forget gay Jesus-we uncover the greatest miracle of all !

Elton's Jesus ?

  The Daily Mail, Britain's most successful on-line newspaper and probably the best presented tabloid on the planet brings us startling news in a story about the canonization of Oz nun Mother Mary McKillop.

Writing about another saintly candidate, the Canadian priest Brother Andre, in it's report the Mail says:

"Brother Andre, who founded Saint Joseph Oratory in Canada. Born on August 9, 1945 under the name of Alfred Bessette, Bother Andre, died on January 6, 1937 in Montreal"

Surely a feat Elton John's rebel rabbi bender could only dream of-dying before one's birth !. It certainly saves time.

"Hope I die before I get old"-Brother Andre

As the Catholic Church,the countries dominant religion eyes it's parish in Australia- there are moves afoot with top Catholic, Cardinal George Pell who has just returned from an extended visit to the Vatican.

With McKillop's rise to sainthood the Catholic Church is shoring up it's constituency and filling a religious void. The power of the country having it's own saint St Mary, should not be underestimated. Lapsed Catholics have been returning to the church in droves since the Mary McKillop campaign started over 10 years ago.

Cardinal George Pell has returned just in time for the announcement after illness delayed him in Rome.

Cardinal George Pell with Pope Benedict XVI

But our Vatican spy-disguised as a handsome Swiss Guard who has wandered the corridors of power for clandestine meetings with elderly Vatican officials brings us news of a move within the Holy City.

Cardinal Pell may well become the next president of the Vatican City State, the highest position and just below that of the Pope. The current president, His Eminence Cardinal Giovanni Cardinal Lajolo is rumored to be retiring and the church, with one of the best PR machines that has operated for centuries cannot have missed that all things Oz are currently in vogue. Next to the USA, the Catholic Church's property holdings in Australia are the richest outside the Vatican.

Pell is a great friend of the current Pope Benedict XVI and it's rumored to have stood aside in the final papal ballot to allow his great friend to take the helm. Is he now being rewarded ? It was certainly Pell's advocacy that brought about the hugely successful 2008 World Youth Day to Sydney with the Pope's visit and resulted in huge numbers flocking to the church. Pell has also resided over the healing of a long rift with the Anglican church that has been historically anti-Roman-Catholic since the convict days when Anglican masters ruled over the largely Catholic convict populace.

George Pell is an arch-conservative with a strict adherence to orthodoxy who rules the Catholic church in Australia with an iron fist. He brooks no opposition and has a coterie of young priests at his command, collectively known as Pell's Angels.

Those who believe Pell's move to the Vatican will bring some moderation in the local church's strict views on homosexuality, female priests and divorce will find no relief if Pell's anointed successor, the younger Rev Anthony Fisher takes over. Such is Fisher's adherence to all things Pell he is know locally as Boy George.

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the Odd Couple

  To the NSW Art Gallery to meet the Odd Couple of the British art world-Gilbert and George. Brought to Sydney by art patron and fabric importer John Kaldor , the artists revealed some of the fascinating facts of their life style. They have eaten at the same Turkish restaurant every night in the East End for over 30 years. Gilbert takes a 3 hour walk around the local streets every night before dinner and is joined on the last hour by George.

   

  In the afternoons they are joined by the same 2 local homeless men for afternoon tea and serve them instant coffee-the only beverage in their larder. And they give them each £2 when they leave. What fun !

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update #3... the number of members of Facebook's "Eddie Mcguire is ruining the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage" is now at 7301, a rise of over 5000 since the Social Shuttle brought it to world attention which co-incidently equals the number of readers of tSS over the past few days !
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Cardinal Pell update : Journalist Mike Carlton speculates that George Pell is in line for the position of prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. Carlton is a rare species amongst media reptiles-he does his research. tSS feels our Vatican source is however more accurate.
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update #4...membership of Eddie Mcguire's Facebook group now stands at 8050. The latest member one Geoff Wills writes  : "Management at that station must be nearly neanderthal in there views.The absolute worst Olympics telecast I have seen"

Camilla conquers The World

Gina Rinehart

       As it departs Australian shores, news comes of a major success for fashion designer Camilla Franks onboard the most luxurious liner sailing the seven seas, The World.

