exclusive: Geoffrey Rush Attends-Cate Blanchett Calls In Sick

 Theatre director Neil Armfield was able to call in some heavyweights to launch the new book about the Belvoir Street Theatre-Geoffrey Rush and David Wenham.

And Geoffrey is always happy to help the Belvoir-he's a member of the syndicate that owns the theatre that includes some pretty big names. Nicole Kidman, Mel Gibson, Sam Neill, Gillian Armstrong and Peter Carey are all part owners.

David Wenham & Bille Brown

Barry Humphries at Belvoir Street

25 Belvoir Street is a book of essays and historic snaps of the theatre. Contributors include Rhoda Roberts, Neil Armfield , Robert McFarlane and Ralph Myers and it's edited by Fairfax journalist David Marr.

It's on sale from tonight at the box office for $77 and there are a limited number signed by Rush and Armfield.

Below is part of Geoffrey Rush's speech which went on for nearly 20 minutes.

One great Belvoir Street supporter who decided not to attend knowing her presence would draw attention from the tome was Cate Blanchett.

On the weekend the News Ltd tabloids, the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and Rupert Murdoch's own baby The Australian tore into Cate because she is starring in a Climate Change series of adverts with actor Michael Caton.  

News Ltd's campaign against Blanchett was a spectacular low point for a bunch of tabloids that regularly sup in the gutter. The main gripe seemed to be that the actress is apparently worth $53M according to BRW's 2011 Rich List and that she was 'out of touch' with 'ordinary' Australians.

Emily Barclay & Geoffrey

Since Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that Labor would be introducing a carbon tax News Corp have been beside themselves with rage-none of which surfaced when 4 billionaires last year mounted a deceptive campaign against a new mining tax (that would have cleared Australia's debts in four years) on the billions those magnates reap from mineral deposits owned by the whole country.   

News Ltd spouted the line of the mining magnates-that they would up stakes and go elsewhere, Which would be some feat with the wealth being actually in the ground here.

According to the tabloids Blanchett's appearance in the adverts had "sparked outrage in the community". And who was the 'community ?. The far right wing Australian Families Association (patron : Dame Elisabeth Murdoch) and nutbag politician Barnaby Joyce.  Missing in most News Ltd reports on the great Climate Change debate is that the tax raised by Labor will be distributed to working families to cover increased costs.

We think Cate may have the last laugh here.                     


** On Wednesday 8th June at the Belvoir the long awaited Benedict Andrews production of The Seagull opens. The Chekhov play stars Emily Barclay, Bille Brown, Judy Davis (Woody Allen reckons she's the greatest actress in the world) and David Wenham.

The season has already sold out but there is standing room available but get in quick:
Box office 612 9699 3444

Malcolm : Call Your Cousin Angela Lansbury Now

Malcolm & Lucy Turnbull

Former Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has been having a hard time lately with Liberal Party supporters of the leader, Tony Mad Monk Abbott out to ensure Turnbull never becomes leader again.

Turnbull was never popular with the hard right. The self made millionaire, former barrister and banker (estimated worth : $300M) is seen as a bit of a latte sipping elitist probably more suited to the Labor Party which it's reputed he once tried to join.

The problem for the party is that Turnbull is  popular amongst the rank and file members who see Malcolm as their best bet to return to power, if only he could act like a politician. He does have a tendency to cut to the chase having come lately to politics.

Perhaps he should turn to his cousin  the legendary actress Angela Lansbury for acting lessons on how to present himself as a politician rather than a man in a hurry to get to the top job so he can show the country just how it should be done.

Lansbury was out last week in New York and attended the Actors Fund Annual Gala at the New York Marriott Hotel. As our picture show, she is remarkably fit looking and as large as life at the fabulous age of 87.

Angela Lansbury & Hunter Ryan Herdicka (Rob Rich)

Turnbull's mother was the academic and actress Coral Lansbury who is Angela's cousin. She split with Malcolm's father when he was nine and went to live, like Angela in the USA.

Turnbull is not only the richest politician in the country, he's probably one of the smartest as well. He worked for a  number of years as Kerry Packer's personal lawyer before taking on the might of Margaret Thacher's government in the famous Spy Catcher trial when he successfully defeated the British government's attempts to block publication of the memoirs of the former MI5 officer Peter Wright.

He made a motza with the merchant bank he started with Nicholas Whitlam, the son of former Labor PM Gough Whitlam and then sealed his fortune during the dot.com boom. As chairman of the Republican Movement Turnbull really felt the loss of the referendum when the country voted in 1998 to keep the British royal family as head of state.

