KEY POINTS:
While newsgirl Kate Hawkesby and broadcaster Mike Hosking play the tedious game are-we-aren't-we-dating, refusing to confirm or deny whether they are a pair outside their morning radio jobs, over on the other side of the airwaves, RadioLive's Marcus Lush and news anchor Hilary Barry are getting on with things and enjoying their new relationship - on air, that is.
This morning Hilary went to work on day one as the RadioLive news anchor on Lush's breakfast show. She read the news, drilled through the headlines, and presented the weather in her earnest-slash-affable manner. Later today, she'll head across town to the TV3 studio to present 3News. Is Hils the one-stop-news-shop?
It appears so. And Lush's RadioLive morning show certainly appears to have taken a stronger news focus with fascinating interviews and in-depth commentary - combined, of course, with Lush's cheeky and provoking remarks, like this morning, when he put the Prime Minister on the spot and asked if a tour around Parliament "would be a bit boring" for the kids of Ganesh Cherian who bid $18,500 on TradeMe for his cast. John Key had earlier suggested he'd throw it in to the prize mix, but he wasn't fazed by Lush's forthrightness. Key, who jiggled onstage yesterday at The Big Gay Out, can handle it.
He was the man of the night at the glitzy and glamorous Louis Vuitton Pacific Series charity dinner last Wednesday night. Business leaders and entrepreneurs - including a very leggy Sharon Hunter (pictured above)- pounced at any given opportunity to hobnob with the Prime Minister.
Click here for photos from the event.
It was a star-filled evening with racing royalty in attendance. Dean and Mandy Barker stole the show, alongside Sir Michael and Lady Sarah Fay, Chris Dickson and his wife Sue, Grant and Nicki Dalton, Rasa and John Bertrand who've been married 40 years, and Russell and Jenny Coutts who are staying at the Heritage Hotel where the Prada team are holed up. Alinghi's Brad Butterworth and Peter Montgomery were conspicuously absent.
Coutts was warmly welcomed back in to the fold. Not so much his former boss, Swiss pharmaceutical titan Ernesto Bertarelli who arrived in the country on Saturday clutching a large box of Toblerone. At the dinner, during an onstage panel discussion, Fay confessed: "Alinghi's position is wrong," with regard to the court case playing out in the New York Supreme Court against Larry Ellison (Coutts' boss) and BMW Oracle. A decision is expected this week. "Ellison's position is more correct," Fay added to rapturous applause from the crowd. Everyone just wants to get on with the racing.
It's no secret Ernesto, Brad and Alinghi are little well liked in this country, not helped yesterday by the refusal to race Our Dean, billed as a competitive strategy, apparently, so as to go up against us in the final. And then there's Alinghi's whingeing about not being allowed to sail the Maori flag from their boat on Waitangi Day. Does anyone really believe the Swiss-based team really give a hoot about Maori sovereignty, or was the flap over the flag just an excuse to rile us up?
It certainly appears the Alinghi team, especially Butterworth and Bertarelli, don't play the popularity card. Being liked is not their thing, which makes you wonder why Butterworth bothered being interviewed by Michele Hewitson in the NZ Herald recently in what clearly appeared to be a PR charm offensive.
Coutts, the diplomat, reckons his former boss is not so bad. "Ernie... he's okay," Coutts told me. "Ernie is a good guy. His big problem is his control." His need to be in control, I ask? Coutts shrugs, then nods.
He said he didn't expect to see much of Ellison during the Pacific Series regatta and he didn't really know much about the Oracle founder. "He's a lovely guy... a computer nerd. He started by writing computer programs when he was young," Coutts said, which I found ironic. Our geek of the sailing world was wearing a shirt straight out of the packaging with the creased pleats of the folds very visible. Bless. "Yeah, it's brand new!" Coutts laughed.
Rachel Glucina
Pictured above: Left; Sharon Hunter and Prime Minister John Key. Right; Dean and Mandy Barker. Photos / Norrie Montgomery