The World

  Franks, one of the countries most successful low profile designers was invited to show her summer caftan range at a fashion show for The World's pasengers, many of whom live permanently onboard the liner as it cruises the world.

      With a limited budget that prevented her hiring professional models, Camilla hit upon a unique idea-why not have the passengers walk the catwalk. And so they did at a parade that turned out to be not only fun for the ship's residents, but a financial success for Franks who sold out her complete range.

       And one of those who purchased around 20 caftans-Australia's richest woman, the reclusive West Australian iron-ore billionairess Gina Rinehart.

Camilla Franks

    For Franks, her meeting with Rinehart was the second within the last few months. Camilla and her mother had run into Rinehart, the daughter of the late Lang Hancock last year while showing her wares in a Mediterranean port when Rinehart happened upon the showing and purchased 30 caftans-ideal clothing for a lazy summer sailing the Med. 

At number 30, Gina's husband John called a halt to the sale : " Enough to see you through the summer dear". Obviously Gina thought not quite-she now has at least 50 Franks designs in her wardrobe.

With a rapidly rising fortune estimated at $4B due to the mineral resources boom, Rinehart could soon be the richest Ausssie, displacing James Packer and the Westfield shopping centre king Frank Lowy.

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Brother Andre-died before he was born !

As the Catholic Church shores up it's Australian constituency with the expected announcement that Mother Mary McKillop will achieve sainthood, the London Daily Mail newspaper reports on another candidate :

"Brother Andre, who founded Saint Joseph Oratory in Canada. Born on August 9, 1945 under the name of Alfred Bessette, Bother Andre, died on January 6, 1937 in Montreal"

Surely one of the greatest miracles of all time-St Andre died 8 years before he was born !



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Sydney Morning Herald scribe Matt Buchanan has at last picked up the tale reported by the Social Shuttle nearly 3 months ago-singer George Michael will be a guest at the 2010 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras on Saturday 6th March. 

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Johnny Weir

UPDATE 2. All is forgiven- although American Olympic ice-skating star Johnny Weir has been pipped at the post by team-mate Evan Lysacek who picked up gold, he has forgiven his Nine TV network detractor and Olympic commentator Eddie McGuire who ripped into Weir with a series of homophobic statements about Weir's costumes. Weir gave a coy smile into the Ch 9 cameras tonight and expressed his desire to visit Oz.

McGuire

Eddie 'Everywere" McGuire responded to Johnny that he was welcome to stay at his place. Isn't that nice ?

Meanwhile membership of the Facebook page "Eddie Mcguire is ruining the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage" first reported by this blog yesterday now has 6274 members!

like some bastard love child of Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi..

  Oh dear. That's how Nicky Moore describes the Olympic coverage by Eddie McGuire : "Racist, insular, lowest common denominator, uninformed, homophobic, dull, cheesy, irrelevant, flag-waving … like some bastard love child of Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi.".

   The facebook page- Eddie Mcguire is ruining the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage has a growing membership. In the past few days it's grown from a few dozen to 2075. It's description in the 'philosophy' section says : "Anyone else absolutely sick of this no-talent clown and his verbal diarrhoea during the 2010 winter olympics?"
    Michaela Riddell says :"I was embarrassed and ashamed and then to top it all off The Brokeback (Mountain) comment was just outrageous- does Eddie have any evidence that sexuality affects capability ? ".
    Why did the Channel Nine network put Eddie in charge of the Winter Olympics coverage ?. Surely they learnt from James Packer's experience. When McGuire-the host of the quiz show Who Wants to Be A Millionaire ran the network on behalf of Packer he almost stuffed the place. It was typical of younger James-his father Kerry would never have made such a mistake. Nor would Kerry have allowed a raft of homophobic comments to air. He would have been on the blower the following morning blasting the commentators if he got wind of any statement-like McGuire's fellow host Mike Molloy's dig at some Olympians for "not leaving much in the closet" remark.
     Packer cared for every viewer no matter what their race, sexuality or age. They were his meal ticket and he knew it. When he lured one of the top sport's broadcasters away from a rival network he interviewed him personally in his office. When the broadcaster announced he would taking his male partner to any social functions Packer said "everyone knows your a bloody poof and couldn't give a stuff-now sign the bloody contract".
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UPDATE : within 5 hours of tSS reporting on the anti-McGuire facebook group membership has climbed to 4328.