Turnbull blamed the loss on the machinations of then PM John Howard  but he joined Howard's Liberal Party as a minister which most perceived as Howard's attempt to 'keep his enemies closer'.
When Turnbull produced an excellent paper on housing affordability recommending the adoption of European style housing associations and co-ops plus spending more on government housing, the paper was quietly shelved by Howard.

Turnbull is clearly in the wrong political party. He should ask his cousin for some tips. The Lansburys have long been on the left of the political spectrum. Angela's father was a politician and member of the British Communist Party and her grandfather was the leader of the British Labour Party.

Angela now lives in a New York apartment having returned from Ireland where she lived for a number of years. She starred in the film Gaslight when she was just 19 and went on to make a string of Hollywood films co-starring with the leading Hollywood stars of the day. She's probably most famous for the long running TV series Murder She Wrote.

At the Actors Fund Gala Bebe Neuwirth was honoured while Al Pacino received The Lee Strasberg Artistic Achievement Award

Lunching With Dame Edna Everage

Sad to see young Cody Simpson got egged yesterday at his Miranda appearance just like Justin Beiber did on his visit here last month.

One star who would make mince meat of anyone foolish enough to upstage her is Australia's roving ambassador abroad Dame Edna Everage.

There are still some tickets available for Dame Edna's appearance at the Black & White Charity Committee's Woman of Achievement lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel on Tuesday June 21st. These lunch time events sell out quickly so hurry up and go to the B&W website here.

Edna will be joined by former Art Gallery of Australia director Betty Churcher and our favourite NSW Governor Her Excellency Marie Bashir.
If you have never been to one of these events they're pretty good fun. A top lunch followed by each of the special guests giving a twenty minute talk about their career and as you can imagine, Dame Edna's talk will be hilariously funny and is bound to run well over time. Take the afternoon off-you won't get out under 3 hours.

Ticket prices are $295 (stage side table), $200 (ballroom) or $155 in the hotel's top restaurant Kables with a live feed. In fact there are always huge screens in the ballroom so grab a seat anywhere even with strangers as they are always a friendly lot. Phone 02 9327 5698.

Governor Marie Bashir

It's the 75th anniversary of the B&W charity and remember-every single penny raised goes to Vision Australia Children's Services. These ladies strong arm (no, they're really very nice) everyone to donate their services including the Shuttle who will be there with bells on (and paying !)

We'll be filming the event so watch out for that but in the meantime here is a small reminder of what to expect:

Baby Boomers Turn Away Now

Not long ago he left for Los Angeles to pursue a career  and he has succeeded. Oddly, he's hardly known in his home country Australia but that's all about to change. Maybe this weekend.

14 year old Cody Simpson is back in town and today he will be at the Westfield shopping centre in Miranda at 3.30pm where he will sing. Get there early and take ear-plugs-we predict mega crowds and  screaming teen girls. On Sunday he will in Melbourne.

Cody was discovered by the usual route these days-YouTube. He comes from the Gold Coast in Queensland and he was a junior swimming champ before he took to the airwaves. He can sing, dance, write songs, play guitar-all the usual stuff and he has a really interesting charisma. This kid is going to be around for a long time.

Here is Cody performing the song I'm Yours :

Everything Old Is New Again

"Everything old is new again" goes the line from the late Peter Allen song. Always has been really. A great example-in the last ten years Playboy Clubs have been closing down across the USA but in London, a new Playboy Club has just opened.

It reminds the Shuttle of the heyday of the Playboy Clubs. We've only been to two.  Arriving at the New York club once with 3 friends for a party thrown by Hugh Hefner we were mistaken for Abba. We also attended a few product launches at the former London Playboy Club in Mayfair run by Victor Lownes and once visited the Playboy Mansion in LA.

Probably the biggest ever Playboy party was the 25th year anniversary party thrown by  Lownes at the Playboy mansion Stocks House in Hertfordshire. It went for 3 days and many guests were ferried in by helicopters. Victor Lownes ran the European Playboy operations for Hefner but had a falling out with him in the '90s and was fired.

He was always good at the required quips. Once asked what a playboy was he said "someone who is probably having more sex than you". It was all a fantasy of course but the whole charade worked during the Playboy hey days from the 60's through to the 80's.

Stocks in Hertfordshire

The LA Playboy Mansion which can now be rented out for corporate parties was even more of a fantasy. Hefner boldly sold a dream built on tack and the idea if you could only crack the inner circle sex was yours for the taking. Once you did get 'in' the Bunnies were very prudish and strict rules prevented them from fraternising with guests on pain of sacking.

The LA mansion was like a Disneyland  ride-looked exciting from the outside but disappointing once you got up close and the cracks were revealed. It was full of dreadful reproduction antique furniture of the worst taste. The rocks in the grotto swimming pool seemed to be fake. The whole place was tired and grubby looking.

