44 degrees in Melbourne is high anxiety for chikkies - and this anxious ‘minder’. They survived - with lots of chilled melon, extra shallow bowls of water…and all digits crossed 🐓

Tennis inflation… 🎾Total purse for Aus Open increases by 16% in 2026 to Aus$111.5mn. 🎾 Ouch: decent ticket for Women’s Final a lazy $1,999. #ausopen

What gross positioning of stories @ftweekend.com

President Macron’s NYE speech outlines his intent to ban social media for children under 15 - a ban supported by 79% of parents. #auspol via @nytimes.com #paywall

This lovely stand of 250 Monterey pines transports me to the Med. In fact they are in Shoreham, Victoria. Planted in the early 1900s as windbreaks between sea and shoreside properties…unique for their aesthetic and historic importance

Australia’s native Ceratopetalum gummiferum - Christmas Bush to you and I. Happy Christmas 🎄

Gotta love Private Eye. 🎄

Love them #friendlyjordies ‘the facts Jack’… as was once correct reporting…no longer on MSM

Anton Jäger’s 5th column for @NYT knocking Europe. An ‘Opinion’ writer with one opinion - greatly exaggerating the death of Europe #paywall

Bernie Sanders calls out Netanyahu on his criticism of @albomp.bsky.social #auspol #bondi

The NYT opines, inaccurately, from the other side of the world #auspol

“One power broker (FIFA) had two adjoining grace and favour apartments in #Trump Tower in NY - one exclusively for his cats”… Riveting scandal - #podcast #slownews @basialc.bsky.social @rorysmith.bsky.social

“Very proud of Australia that they have taken a stand on social media” - Anna Wintour, global chief content officer of #Vogue, overseeing 28 international editions. #podcast ‘Leading’ with @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social + Rory Stewart

Book Club host endorses Australia’s ban on social media for teens 📚

The profound effects when a Board entrusted with a 133-year old Charitable Trust, housing 163 aged pensioners, holding assets of $72+M, ‘gifts’ it to social housing. Thanks for your intervention @mon4kooyong.bsky.social and ABC’s Andi Lu

You don’t need a #Dell for Christmas 🎄

New AI-generated ad campaign for Valentino’s DeVain clutch bag - is ‘inspired’ by 16th century art. Good thing dead artists don’t sue.

France: More than 80 MPs are calling for "a ban on Shein in French territory" to "protect workers, public health and the planet", in a text published in La Tribune Dimanche.

Tina Brown on: Zuckerberg; “Meta’s slippery salamander” Prince Harry; “the ginger whinger” Lauren Sanchez; “proof landing the 4th riches man in the world requires the permanent display of breasts like genetically modified grapefruit” Listen to Brown whose observations are in a class of their own

Who knew…your 🇮🇹 ‘Italian’ tomato paste may have its origins in 🇨🇳 China, the fruit routinely harvested by Uyghur people in the Xinjiang region. Via @ftweekend.com #paywall

… @nytimes.com offers up a poem as an anti-dote to doomscrolling. Someone tell them there’s good news to report…

One for all, all for one. Billionaires aside. Illustration by Edel Rodriguez. @newyorker.com

Efforts by Chinese fast fashion retailer #Shein to open in-store across France are met with a giant dose of French froideur. Staff at BHV Paris strike, while French brands pull out of the fabled dept store. French retail revolution 🇫🇷

Australia’s social media ban shows the way writes Rohan Silva in The Times UK. #paywall

1500+ lobbyists in Canberra act - not for you - but corporate interests. If you care for transparency in Fed government sign up. 👇🏻 Let the light in.💡 #auspol cleanuppoliticsact.com.au

You can’t choose your parents #Mountbatten-Windsor

If you love Melbourne you know the heartbeat is the top end of Bourke Street (Hill of Content- books; best shirtmaker - Charles Edward, plus fashion in Blonde Venus plus Florentino) …so here’s a film celebrating the legend at the heart of it all. Yay Pellegrini’s. Love you forever.

Cool! Bill Nighy #podcast …how sweet it is as Nighy embraces your questions on manners sartorial and all else you may pitch him. (PS Bill, add Blue Sky, 🦋over Insta 😉)

Built by King Philip II Augustus in the 12th century as a defensive fortress to protect Paris from invasion…#Louvre

Congrats 👏🏻👏🏻Getty @gettyimages.com #crocodilesmile

Paddy Manning, @paddymanning.bsky.social author of ‘The Successor’ (Lachlan…) illuminating on Media Confidential #podcast #Murdoch media future with @arusbridger.bsky.social @lionelbarber.bsky.social

Cold shoulder from French fashion hierarchy reacting to China’s #Shein announcing plans to “revitalize city centers across France”. Yann Rivoallan says department store BHV; “is associating itself with the devil". Ouch. Since 2023 Shein sales are second only to #1, Zara.

👀 Tech investor James Anderson, who runs the Agnelli family-backed Lingotto Investment, in the @financialtimes.com

Chanel opted to ban crocodile in 2018. Hermès, however, continues to invest in croc, with its secretive Northern Territory Lambells Lagoon Crocodile farm to grow 50,000 animals. The farm’s toxic waste is showing E-coli levels above prescribed safety limits, threatening nearby farmland #luxe

Cute, from Bernard Arnault who sought Belgian citizenship in 2012, to avoid tax. He later withdrew his application…#LVMH

“An incredibly syrupy set of messages from Peter #Mandelson, 10 pages with photographs of Mandelson in his swimming trunks looking longingly out of a window apparently waiting for his beloved Jeffrey to parachute into his life…” - Stephen Sackur & the mooch on #podcast @restispoliticsus.bsky.social

Mandelson’s high praise for convicted sexual abuser and felon. Precedes Trump’s state visit to UK at invitation of #King Charles III, whose brother is on #Epstein list via @patrickwintour.bsky.social

Good luck with that one Rolex👇🏻

Horse racing world wide is on the nose. So why has Fox, owned by the Murdoch family (Lachlan CEO) decided the sport is under appreciated and boosted US broadcasts? Fox has taken a 25% stake in the online betting platform NYRA Bets allowing it to tap the $150 billion US sports betting market.

Bunny Mellon, wife of banking heir Paul Mellon, first discussed the White House Rose Garden renovation during a picnic at her Cape Cod retreat in 1961. Pic of Mellon with President Kennedy at the beach house via @FT where the estate is listed #property for sale at $23mill

Gina Ryan’s $28billion…puts her in top 80 billionaires worldwide in Bloomberg index…#podcast to love

Oh la South Park…the gift that keeps on giving 🙏🏻

Winter bounty. Cumquat jam on the way. David Lebovitz 🇫🇷 recipe - with that dash of Cointreau.

Will Australia finally learn to value-add? “Australian government to lend Iluka A$1.65bn to build a refinery to meet demand for rare earths which Iluka sees growing by 50-170% by the end of the decade.” -BBC

France 🇫🇷 rejects a bee-killing insecticide but it’s OK in Australia🇦🇺. Neonicotinoids are used here on cereal crops, canola, sunflower, some veg and fruit.

Bloodthirsty criminals…“and they’re all in the White House”…says the great @karaswisher.bsky.social

Trump take leaf out of mob rule book - and so takes a slug from Nvidia and AMD. #organisedcrime

Al Jazeera’s courageous & incisive reporting…and Israel’s shameful response. That of cowards. 🙏🏻

Legend. If you’ve sipped coffee in St Sulpice, the cafes of St Germain, you’ve seen Ali.