The UK Sun newspaper has got in on the act. The fact the The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch who also owns the rival Foxtel cable network where the Olympics are also being reported is entirely co-incidental.

the return of The Bag

The Jackson family continues their endless exploitation celebration of Michael Jackson's demise life.

Germaine Jackson flew into town on Monday night for Who Magazine's party for singer Rhianna and announced a tour of the Jackson Family to  honour Michael's life. Who Magazine parties are a nightmare. You aren't allowed to take photos. Just to show there were no hard feelings we took some anyway.40 minutes was enough of this bun fight.

                                                                                                

Paloma Picasso and James Gordon

Time was pressing and Paloma Picasso beckoned at Tiffany for the launch of her new range of jewelery. It's been 12 years since Picasso was in town. Tiffany's party at their new Martin Place store was welcome relief and a low key affair with about 80 good customers and an endless supply of Billecart salmon brut champers.

Paloma lives in Marrakesh these

days and we are jealous. We had something in common. tSS and Paloma had frequented many of the same houses inhabited by expatriates in Marrakesh including the fabled home of the late Yves St Laurent, with it's magical sunken garden. Paloma's range of jewelry is heavily influenced by her Moroccan life with Arabic diagonal motifs.

The last Tiffany's party tSS went to was for Elsa Peretti. She invited us to travel to New Guinea with her 2 days later. We went. It was a big mistake. We'd go to Morocco with Paloma though. She's fun.

More importantly, Tiffany's signaled the end of the world-wide recession with the gift bag !. The gift bag had vanished in the past 2 years as promotional budgets were crimped or a pathetic attempt was passed off-usually a collection of sub standard cosmetics or fake tans and samples. The kind of stuff given out in department stores.

During his years of a partying in New York Andy Warhol refused to leave until he had his gift bag firmly clamped under his arm. He collected them . He had rows and rows of shelves of gift bags. He never opened them and said one day he was going to have a big bag party and sit down and open every one like an excited child at Christmas. He would telephone friends the next day and say "what was in the bag ?" He got excited thinking about all those presents waiting to be opened. He died before that happened. Now they're in the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

And Paloma was no slouch with hers. A beautiful set of silver cuff links-just perfect to wear at Chanel's parade the following night at the Inglis Newmarket stables. Chanel's new range is mainly hessian based which I guess is why they choose the stables.$3000 for a hessian mini-skirt. Why not ?. Guests trotted out their ancient Chanel . We spotted 2 fake Chanel handbags. The cheek of some people !. And there was a gift bag full of Chanel make-up                                                                                 

Chanel people

But the verdict was unanimous amongst those who had been at Tiffany and Chanel-Tiffany was fun but Chanel had better looking waiters.

wait person

Kirk Pengilly & Layne Beachley

INXS's Kirk Pengilly and wife,world surfing champion Layne Beachley were at Tiffany. Layne  had a date the following day-giving surfing lessons to Zac Efron on Bondi Beach.

Zac Efron at Bondi Beach

exclusive..It looks like love

   They've been spotted several times now, arms entwined and with that special look reserved only for each other. John Rendall of Christian the Lion fame and top publicist Glen Marie Frost.

      tSS encountered them at the launch on Thursday night of Tony Graziana's Maserati show rooms in East Sydney, at the opening of a Darlinghust Thai restaurant a month ago and cruising down Macleay Street in Potts Point in Rendall's classic Rolls Royce last week.

Glen Marie sat quietly in a mezzanine corner to watch John's daughter Tallulah sing a fortnight ago at a Newtown cabaret club while downstairs John greeted and schmoozed a well heeled guest line-up like film producer and wine heiress Rebel Penfold Russell, Constance Farquarson, and Angela Belle McSweeney.