At the UK 25th anniversary party every hotel, motel and boarding house in the surrounding area of Stocks was booked out by guests. Not that the rooms were always used. At the party there were a series of marquees- permanent food tents, a champagne bar and a non stop discotheque. They were open for the entire 3 days. Most of it passed in a blur and the Shuttle never made it back to our booked rooms. We collapsed in Stocks living room for a few hours kip at a time.

There was always a two tier guest regime at Stocks. The general party goers had the run of the house and grounds while a handful of honoured guests were entitled to visit the upstairs floor.

A Bunny Re-union

And they weren't always celebrities who made it upstairs to drink with Lownes or Playboy boss Hugh Hefner who only stayed for one day.

Amongst business cronies of Lownes, Tony Curtis and Rod Stewart would be Upstairs while Downstairs were newer stars of the day including Star Wars' actor Mark Hamil. who the Shuttle shared a spa bath with along with half a dozen bunnies !
Not very PC but who cares ?

## "The Boy From Oz " was a huge Broadway hit and made Hugh Jackman into a star. Based on the life of Australian singer Peter Allen it captured the exciting performances of Allen who was always over the top and as camp as a pink Koala Bear. A big favourite with other celebrities his shows were packed out with performers like Elton John, Barry Manilow and even Frank Sinatra who came to paid homage to one of the US top live performers. Here is his big hit 'I Go To Rio"

Arrest This Woman !

Just a few days after this snap arrived of a woman being 'planked' by some fluffy chooks (we suspect it was a set-up) news arrives that South Australia is planning secret laws to prosecute 'plankers'.

Read about here in crikey.com.au

Someone in the Shuttle office thinks that it is highly suspicious that the planked woman and the chickens have the same coloured hair. We'll let you be the judge.

Taxpayers To The Rescue

Mid 2010 and West Australia mine owner Gina Rinehart is clambering aboard a pick-up truck in a park in the ritzy Perth suburb Subiaco. Gina was there to protest the new mining tax being proposed by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Gina

"We'll all be rooned" was the basic theme as mining magnate after magnate mounted the tray of the pick-up to proclaim the evil tax on Australia's mineral wealth would be the end of life as we know it.

Fast forward a year and we are pleased to announce Gina Rinehart has weathered the socialist storm and today has been declared Australia's richest citizen with a fortune estimated at $10.3 billion.

In the BRW magazine Rich List released today Gina's pal who joined her that fateful day in Subiaco Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest is calculated to have a $6.18 billion bank account, a jump of $4.24 billion from the day Rudd unfairly proposed these upright citizens should contribute more to the general economy.

The rotund Clive Palmer who bankrolled a million dollar advertising campaign against the mining tax has seen his wealth jumped to $5.5 billion, trousering an extra $3.92 billion in just one year.

The Rudd government famously crashed and burned following the mining tax debacle (with just a little nudge from News Ltd) but just to show there were no hard feelings over the mining tax Palmer announced a bumper profit at the end of 2010 and treated 55 favoured employees to a brand new Mercedes saloon each for Christmas.

Who said Australia wasn't still  the Lucky Country ?

Marc & Elaine Rich (c) time.com

Romping in second on the Rich List is the reclusive financier Ivan Glasenberg with a lazy $8.8 Billion to his name.  Glasenberg runs the world's largest commodities trader Glencore.

For those with short memories Glencoe was the corporation run by Marc Rich who went on the lam with the FBI on his trail over some racketeering charges. The Shuttle once attended a party given by Rich's wife Elaine in a grand New York penthouse duplex apartment that covered the entire 2 top floors of a skyscraper overlooking Central park.

The bash was for Milton Berle's 90th birthday. The Shuttle chatted to another guest at the party, Joyce Wildenstein the woman famous for having so much plastic surgery. She was standing next to a man grinding an organ that had a monkey on a chain attached. The colours Joyce was wearing matched those of the monkey's outfit. It was a strange party.

If Elaine Rich was worried about her husband being a fugitive she didn't show it and was a gracious hostess. In 2001 and on his last day in office Bill Clinton gave Rich a presidential pardon.

In 2004 a CIA report stated that Glencoe had avoided UN sanctions and paid Saddam Hussein $US3.2 million in illegal kickbacks for oil from the Iraqi regime.

Nice work if you can get it.

Newspaper Catches Up

It's become quite common now-we lead the way, others follow.

The Sydney Morning Herald today has published a far more eloquent piece than we could hope to produce on the Institute of Public Affair's Ted Lapkin's trashing of not just former Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks but the entire audience for having the temerity to attend a discussion with Hicks and applaud him afterwards. Lapin's piece appeared in the same newspaper.

