Potty Mouth Least Of Ramsay's Woes

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday November 25, 2008

with Emily Dunn & Garry Maddox with Samantha Day and Andrew Hornery

CHEF Gordon Ramsay was on the receiving end from many quarters yesterday, including Australia. As allegations surfaced in Britain that he had been conducting a seven-year affair with a "professional mistress", the Australian Communications and Media Authority decided it was a good day to do some Ramsay-bashing of its own, giving the Nine Network, broadcaster of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, a slap on the wrist for incorrect classification.

According to the authority, two episodes of the program screened in Queensland were wrongly classified M, rather than the tougher MA, and contained "multiple instances of coarse language and that in each case such usage constituted frequent coarse language, which was not particularly important to the programs' story lines".

On the other spicy issue, Ramsay was uncharacteristically silent yesterday, although Britain's Daily Telegraph quoted a source close to chef and his wife of 12 years, Tana, as saying they were considering suing News Of The World, which ran a front-page story on Sunday detailing an affair with Sarah Symonds, who, after having a year-long affair with the author and politician Jeffrey Archer, wrote a how-to guide for aspiring mistresses.

Ramsay, a father of five, has built a reputation as a devoted family man, and was voted Celebrity Father of the Year last year.

CARR'S DRIVE

The Australian Idol winner, Wes Carr, has a message for bedroom musicians. "You can be in your bedroom and that's cool, but I would rather not," he told SiT yesterday. "If you are unhappy on the barstool, then go and audition [for Idol]."

The elated 26-year-old from Bondi, who has played the pub and club scene since he was a teenager and won the Idol crown on Sunday night from Luke Dickens, a shearer from Young, said he was hoping to use his win to get his music to a wider audience.

"I would like to encourage all the musicians who are writing and playing at The Hopetoun [bar in Surry Hills] every Friday and going on tours in vans up and down the coast, doing it through winter and then the bus breaks down, gather all those things up and make something of them."

Carr's debut single You, which was written for him, hit radio airwaves yesterday. He said he was already working on material, this time written by him, for an album release early next year. The single - if past Idol releases are anything to go by - should chart well but things were not always so certain for the show's ratings. Happily for Channel Ten, this year's Idol fared better in the ratings than last year's disappointing season, with the finale no exception. An average audience of more than 1.3 million people tuned in to the live broadcast, from 7.30pm on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, increasing to almost 1.6 million for the announcement of the winner at 9.30pm.

LICENCE TO KILL

Can nothing stop James Bond? Quantum Of Solace, the vengeance-driven follow-up to Casino Royale, opened with a rush in Australian cinemas at the weekend. It took $11.8 million in five days - equivalent to selling more than a million tickets, or three-quarters of all the business in the country's cinemas. That easily outpaced the opening takings for Daniel Craig's debut in Casino Royale, which took $4.7 million in four days and ended up with an impressive $32.2 million.

The managing director of Sony Pictures Releasing, Stephen Basil-Jones, said yesterday that Quantum Of Solace had a $2 million opening day, which showed how much Casino Royale had reignited interest in Bond movies.

"Everyone had such a good time with that and everyone wanted to see where it was going," he said. "Daniel Craig has really, really made an impact. He's a genuine James Bond."

The result sets up a huge week in cinemas with Baz Luhrmann's epic, Australia, opening tomorrow.

The two movies will take up more than 1100 of the country's 1900-odd screens. The NSW and Queensland sales manager for 20th Century Fox, David Townsend, is hoping Australia will break Quantum Of Solace's opening with a $12 million to $13 million weekend.

In the US, the teen vampire movie Twilight knocked Quantum Of Solace off the top spot on the box office chart.

GREAT FOR CATE

The first review of Cate Blanchett's new movie, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, is a rave from an influential source. The American entertainment trade paper Variety described as "richly satisfying" director David Fincher's drama about a man, played by Brad Pitt, who ages backwards, comparing it favourably with Forrest Gump.

"Fincher spends 13 minutes short of three hours telling this unique man's life story, and the time goes by easily, with no sense of dawdling, waste or indulgence," the review said.

Blanchett plays the red-headed Daisy, who meets Benjamin Button when he is 12 and looks 70. He later follows her to New York, where she's a headstrong dancer, then Paris.

But the review was guarded on whether the movie will be as big a hit as Forrest Gump.

"Strong critical support will be needed to swell interest in this absorbing, even moving, but emotionally cool film, which is simultaneously accessible and distinctive enough to catch on with a large public if luck and the zeitgeist are with it," it said.

EAT WELL, EAT SAFE

'Tis the season to be green. Actor Hugo Weaving, celebrity ambassador for the animal rights group Voiceless, joined the former NSW premier Bob Carr for the launch in Sydney last night of the organisation's report into factory-farmed chickens, From Nest To Nuggets.

Earlier in the day, food icon Margaret Fulton was the guest speaker at a breakfast at chef Alex Herbert's Surry Hills restaurant, Bird Cow Fish, for the launch of the Greenpeace True Food Guide 2008, which details how to avoid foods containing genetically modified ingredients. With Australia's first genetically modified canola being harvested, the guide tells which supermarket brands have pledged to boycott genetically modified food ingredients and which have not. Fulton joined celebrity chefs including Bill Granger, Tetsuya Wakuda, Kylie Kwong and Stephanie Alexander who have gone public on their opposition to GM foods, telling SiT the message had to be taken beyond restaurant diners to a mass market. "I am happy that I can still make a difference," she said.

PRIVATE SYDNEY

AUSTRALIAN actor Abbie Cornish is tipped to bring one of Hollywood's leading heartthrobs, Ryan Phillippe, to Australia for his first Down Under Christmas.

Yesterday it was revealed Cornish will be the star attraction at a party being thrown on December 16 by US fashion designer Klein on Cockatoo Island for 500 Sydney VIPs. Insiders say Phillippe is a strong contender to join Cornish on her trip home, giving him his first opportunity to meet her extended family since the couple began dating two years ago.

It has been more than a year since Cornish spent time with her clan, from the sleepy Hunter Valley hamlet of Lochinvar.

Having already made public her plans to spend the US Thanksgiving holiday with Phillippe and his two children to hisex-wife, Reese Witherspoon, Cornish has told friends she will be spending Christmas in Australia with her own family and most likely with Phillippe in tow.

Hollywood spies are predicting Phillippe will have something big and sparkly under the Christmas tree for his girlfriend as their relationship moves up a gear. Last Friday, Cornish and Phillippe were reportedly buying bibs in the West Hollywood baby store Mau.

Andrew Hornery

THREE QUESTIONS

Jimeoin

Jimeoin v hecklers - who wins and how?

I don't really care who wins as long as it's funny. That's not true. I like to win. But not if it's not funny. It has to be funny. That's the bottom line.

Leprechauns are known as old men who partake in mischief. Are you part of a leprechaun dynasty?

Well, I never knew that. If that's true then that's what I am. Although I don't like to be referred to as being old, but I'm going to have to face up to it one of these days. Not today. I don't like the hats they wear. A bit big for their heads, to be honest. I don't smoke a pipe and I don't have a beard.

What's the one thing from Ireland you forgot to bring to Australia?

Bad weather might be it. There are still a few Irish bars left in Ireland, thank God - a lot of them have gone overseas.

Samantha Day

Jimeoin will be performing at the Sydney Opera House from tonight until November 30, then from December 2 to December 6.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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