    For years Rendall wrote social columns for magazines in Britain, like London Portrait Magazine and the top glossy, Hello. He was friends with the famed gossip writer Nigel Demspter and with then wife & publicist Liz Brewer, co-host on 'Aussie Ladettees to Lady', helped organize shindigs and restaurant launches. In between he and Liz bought and sold London houses after renovating them.

   In 2007 a youtube film of he and former partner Anthony 'Ace' Bourke greeting their pet lion in Africa in 1972 when ballistic with a few million hits and catapulted the 2 into instant fame. A book deal followed along with film and product endorsement deals which saw the cash rolling in with appearances around the world on dozens of TV chat shows including Oprah Winfrey and The View with Whoopi Goldberg. At present he tours and speaks about African wildlife. Rendall also shared a commune in the 70's in the British countryside with friends like Helen Mirren and landscape gardener Roddy Llewelyn who conducted a love affair there with the late Princess Margaret.
          Glen Marie's business and political credentials are impeccable. One of the best liked PR ladies about town she hosted the corporate sector for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and counts Lady Sonia McMahon and just about every top Liberal Party politico as friends. Lately she has joined an outfit called the Corporate Intelligence Analyst Network whose website says it is "a group that represents more than 150 years of collective experience drawn from a pool of "specially trained intelligence and federal law enforcement personnel".

    Glen-Marie hates being called a socialite which she is, and she hates being in the social pages-where she constantly appears. She says she likes a quiet life away from the glare of publicity and social events.

Ahhh.. Just like John. A match made in heaven.

Ace Bourke, Rendall and Christian the lion in the Kings Road London circa 70's.

Christian on US TV:

Poms discover the Mad Monk

     Writing on the guardian.com.au website Julian Glover has sent a warning to the knockers of would be British PM Tory leader David Cameron that it could be worse-they could end up with a Tony Abbott clone ! Glover has concurred with tSS's view of both Abbott and former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull :

" Australia's opposition Liberal party tried to live in the centre for a few months last year under its former leader Malcolm Turnbull, a rich, cocky Sydney lawyer with plenty of faults but nonetheless the potential to be something like his country's Cameron. A modernizing and intelligent man, he fell in a party coup, which was largely about climate change, last November, and has been replaced by Tony Abbott, whose iron-man physique and much-mocked "budgie smuggler" tight swim wear is only equaled by the firmness of his views. He notoriously described climate change as "absolute crap".

     And he quotes the madcap Barnaby Joyce (left) National Party leader and opposition finance spokesman who already has Chinese's mandarins in a tizzy over anti-import statements :

"He ( Abbott) tore into Rudd in parliament last week over emissions trading; his finance spokesman Barnaby Joyce (a sort of Australian redneck Boris) even held a press conference on emissions trading to announce that home insulation "is the fluffy stuff that sits in the ceiling for rats to urinate on"."

Barnaby gets another mention for his quip outside Parliament last week

"every time you open the fridge and a little light goes on, it is to remind you that Mr Rudd is taxing you and also to stop the butter from getting scared"

Glover warns against Brits that of they don't vote for Cameron in the right numbers and he becomes a PM without power the vacuum could be filled with an extremist : "You might not love Cameron, but you should hope he succeeds. Come to Canberra, and you'll find out why". What fun.

Tony Abbott is a disciple of the very strange BA.Sanatamaria, (left) the late powerful right-wing Catholic activist who was variously anti-communist and anti-capitalist. Abbott also studied to be a priest.

  We only wish former treasurer Peter Costello was still in politics and ran on a ticket with Tony-who could resist the campaign poster :

 Vote 1: Abbott & Costello !

exclusive: a Prince & Count to the rescue

Rural news:

 Long gone are the days when Oz lived off the sheep's back but HRH Prince Charles is coming to the rescue and will attend the 9th Rosehill and Wool Congress in April at the Rosehill Racecourse and Convention Centre in Sydney's west in April.

There will be all manner of exciting social events, including a welcome reception, cocktail party with The Australian Wool Fashion Awards and a dinner harbour cruise on picturesque Sydney Harbour, as well as tours, field trips and visits to the Sydney Royal Easter Show to watch sheep judging and other arena events.