David Hicks & wife Aloysia chat to NSW Governor Marie Bashir

Not only did Lapkin engage in twisting legal concepts, he made a gratuitous attack upon the moderator of the Hick's event Donna Mulhearn who travelled to Iraq at the beginning of the conflict to be a 'human shield'.

Former SBS presenter Mary Kostakidis lays out the case and dissects Lapkin's  attempts to bend even the slightest piece of information into a condemnation of Hicks. :

"In the Herald yesterday, Ted Lapin from the Institute of Public Affairs, persisted with the Howard government's demonetisation of Hicks with no regard for history, facts or the rule of law."

One issue is the persistent false claim that persons are 'illegal combatants" in the yet to be formally declared  "War On Terror" It's a term used by George W. Bush, former PM John Howard , Tony Blair and numerous others.

It is a fallacy and a meaningless term. It has no legal definition and never has under any of the laws of the countries whose leaders use it nor does the UN accept the term. The US Supreme Court tossed out Bush's attempts to write it into law and Barack Obama finally abandoned the term last year after trying to do likewise.

Hicks was held unlawfully at Guantanamo Bay because there was no law to hold him elsewhere. Howard admitted that Hicks has broken no Australian law.

The US simply swept people up on any pretense and 'rendered' them to Cuba. Hicks was grabbed at a bus stop by the corrupt criminal gangs comprising the Northern Alliance and handed to the US for a bounty.

Read Mary's response to Ted Lapkin here.

Illustrating the dangers of people like Lapkin and the laughingly named Institute of Public Affairs in the fascist style distortions they help promote one only has to read the comments that follow Kostakidis' piece and plenty of readers bang on with this 'enemy combatant' falsehood because it's been drummed into their heads a thousand times.

Compulsory reading for the Lapkins of the world should be this piece by the former US Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Ben Ferencz who at over 90 years of age has seen the precedents set at the WW2 trials to determine who was a war criminal trashed just 60 years after they ended :

 "My Government Today Prepared to Do Something for Which We Hanged Germans"

# The publishing of Hick's autobiography puts the current government in an interesting position. Under the proceeds of crime legislation profits made from books published by convicted persons can be confiscated after court action. 

Will the government take such action and open up the can of worms that may expose former powerful politicians and the lies they told ?.

Worth Another View

Last night's Q&A program from ABC TV is now on Iview and well worth a look if you missed it.

With Parliament in recess the panel comprised of guests in town for the Sydney Writer's Week including Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson, actor Brendan Cowell, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham, anti-porn activist Gail Dines and novelist Leslie Cannold.

Go here to watch.

Ghastly Right Wing Think Tank Attacks Writer

Let us introduce you to the Institute of Public Affairs.

David Hicks & wife Aloys

Just as the USA has been plagued by 'think tanks' Australia is beset by these well funded groups who usually sing from the same song sheet : the free market will be our saviour and we should still (despite the GFC) be worshipping at the feet of Hayek and that old phony Milton Friedman.

There's the usual guff about privatised medicine being a god send and currently on it's website, a homage to that nutty historian Geoffrey Blainey who coined the term "black armband of history'.

That's a  re-visionist view of the decimation of the Aboriginal people that basically says the disappearance of the Tasmanian Aboriginals was of their own doing and not a result of hundreds of colonists using them for target practice- that the 'Stolen Generation; is a myth despite it being written into government policy in the early 1900's and anyway, all those little half caste kiddies looked much nicer in their Mission Home smocks and being wrenched from their wailing mother's arms was for their own good.

Blainey all wild-eyed collared the Shuttle one night a few years ago at a party and gave your scribe a potted history of Aboriginal self administered negligence in failing to stay alive and mistook the fact that he was standing by the Champagne Bar from whence we re-filled our flute as a concerned interest in his crack pot ideas. Thankfully the old bugger has retired now,.

If this was the USA no doubt the IPA  too would have elevated that fruit loop Ayn Rand to Goddess like status as the loopy right have recently. Needless to say, they are Climate Sceptics.

Writing as a fellow of the IPA Ted Lapkin in a piece titled "Audience On their Feet For a Fraud " has berated the entire audience who watched former Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks talk about his autobiography at the Sydney Writer's Week on Sunda

Hicks plead guilty ( after 6 years confined in a tiny cell) to 'providing material support for terrorism' (apparently guarding a burned out tank). He was sentenced to time served  plus another 9 months in Australia. His defending counsel including US Army Major Michael Mori said the guilty plea was in sheer desperation to get out of Gitmo.

