BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO
North Bondi residents are still reeling after a turbulent Sunday morning display which kicked off when Charlie Aitken stopped by his estranged wife Ellie Aitken’s home to collect some business shirts. While it was all quiet on the beachfront on Monday morning, those connected to the pair say the more important phase of the breakup is just starting: lawyering up.
Readers will recall the high profile pair who co-founded boutique fund manager Aitken Investment Management turned heads last month with news that Aitken had entered into a relationship with Hollie Nasser, who is the wife of AIM director Chris Nasser and Ellie’s lookalike former bestie. Since then, Chris has stepped off Aitken’s board and withdrawn his family’s multi-million investment from AIM’s signature fund. But the financial fall out of the bust-up is likely to grow as the race begins to secure the city’s best divorce lawyers. In Sydney, it’s a small pool. High net worths tend to choose between Paul Doolan’s Barkus Doolan, Jamie Burreket’s Broun Abrahams Burreket and Sheridan Emerson’s Pearson Emerson. Odds are that Doolan – who is chair of the family law section of the Law Council of Australia and is known to fight like a dog with a bone – is involved. The question is whose side is he on?
AUSTRALIA’S MOST INTIMIDATING BOOK CLUB?
Ever wondered what feted Australian writer and acerbic wit Helen Garner does to relax? Now we know: participating in what is Australia’s most terrifying book club.
Plot twist: Helen Garner and the book club.Credit:Shakespeare
The Melbourne-based salon includes The First Stone author, together with former Age editor Michael Gawenda, ex-Dean of Arts at Melbourne University Belinda Probert, Stella Prize-winning novelist and poet Emily Bitto, author Thornton McCamish, triple Walkley award-winning journalist James Button, The Conversation editor Misha Ketchell, Age columnist Julie Szego, and Jane-Frances Kelly of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government.
For about six years now, the group has met each month at each others’ houses. But this is no ordinary book group, where members gather to discuss the texts over a bottle or three of wine.
“The big thing about this group is that we read the texts together and we discuss as we go,” Gawenda told CBD. “You read far fewer books – but in a way that I feel is unique.”
The group has tackled Milton’s Paradise Lost. Dante’s Inferno, Gilgamesh and Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, for which Garner is said to have assigned the parts.
When the group chose The Odyssey and The Iliad, they drafted in Emeritus Professor of Classics at La Trobe University Christopher Mackie, who ended up joining permanently.
During COVID-19 lockdowns the group met via Zoom. The most recent novel discussed was William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. “Some go off and read literary criticism but I refuse,” Gawenda said.
The group has even tackled The Old Testament. “We were going to get onto the gospels as well but we haven’t quite got there,” Gawenda said.
The big project for 2022 is the first part of Marcel Proust’s mammoth seven volume novel now known as In Search Of Lost Time, which in its entirety clocks in at 4215 pages. Clearly, they are thinking big.
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Morrow hits virus interruptus in Checkout defamation dispute
Source: Philippines Alive