The Congress presents a forum for active discussion and debate on the future and opportunities of the sheep, meat and wool industries.

And clocking in after giving the country a miss last year over the sheep mulesing controversy is Count Paolo Zegna, one of the largest buyers of the best quality wool which is shipped to Italy and turned into suits to be sold throughout the world. The Count was last here in 2008 when his Zegna Wool Awards were held in great secrecy at the Sir Standford Hotel with organizers fearful of a full on protest that was rumored would include visiting pop star and PETA advocate Pink !. Zegna flew in via Melbourne, arrived at the dinner, gave out a dozen plaques to the crusty faced sheep farmers and scampered. Pink and protest placards never materialized.

Fashion designer Liz Davenport, one of only five Australian designers bestowed with the nation’s top fashion honour - the Grand Award from the Fashion Industry of Australia and whose designs are sold in more than 300 boutiques and department stores throughout the world, is researching the wool industry for the Congress.

Currently in China Liz is quoted in The Land Newspaper saying "“You would never find a king, prince, premier, Prime minister, or a president wearing anything but a pure wool suit but this alone can’t keep farmers producing wool.” She also says : "“I asked a Chinese supplier where his wool came from and he said an animal. I asked what animal and he said he didn’t know – this is a problem.”. As for Charles-he says "Wool is a fibre even the most brilliant boffin in the most high-tech laboratory could never create.”

Liz should be pleased to know that Charles will be coming to her rescue. Not even the Congress organizers or her have been told of the Prince's visit yet.

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Meanwhile Russell Crowe's Museum of Interesting Things has finally opened at the Nymboida Coaching Station Inn . The old barn in the small NSW country town now houses a ton of Crowe memorabilia including his Romper Stomper boots, Gladiator costume, wild west outfits from 3.10 to Yuma, a dozen Johnny Cash gold albums and dozen cricket caps from famous batmen over the decades including Don Bradman.

No. we have no idea where Nymbodia is either .
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Wishing you were there:

    At Sugarmill in Kings Cross on Tuesday comedian Gary Eck was upstaged by Robin Williams who was dining with Happy Feet 2 co-star Elijah Wood. Williams gave an impromptu 30 minute hilarious dissertation about his Sydney visit. Anyone who has been to a William's press conference will know just how side-splittingly funny Williams can be.

     tSS began to film part of the routine with our snap happy but a tap on the shoulder from a large gent changed our minds.

    Williams and Wood are recording voices for the cartoon penguin fantasy at George Miller's Kings Cross studios.

and so it comes to pass..

     3 months ago tSS predicted then Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull would either start a new political party or defect to Labor if he lost a leadership battle.

     Today he has announced he will cross the floor on a crucial vote on climate change proposals, defying his leader Tony 'Mad Monk' Abbott. Abbott's climate policies will turn out to be a lame duck mess when examined in full (and when he actually decides what they are). They'll receive as much impact as when he recently announced viginity was a virtue before marriage. Thousands of teens yawned , looked mildly bemused and went on rutting as before.

It has begun.

        The Liberal / National Party Coalition shot themselves in the foot when they booted Turnbull. The  Rhodes scholar, ex-merchant banker, barrister and Kerry Packer adviser has notched up bigger scalps than the current PM Kevin Rudd.

         He took on Margaret Thatcher's government when they tried to ban the memoirs of ex MI5 spy Peter Wright and his SpyCatcher book. Turnbull trounced them in the English courts. Turnbull succeeded in the Maralinga nuclear fallout trial in Britain when he led the cause for compensation for indigenous people whose lands had been bombed relentlessly by British nuclear testing in the 1950's. A few weeks after the testing ended in 1961 some signs were stuck about the sacred Aboriginal lands warning of the potential radium fallout-written in English.

     When a reluctant former PM John Howard added Turnbull to his ministry he consistently ignored Malcolm's advice. With home ownership stretching beyond the grasp of thousands of Aussie families, Turnbull introduced radical proposals for mass housing programs based on age old European and British housing societies that had served those communities so well for decades. They were ignored.