Despite the Pentagon's  former Chief Prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis saying that the Hicks should never have been prosecuted and his case was replete with political interference from the George W. Bush and John Howard governments, Lapin knows far better.

There was no evidence against Hicks but Lapkin surmises by cobbling together a series of un-related events and throws in a quote from Martin Amis to condemn Hicks in an odd case of 'guilty by association' that somehow proves that Hicks was basically in cahoots with the former Pakistan resident O.bin Laden.

Lapkin isn't too sure if Hicks was an "enemy combatant" or an enemy soldier in the perpetual ( but never legally declared ) War On Terror.

Despite the Bush administration attempts to legalise 'enemy combatant' status  the US Supreme Court has rejected it and Barack Obama has finally abandoned the wording.

Martin Amis

He clutches at straws in his convected outrage that Hicks should be afforded an audience at a writer's forum (despite the concept that it will be an exchange of ideas) and gets to the nitty gritty: the taxpayers funded the event IE : a room and some chairs.

Lapkin has plunged the depths of quotes to justify his hate piece, from former ASIO  director Denis Richardson who during his tenure provided the false claim that Iraq was replete with WMDs to the diminutive writer Martin Amis. who apparently said (long before his embarrassing love letter to Christopher Hitchens)  : "People of liberal sympathies, stupefied by relativism, have become the apologists for a creedal wave that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperialist, and genocidal. To put it another way, they are up the arse of those that want them dead."

So there. Amis said that so it confirms all our fears about lefties and Hicks as well.

Lapkin promotes a right wing agenda via something as simple as distorting the tale of the hapless Hicks who was caught up in events way beyond his control.

But why is this tosh being published in an august organ like the Sydney Morning Herald ?.
Probably because they provide free copy yet a few weeks ago Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood said on the ABC's  Media Watch " What I'll be saying is that we'll be investing in creative journalism, the journalism that people read".

Lapkin's piece was certainly creative. He uses a couple of bravado boasting letters Hicks penned years ago as proof. He says we must believe what Hicks wrote then but not what he writes now.
 
Two weeks later Hywood said 300 staff including 80 sub-editors had to accept 'voluntary redundancy'.

At this rate, is it any wonder Fairfax's Canberra Times ran an Trivia Quiz last week put together by Pagemasters-the outfit who will replace the sub-editors and journalists (and 40% owned by Rupert Murdoch) where every answer ended up with a nickname for penis !

'Extremists' We Like

Brian Sherman & daughter Ondine with a friendly Kangaroo
courtesy Voiceless

The billionaire Brian Sherman last week hit back at the Shooters & Fisher's Party MP Robert Borsack who claimed in the NSW Parliament on May 11th that Sherman's Voiceless was an "extremist animal rights group".

On it's website Voiceless says: “Voiceless will bring the institutionalised suffering of animals to the forefront of Australia’s agenda; ensuring that animal protection is the next great social justice movement.” 

 Borsack says that Voiceless was one of many 'extremist' groups attempting to buy credibility at Universities and other teaching bodies. Sherman is a well known philanthropist who donates millions of dollars with no strings attached to education bodies throughout Australia.

He is also a dedicated animal right's activist and a vegan who wears or uses no animal products that have been produced through animal suffering.

The Shooters and Fishers Party with just 2 state MPs also thinks The Greens are an extremist party despite The Greens now holding the balance of power federally with 9 senators, 5 NSW upper house MPs and one in the lower house.

MP Robert Borsack & the elephant he shot in 2008
 www.wildhunts.co.nz

Borsack who proudly tells anyone who will listen of how he slaughtered an elephant while on safari in Zimbabwe in 2008 basically wants everyone to be free to blast away at any living creature while rampaging through state forests in 4 wheel drives.

Brian Sherman started Voiceless with his daughter Ondine in 2004 to raise awareness of the suffering of animals.

It's fair to say the writer AA Gill who is in town at present wouldn't have received an invite to the fundraiser  Sherman hosted last week-Voices of Art 2: An Evening Of Art For Animals. AA Gill infamously shot a baboon last year because he wanted to see how it felt to kill.

And who were amongst the extremists at the Voiceless fundraiser ?. Noted Japanese designer Akira Isogawa, prominent artist Adam Chang, one of the world's most respected neurosurgeons, the brilliant Dr  Charlie Teo (Isogawa and Teo are Voiceless board members) Brian's son Emile Sherman who just picked up an Oscar at the Academy Awards in  Hollywood for his production- The King's Voice  ( he thanked his mother & father from the stage) Emile's mum Gene who runs the superb Sherman Gallery in Paddington and Lord Mayor Clover Moore and Edmund Capon, director of the NSW Art Gallery.

