1. IN what may have been the most touching moment of his tour to date, Prince Harry has been reunited with a school matron he hadn’t seen since he was a small boy, mourning the loss of his Mum.
The Weekly’s roving royal reporter Juliet Rieden watched Harry’s face flicker with recognition when he saw Vicki McBratney in the crowd in New Zealand – and then light up.
“Hello! Nice to see you, how are you?” he said, kissing her twice and giving her a hug. “Nice to see you, are you alright?”
Vicki was a matron at the Ludgrove School, where Harry was a student. She started there on the day of Diana’s funeral.
Yesterday, Vicki had arrived two hours ahead of the crowds, hoping to see a young man she remembered as a “cheeky, funny” red-haired boy that she used to comfort late at night, often sharing mugs of hot chocolate with him.
Harry definitely remembered her, and was delighted when she produced photographs of him as a young kid with a big smile. He shook hands with her husband, met all her children (she now has three, Hayden, 11, Summer, 10, and Sienna, 8) asked her several times whether she was happy living in New Zealand, and rounded back to say good-bye again before he had to go – and everyone’s heart was warmed.
He’s the people’s prince, this one.
2. A BRISBANE court is hearing allegations that Australian women routinely marry Indian men to get around visa rules.
The women get cash (up to $10,000 each) and the men get passports.
Witnesses have included an Australian woman, Angelina Thompson, who says she was paid $6000 to marry an Indian man who needed passport, but was told she would get more.
At least three other women have said the same.
The case is against an Indian-born migration agent Chetan Mohanlal Mashru and marriage celebrant Divya Krishne Gowda, who are accused of frauding the visa system.
The court has heard that they arranged 17 marriages in exchange for visas. The brides don’t go through with an actual wedding. They just sign the paperwork.
3. GEORGE Miller’s Mad Max is a triumph, and it’s not Max but his feisty sidekick, played by Charlize Theron, who is winning all the praise.
Honestly, you couldn’t pay for the kind of reviews she is getting.
News gives the film a nine out of 10, saying: Charlize Theron’s Furiosa … is arguably the main character of the film.
“Max’s equal in physicality, driving skills, and tortured past, the one-armed Furiosa stands at the forefront of (the) cast.”
It’s no surprise. Tina Turner also stole Max’s thunder. The film has always been jammed with meaty roles for women, and this one is no exception.
It includes a band of marauders called “The First Wives” – former sex slaves including Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Elvis’s granddaughter Riley Keough, Abbey Lee and Zoë Kravitz – who had been kept as breeders; and some gun-totting grannie “who almost steals the show.”
4. IT is one of the most beautiful places on earth but has New York’s Central Park again become a no-go zone after dark?
The New York Post says there have been three muggings in two days, including one by a “roving gang.”
The mayor’s office has stepped up police patrols on scooters and in marked cars but Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the muggings were an aberration, while recent shootings in New York were “career criminals killing and shooting other career criminals.”
5. HE had way too much to drink and started waving a broken glass around, startling other patrons and forcing a waitress to intervene but what John ‘Singo’ Singleton really wants you to know is that he was not drinking rosé.
No way.
Singo was caught on camera having a fight with his close mate and fellow billionaire (give or take a few tens of millions) Jack Cowin in Sydney, but according to son Jack, it wasn’t a real fight.
“I can promise you it was only ever meant to be a joke,” Jack told The Herald.
“It was only four bottles between five people and I mostly drank green tea … but I do want to set one thing straight, it wasn’t bloody rosé we were drinking either, it was a French white wine from Sancerre.”
For his part, Singo told 2GB’s Ben Fordham that he was amazed to hear that police might get involved.
“Has it got the stage in this country where a few old mates can’t have a good time where no one is hurt, laugh and joke and it turns into … a drunken rant, now this has turned into a police inquiry?” he said.
6. GOT any old paintings in the garage? Go get them. The art market is on fire.
The BBC reports that ‘Women of Algiers’ – a painting by Pablo Picasso – has set a new world record for the most expensive artwork to be sold at auction after reaching $179m (about $230 million) in New York.
That beats Francis Bacon’s triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which sold for $142.4m at Christie’s in November 2013.
All of which makes the $54 million that Alan (Bondy) Bond once paid for Vincent van Gogh’s Irises, look like chump change.
Irises was re-sold in 1990 to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it remains to this day.
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