     5 years ago at a political party function tSS told Turnbull his dreams would be dashed by joining the Liberal Party. His natural home was the centre left Labor Party that would leap upon his obvious talents.

      While political pundits and timeservers on daily newspapers delight in a brief re-surgence in the Coalition's poll fortunes they ignore the quickly shifting populace that is Turnbull's constituency that no longer takes in just the well-heeled Eastern Suburbs of Sydney that house the richest in the nation, but also now include working class areas and the gay and lesbian conclaves of the inner city. Turnbull scraped in at the last election when a blue ribbon Liberal seat began turning left. Malcolm has less than 12 months before a general election to do the obvious-switch parties if he wants to retain his Wentworth seat or just leave. The line of succession has already been decreed. Rudd will serve as PM until 2015 after he increases his majority next year, wins a further election and then hands over to the first female Oz PM, Julia Gillard.

       It is then Turnbull will be in a commanding position if he joins Labor now. As it is, he is a dead man walking as is the entire Coalition for at least 10 years.

       Why will they not listen ?

# fact: Turnbull's cousin is the British actress Angela Lansbury

# fact 2. The British Maralinga tests make Australia the most nuclear bombed country on the planet with 21 major devices and many smaller ones exploded. Some areas are still contaminated.

# fact 3 'Maralinga' is an ancient Aboriginal word for "field of thunder".

# check out:  Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians

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Update : Crikey has done a round-up of various political writer's views on Malcolm Turnbull's speech in Parliament on climate change. Most agree his views were presented with more conviction than PM Kevin Rudd's. Has Turnbull singled the first move in a tactic that would see him placed in a powerful position and having a direct influence on whoever governs ?. The Demcrats under Don Chipp dominated in the Upper House for decades when they held the balance of power with just a handful of senators with both main political parties negotiating deals . The Greens under Bob Brown have almost claimed that position but a small break-away Senate party could scupper their plans and Turnbull with just 2 other Senators could become kingmaker.

Malcolm Turnbull has a fortune estimated at $100M. He is only interested in politics for one reason-to affect change. You read it here first.

more tabloid tosh

       Georgina Robinson writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that "Veteran rockers the Who's performance at the most coveted televised gig in the world was panned by some viewers but praised by music critics." under the headline: Rock of ages ... the Who get mixed rap for Super Bowl.

     The fragrant Georgina goes on to quote 5 "at home viewers" who all knock The Who's peformance.  That's 5 out of a US TV audience estimated at 40 million, plus countless tens of millions of worldwide viewers-and the roughly 100,000 stadium audience who gave The Who a standing ovation. Nice one.

"Debunking the myths behind the pontificating potty peer"

       tSS attended a lecture recently at the Sheraton On The Park hotel to hear Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley present his fascinating views on Climate Change-or the lack of thereof according to his Lordship, who insists it's all a lefty plot.

    

Nearly a 1000 crammed into the ballroom (at $20 a head) to listen intently to Monkton. It was as expected, a cross between earnest looking pensioners, a handful of right wing nutbags, a slew of rabid talk show hosts and an unexpected number of notable businessmen.  Noticably absent were any prominent representatives of the farming community. A conservative lot, those toiling the land aren't with his Lordship on this matter.

   The audience weren't all necessarily supporters of the peer but it was hard not to notice the sea of nodding heads that hung on every word as Monkton laid out his theory that it was all a dastardly conspiracy of the left who had fallen by the wayside after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and had found a new cause to latch onto by preaching doom and gloom about the climate.

    "It's all nonsense" said Monkton. "Let me tell you of the real conspiracy that is upon us !".

     Outside an ominous wind howled around the marbled porticals of the Sheraton's grand forecourt. Still encrusted in tiny crevices, as everywhere in this town, are traces of the red dust storm that swept into Sydney in September 2009 as city dwellers arose to find that an orange/red Martian landscape had blanketed the city. The outback, nearly 3000 kilometres away had arrived overnight. We were witnessing the result of 200 years of disastrous European style farming methods.