Don't miss tonight's Australian Story Hearts Of Gold: 23rd May 2011, 8pm which features the prodigiously talented Sherman family and their great passion for animals.
You can catch the show later on the ABC's Iview.

When Animals Attack!

The bizarre craze of 'planking' which has seen several people plunge from tall buildings has now spilled over to the animal world as our snap shows. The pic arrived in our in-box from an annonymous source and shows a woman being 'planked' by several fluffy chickens.

She looks suspiciously like one of the Desperate Housewives.

Missing AA Gill

baboon

Gill

The writer AA Gill is in town for the Sydney Writer's Week which concludes today. Infamous for once blasting a baboon to death to 'see how it felt' the grovelling to the scribe around town was embarrassing. The Shuttle missed his interview on Thursday (one of the few events that wasn't sold out) and we lost count of the number of restaurant workers phoning us to impart the news that "AA Gill is here eating "

Even at the launch party at Porteno for the second season of Foxtel's 'Spirited' a waiter collared the Shuttle and solemnly informed us that Gill was downstairs if we wished "to pop down and get a snap  ". We passed.

We did manage to hear him on radio being interviewed by local foodie God and long time Shuttle pal Tony Bilson along with American ex-chef Anthony Bourdain . When Bilson commented that large food corporations were colluding to force manufacturers to list ingredients and that he believed it was a conspiracy to drive small providers out of business Gill launched into a diatribe about the importance of those tiny lists on the side of products. Ten minutes later when Bilson defended vegetarians Gill railed against foodies who included endless claims about the ingredients their nosh was complied of.

Emma Forrest

Later when a female audience member asked a question and Gill interrupted, she scolded him with "oh shut-up Anthony, you're no better than some yapping kid at the back of the bus ". The applause was deafening.

We did make it to the small cocktail party given by the advertising agency BWM for American /English writer Emma Forrest. Emma has just published an autobiography Your Voice In My Head.

Forrest was diagnosed as a manic depressive (bi-polar!) at 14 and began self harming, slashing her legs and arms.

She became fascinated and obsessed by sex whilst being repulsed by it and remained virginal until she finally flung herself into a series of destructive relationships. Emma wouldn't confirm or deny that the 'famous actor who broke her heart' was the long rumored Colin Farrell-she simply told us that she 'knows and likes his work'.
Emma now writes movie scripts and lives between New York and Beverley Hills. 
"I couldn't handle the grey skies of London anymore "said Emma when the Shuttle commented on her breezy outlook for someone who had gotten off an 18 hour flight at 11am that morning.

"I love LA, no matter who bad it is the sun always shines. This morning I bounded off the plane when I saw the brilliant sunshine".

She told us of the interview she once did with Brad Pitt who told her obsessively of how he and Angelina Jolie wanted to have a 'surrogate' baby. The following day Pitt phoned and left a voicemail message asking her to phone him urgently. 2 more messages followed over the same number of days. She never called him back. She thought he may ask her to have his baby !

Murdoch : "you're fired!'

Your Voice in My Head  is to be made into a film. I asked Emma who she would like to play her in the film
"Cate Blanchet" she responded." but when I told the producers they said 'oh no'. It doesn't matter that Blanchet has won Oscars. They don't know her in Middle America. They only know 2 actresses- Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts"

Honourable mentions at writer's week : * Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson in discussion with Frank Moorhouse celebrating the return of the comic mode in fiction. Brilliant.
 *Elisabeth Wynhausen and Bruce Guthrie telling Mike Carlton about the shock and the fury of getting fired by Rupert Murdoch. Very funny.

The Rumour Mill #2

# Which TV host had a blazing stand-up row in the street of a posh suburb recently when the representative of a media organisation refused to interview that host in the boutique of their choice because they supply the host with outfits for their TV show. It nearly came to fisticuffs.

The interviewer preferred neutral ground and suggested a local coffee shop only to find themselves on the receiving end of a "don't you know who I am ?" tirade. Perhaps the TV host should remind themselves that fame is fleeting!

# Which Eastern Suburbs society figure with a substantial country holding was only boasting a month ago that they had received free "human fertiliser" to the tune of $80K's worth from the State government anxious to unload the load of s*it!.

Human fertiliser going cheap

When the great "poo scandal" hit the front pages of the tabloid newspapers 2 weeks ago in which it was claimed dozens of people were becoming ill from farm products that used 'human fertiliser' our society pal went strangely silent.

Perhaps readers should avoid  a certain over -priced inner city charcuterie which proudly stocks meat from our friend's estate.

