Our Hayley is stepping out with the best of British

The very fabulous Hayley Holt's trip to Britain to see the producers of the UK version of Dancing With The Stars paid off!

Our homegrown girl made the cut and is going to be on the show! Back before series four started earlier this year Hayley, Stefano Olivieri and Stefano's Australian dance partner, Natalie Lowe, all took themselves over, under their own steam, to audition for the prestigious show.

Stefano and Hayley bombed but Natalie made it through. She has since dropped out though, as she had better opportunities come up in Oz. This left the way open for Hayley and when she got the call she was ecstatic.

She's currently with her All Black boyfriend Richie McCaw in Christchurch and flies out to London early August.

There's no talk of them splitting. She's only gone for two months and he may go over to give her moral support as it's going to be grueling.

The standard is sky-high and Hayley is not a full-time professional like many of the other dancers will be. Plus those UK judges are brutal! