The culprit was MC and former OlympianMatt Shirvington who went out of his way to thank almost every Foxtel employee by name but ignored Seven. It was a particularly strange thing to do given Warburton was front and centre in the room and stranger still since “Shirvo” works for Seven.
James Warburton and Matt Shirvington.Joszef Benke
Rupert Murdoch’s Foxtel and Kerry Stokes’ Seven lodged the winning bid at the recent AFL auction,which is a bit like buying a house in Sydney – an overly expensive,emotionally charged and FOMO-fuelled roller coaster ride. A very relaxed AFL bossGillon McLachlandid describe Shirvington’s faux pas as a career limiting move. For his part,the one-time sprinter blamed a script malfunction.
Enjoying the barnstorming preliminary final was seemingly half of Sydney’s corporate set,including Merivale baronJustin Hemmes,Seven’s head lawyerBruce McWilliam,stadium impresarioTony Shepherd,his partner and Transgrid executiveMaryanne Graham,AFL commissioners Robin Bishop, Paul BassatandGabrielle Trainor,former commissioner Kim Williams,Swans ambassador andToday Show entertainment reporterBrooke Boney as well as Nine Radio bossTom Malone and Publishing MDJames Chessell.
Pacing around for most of the game was Pies presidentJeff Browne whose nerves would not have been helped by his team’s heart-stopping loss. No sign,though of former presidentEddie McGuire,last seen aboardLindsay Fox’s yacht.
Sydney’s festival of footy didn’t stop at AFL. Next door at the Allianz,the losing streak continued for the Cronulla Sharks most performative fanScott Morrison,who watched his side drubbed byAnthony Albanese’sSouths that night. Fortunately he was spared the further humiliation of running into Albo,currently in London on Constitutional Monarchy duties.
It was another full house,which included Shepherd (is there a stadium in which he won’t spectate!?),Nine bossMike Sneesby,former Nine boss and new fatherHugh Markswith partner and NRL execAlexi Baker,and Domain chairNick Falloon. The corporate crowd was hosted by NRL chairmanPeter “Showbags” V’landys and CEOAndrew Abdo,who thanked the AFL for putting on a “great curtain raiser” for the main event.
Tabcorp director and former NRL chief executiveDavid Gallop managed the triple header,popping over after the races and the AFL. Quite the Saturday.
Cancel culture
CBD was surprised to discover the Sydney launch of conservative commentatorKevin Donnelly’s new book,titledThe Dictionary of Woke:How Orwellian Language Control and Group Think are Destroying Western Societies,would no longer be going ahead tomorrow.
Could it be that Donnelly,whose previous tome warned about the insidious influence of left-wing cancel culture,had committed a bit of cancel culture on himself? After all,plenty of conservative-tinged events have been canned since the Queen’s passing.
Donnelly confirmed this was indeed the case,telling CBD he’d pulled the plug on the launch,to be hosted by fellowSky NewsregularChris Kenny,as “a mark of respect”,feeling it inappropriate to continue when so many hearts and minds were with her late Majesty so soon after the funeral.
But all is not lost. Donnelly will be one of many right-wing luminaries to address the Conservative Political Action Conference next weekend,where he’ll have ample opportunity to discuss the censorious,regressive and dogmatic contemporary left.
Beeb tops Aunty
There’s been plenty of criticism,some fair,some not,of our own ABC’s seemingly endless coverage ofQueen Elizabeth II’s death,with an army of Ultimo types off in London right now.
In Aunty’s defence,it hasn’t been nearly as much as the BBC,which CBD hears sent a crew out for four days to Geelong Grammar School’s Timbertop campus in regional Victoria.
Real Royal-heads will recallKing Charles III spent two semesters at Timbertop in 1966,where he was teased for being a “pommy bastard”. At the secluded campus,year nine kids,who are kept away from the modern world,given limited access to technology and put through a rigorous program of hiking and trail-running were surprised by BBC journalists out for a vox pop.
Not even Timbertop was far away enough from the longest news cycle in the Anglosphere.
Tinked off
CBD brought word last month of colourful former billionaire and discharged bankruptNathan Tinkler’s attempt to resurrect his corporate career through an attempt to take over debt-laden Australian Pacific Coal.
But that plot is looking further doubtful. Days later,a rival consortium led by M Resources’Matt Latimore seemed to have won the board’s favour.
Then,on Friday,APC’s largest creditor and shareholder Trepang Services,owned by pearl kingNick Paspaley andJohn “Foxy” Robinson gave its blessings to another proposal – a joint venture between Tetra Resources and Javelin to reopen APC’s Dartbrook coal mine.
More bad news for the boganaire,whose ASIC-imposed ban from managing companies following “multiple serious failures” in his duty as a director,expired last year.