#. Which mainstream telly news host went strangely silent when their female co-host made some very funny jokes about a celebrity's hair piece after they had just appeared in a news item?. They basically called the famous actor a 'goose' for wearing the rug.
She obviously hadn't noticed their co-hosts expertly enhanced follicle adornment. He quickly changed the subject while she chortled on.
                                                            **************************
 ## On the subject of celebrity spats the Shuttle couldn't help but notice an item in the latest Latte Life newspaper in it's Bitter Dregs column and a small mysterious piece that says :'Charlotte "I'm a Celebrity" Dawson'. What can it mean ?. Perhaps Sunday Telegraph columnist Ros Reines, a friend of Charlotte's will illuminate us tomorrow.

### On the subject of rugs and enhanced follicles, read Vanity Fair's examination into Donald Trump's hair with it's 360 degree view courtesy of our favourite New York pal photographer Patrick McMullan who has been snapping the Trump for over 20 years.
According to Private Eye magazine, Barack Obama has demanded to know if "Donald Trump's hair is real and if so that he should provide the proof" !

exclusive : Jeanne Joins Gough

As we exclusively reported several months ago, Gough Whitlam the former Labor Prime Minister of Australia who broke the conservative stranglehold on power in 1972 when he was elected after 23 years of Liberal/National Party dominance, has moved into the luxury retirement home Lulworth House in Elizabeth Bay.

Now we hear that the 93 year old -who the famous British interviewer Sir David Frost described to the Social Shuttle earlier this year as: "probably the most intellectual of all world leaders I have interviewed"- has been joined at the home by Jeanne Little , the much loved TV personality who is suffering from a severe form of Alzheimer's.

Lulworth House which is part of St Luke's Hospital is considered to be one of the finest retirement homes in Sydney with it's beautiful leafy gardens and superb views of the harbour.

David Frost : 'most intellectual world leader'

Ironically, Whitlam who gave Australia it's Medicare system of free public health care which is regarded as the best in the Western world is a private patient as is Jeannie who in her heyday would have been the ideological  opposite of Gough.

Wheelchair bound Gough still makes it out almost every day to lunch with old political pals and foes- former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser who defeated Gough in 1975 after Whitlam was dismissed by the Governor General Sir John Kerr, is a visitor and friend.

Sadly Jeannie no longer recognises her family and friends. Her family have asked people to donate to the Jeanne Little Alzheimer's Research Fund.

More Facebook Legal Woes

An interesting story into today's Sydney Morning Herald brings us news that the popular Herald web writer Ben Grubb has been arrested after he filed a report on the social network Facebook.

The head of Queensland's Fraud Squad Brian Hay has said that the police are "still cutting our teeth in the rapidly evolving online environment."

He has described the receiving of a photo taken from a Facebook profile without the owner's permission is like "receiving a stolen TV set"

While this is sure to be a test case and may not even get to the courts, it's clear that Facebook will be facing legal challenges from all angles. Earlier today we wrote of the unidentified Melbourne celebrity who may be suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg personally for the publishing of defamatory statement about them on a false Facebook profile.

The SMH also carries a story today of a "men only" Facebook club that deals in purloined profile photos of scantily clad females.
To date persons have been charged with criminal defamation on Facebook in Australia, Canada and the USA.

Is it time to consult your stockbroker over those Facebook shares in your portfolio?.

Hugh Grant :Thumbs Up for Social Shuttle & Others

OK the title is an exaggeration.

We feel sure Hugh Grant would love the Social Shuttle even if when he asked your scribe one day what his occupation was and heard the reply (Australian journalist ) he responded "that's a contradiction in terms".

Grant was talking today on the Richard Bacon show on the BBC's
Radio Five Live which was broadcast from the offices of The Independent newspaper in London. He said he was still deciding if he should sue the News Of The World after being shown evidence by British police that he was a victim of phone hacking in the scandal sweeping the British media.

The actor is hopeful to see the end of tabloid newspapers : “We don’t need them  we don’t want them and the sooner they go out of business the better."

On the  tabloid's invasion of privacy he said: "They would go temporarily out of business because they rely almost entirely on stealing people’s privacy, but then I think they would actually be grateful because in six months, a year they would have to go back to being real journalists and they would feel good about themselves.”
 
 Journalist Nick Davies who first wrote of the hacking scandal and who wrote Flat Earth News, a book about media manipulation was also on the programme and said  Grant was "thinking along the right lines”.

Ironically, when Grant was busted in Hollywood with Devine Brown it was the making of his career. Never looked back really. We feel sure thousands of vicars all over the UK will rest easy if the NoTW goes to the wall plus websites like the Shuttle could only find a vastly increased audience (currently around 2000-2400 readers a day ).

