrot' in private and had a wonderful time on air when letters between Jones and ABA chairman David Flint -which sounded like love letters, were revealed during the infamous

cash for comments scandal when both stars were accused of making paid advertising sound like normal comment whilst receiving millions of dollars for favourable mentions of various products.

        Laws, who had his fair share of run-ins with various government bodies was once  forced to apologise on air when Queer Eye For The Straight Guy Carson Kressley was a guest at the Melbourne Cup and Lawsie said to his millions of listeners "Who is this pompous little pansy prig?". Laws delighted in upsetting various minority groups and was accused of being 'homophobic' but it was all a pose-half his close friends are gay. Anything to get top ratings.

       Ben Fordham meanwhile is facing claims he allegedly concealed a serious crime when he posed as a hitman-suposedly hired by a former 75 year old Mayor of Waverley who claimed a male hustler was blackmailing him. The secret meeting where an alleged deal was done to top the blackmailer (the poor ex-Mayor neeeds new specs if he didn't recognise Fordham' face which is plastered on bus adverts) was secretly filmed and went to air on A Current Affair and the whole matter has become decidedly messy with all involved appearing in various courts. The matter has been held over to next this year.

      All the other media outlets are pondering about the reason just why Fordham would interview John Laws who has been retired for 2 years.

      Elementary, Mr. Watson. Laws long-time manager just happens to be John Fordham who also happens to be young Ben's dad. Fordham ,who also manages major sporting stars is the one who took Laws to such peaks of stardom he is now able to travel the world in style and live in the sumptous Woolloomooloo Wharf penthouse next door to Russell Crowe , and lunch and dine every day at Ottos, a small walk from home

                              John Fordham lunches with his client, John Laws at Ottos.
and for those who miss the dulcet tones of Laws-or that extraordinary hair-here is Lawsie on Muslims

reality check

      OK it's the silly season but that's no reason to go totally troppo. A tabloid we won't name (Daily Telegraph) is reporting that Hollywood actor Matt Damon is currently holidaying in Huskisson on the NSW South coast having moved on from Bateman's Bay where it's reported he "signed autographs".

     Damon, one of Hollywood's Mr Nice Guys is supposedly on The World, a vast cruise liner that is heading for Sydney and is like a 15 storey apartment block laid upon it's side. tSS  inspected The World the last time it visited Sydney and, well frankly they may be very nice apartments but the whole floating shebang is ghastly.

      It's like being trapped at sea in an apartment block full of neighbours you never wanted to know and are usually types like a Texan husband and wife who own a thousand bowling alleys and are worth a mint but would bore for The World.

 If Matt's aboard that boat I'll eat Madame Arcarti's hat. These shipboard apartments are mostly owned by people who occasionally rent them out-well just like a real apartment block but why would you want to spend weeks at sea when someone like Damon can hire his own Lear Jet if he wants to holiday in Oz with the kids-particularly as there would be very few other children aboard.

     There are some pleasant owners of these floating flats like Bill and Imelda Roche who sold the Nutrimetics empire for a squillion but they have even started spending less and less time aboard. The highly successful astrologer Athena Starwoman also purchased one when she found instant success in the USA but succumbed to cancer before she could even cross the threshold of her sea bound home.

    Frankly I'd prefer a trip on the Poseidon as at least you would get to go down with Shelley Winters.

And besides, tSS's World spy disguised as the PR agent says there is no-one named 'Damon ' listed onboard.

       This tale reeks for all The World like the story that engulfed the same newspaper when it discovered Sex in The City star Sarah Jessica Parker sipping a beer at the Rushcutter's Bay yachting club a few years ago and ran the pic for 3 days swearing blind it was her despite tSS saying 'you've got it all wrong folks". On the 4th day they admitted their mistake  (no apology of course) but the British lass who had a passing resemblence to Parker lapped up every moment of her new found fame.

     Of  course tSS may be completely wrong about this one but when have we ever been before  ?

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    The same tabloid has run a list of parties for New Year's Eve where one might spot Sydney's "A-List". That would be some feat finding this mysterious crowd who have been missing in action for decades and I doubt even David Attenborough could discover this rare and relatively unknown species.

   Still, they reckon there is an "exclusive" private party at the Top of the Town's $8.25 million penthouse "It's super private, ultra-glam and the guest list includes Charlotte Dawson and John Ibrahim." . Whatever.