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     Let's hear from one of our favourite broadcasters and Sydney Morning Herald writer Mike Carlton as he dissects Monkton's claims :

The UN's climate change fraud is cover for a plot to bring about a world government : This world government codswallop began years ago with one Lyndon H. LaRouche, a conspiracy theory lunatic so far to the right he makes George W. Bush look like Hugo Chavez. A convicted criminal, self-styled "economist" and vicious anti-Semite, LaRouche also believes the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh head a Zionist cartel that runs the global drug trade. Monckton shares many of his lurid fantasies, which are staple fare for the knuckle-draggers who infest late-night talkback radio.

A UN ban on using DDT to control malaria has killed up to 40 million people: More LaRouche claptrap filched by the potty peer. They both loathe Rachel Carson's seminal 1962 book Silent Spring, which alerted the world to the dangers of pesticides. Monckton has blamed Jackie Kennedy for these imaginary 40 million deaths, claiming she read the book and pushed President Kennedy to ban DDT. JFK did no such thing.
Here in Australia, another right-wing nutter, John Stone, a former head of the Treasury and Queensland National Party senator, wrote recently: "It is now possible to say quite unequivocally that Carson's book has been responsible for killing more people than Mein Kampf."

Phew. In fact there is no United Nations ban on DDT for malaria control, only for spraying on edible crops. DDT is still widely used in the Third World, although it is being phased out because the mozzies are becoming immune to it.

Polar bear populations are increasing: Yes, but not because the planet is cooling, as Monckton and his barmy bloggers would have you believe. Bans and quotas on hunting have pushed numbers back up. But where the polar ice cap is melting, the bears are in big trouble. In Canada's Western Hudson Bay, for example, the population has dropped 22 per cent since the 1980s, and the animals are smaller and weaker.
                                                                                                                     read more here

Ligging at Neville's house

Lindsay Fox (left) chats while Neville looks for a buyer.

Suburu owner Kerri-Anne

They were out on force at Neville Crichton's gleaming new Ferrari and Maserati sale rooms in Green Square for the launch of a range of the Italian autos.

2 of Sydney's best known gate-crashers (they are called "liggers" in the UK) and a host of well known business, sporting and show-biz personalities. Will Neville notch up a sale or 2 from the night that generously included a fleet of chauffeured Maseratis to ferry guests to and fro-all the better for quaffing French champagne by the bucket ?. Hard to tell. tSS did a straw poll of some of the more well heeled guests and found few takers.

Daytime TV queen Kerri-Anne Kennerley drives a very practical Subaru which she says she loves as does husband John Kennerley, the man who started Britain's Littlewood Pools and sold out for squillions. They have a Lexus for more sedate moments.

What does nightclub king Justin Hemmes
(right) motor around in ?. Anything he wants with he and his father John's amazing collection of vintage and new luxury cars. But not a Maserati or a Ferrari amongst them and he won't be buying one soon.

Nor does the countries top jeweler Nic Cerrone-a Mercedes, and as for trucking magnate Lindsay Fox, he doesn't drive at all but has a man at the wheel of either the Rolls Phantom or Bentley Continental that slip into the Spanish style driveway of his legendary mansion Boomerang. We gave up after 12 inquiries. Not a Ferrari owner in sight. The 2 liggers ?. They share a taxi or an ancient Ford Falcon when it's running.

Still, everyone looks pretty sitting and posing in the gleaming autos.

Nic Cerrone-always happy to pose for the camera.

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Earlier that night the Oxford Street cabaret club Slide showed off some of it's season's upcoming acts that include the crooner Barry Crocker who pens the occasional play review for the Shuttle. Slide is run by French chef Marc Kuzma who doubles up as maitre de and as drag act, Claire De Lune.

Claire de Lune

Crocker's squeeze Katy Manning, the original Dr Who co-star is still in London and working at the BBC.

Slide maitre de Marc Kuzma with Sharon Sargent and Barry Crocker

Barry played the Private Eye comic strip character in the film Barry McKenzie Hold His Own. It's difficult to tell which came first-Barry Crocker or Barry McKenzie. Did Barry inspire Baz ?.

A question for creator Barry Humphries next time we see him.