# More news on the purported libel case that may be mounted by a Melbourne based celebrity against Facebook and it's founder Mark Zuckerberg. The Shuttle has read some of the legal advice on the case and Zuckerberg's words may come back to haunt him.

In the past week it has been revealed that Facebook hired a big PR firm to spread tales about Google. The escapade has completely backfired on Facebook.

Reading Facebook's introductions it goes to great pains, like many other social media websites, to point out that it cannot be held responsible for the content on Facebook as it is 'stored ' on outside servers which are not controlled by Facebook.

The Rumpole's advice is that the claim is nonsense as it attempts to avoid responsibility for publishing and a journalist, editor or publisher could make the same claim that their product is carried on outside newsstands etc.

But he also points to a speech given by  Zuckerberg in 2010 and where he proclaimed that "the age of privacy is dead". Our learned friend says the statement points to the 'intent' of the net tsar to re-write privacy laws without having the right to !.
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US  giants Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores have censored a book cover featuring Australian androgynous model, 19 year old Andre Pejic who has become the darling of the fashion world.


Read the story in the Mail Online.

Bringing Home The Bacons

Word comes that 2 professional treasure hunters have arrived in the Thai seaside resort of Pattaya intent on investigating the strange case-as exclusively revealed on the Social Shuttle, of the missing Francis Bacon collection of paintings. Apparently they have been making discreet enquiries around town.

The rumor has been the talk of Pattaya since Bacon's lover John Edwards died in 2003

The Shuttle was an occasional drinking pal with Bacon at the legendary Colony Club in London's Soho during the 1980s.  Bacon was a friendly and unpretentious man for an artist whose paintings brought the greatest ever price for a living artist. Although he lived in comfortable circumstances, they were relatively modest compared to the eventual fortune he was to leave his lover John Edwards when he died in 1992:  approximately 30 million dollars.

In his early years Bacon survived by stealing, dodging rent collectors , working as a domestic servant and as a shop assistant.

Born in Ireland with an English mother and an Australian army officer father, Bacon was a descendant of Sir Francis Bacon and it was only in later life he experienced success and indulged in his passions-drinking, lunching and gambling.

Francis Bacon self portrait

He was also fond of 'rough trade'. Several affairs with young men ended acrimoniously. One whom he  discovered breaking into his apartment one day become his live-in lover. Eventually he was to settle down with Edwards whom he doted on.

Bacon would sell a painting  and lavish money on Edward's East End family and bought them a huge house where he occasionally stayed for weeks on end . He treated Edward's to a Rolls Royce with the number plate BOY 1.

When Edwards inherited Bacon's fortune he moved to Thailand and purchased a magnificent seaside penthouse and a country mansion . In 2003 Edwards died in Bangkok.

According to Bacon's original will all his works of art where to be given to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin and it's said, most where.  But visitors to Edwards Pattaya apartment said that they observed at least half a dozen Bacon works on the walls. When Edwards died one London newspaper speculated the paintings were copies which seemed a bizarre claim when Bacon gave Edwards anything he asked for.  One tale was that Bacon had actually given the 6 paintings to Edwards but told him not to declare them for tax reasons.

Edwards took on a series of young Thai men as lovers although he had an English lover as well. As Edwards became ill from AIDS it's said that he gave his last Thai lover who he had known for a little over 2 years, the 6 Francis Bacon works to store at the young man's family home  near the Chaing Mai area. When Edwards died the young man was away visiting his family and never returned.

Several people who tried to track down the Thai man have been unsuccessful and the tale of the missing Bacon paintings has become a local legend. It's believed that somewhere in the north of Thailand the 6 paintings may be displayed on the walls of a simple farm house without the occupants realizing the true value of them.

A local interior decorator who also has showrooms in London and owns 2 Bacon paintings is said to be the only one who had met Edward's Thai lover and attempted to trace him but then got cold feet because of the implications over the provenance of the paintings.

In 2008 the Russian oligarch Roman Abrovanich paid nearly $83M for Bacon's 1974 work Triptych.
The previous record for one of his works was $53M. This year Bacon's portrait of his friend and artist Lucien Freud sold for $35M.

Lucien Freud

That puts the estimate of the value of the 6 missing Bacon's (if they exist) at a possible $330M !.

Miranda Kerr-looking fabulous

New mum Miranda Kerr and hubby Orlando Bloom attended the "Alexander McQueen : Savage Beauty" Costume Institute Gala at the New York's Metropolitian Museum last Monday as our exclusive pic from PatrickMcmullan.com shows.
See much more at Patrick McMullan's on-line magazine PMc.

All photographs by Chance Yeh for Patrick McMullan Company (c) 2011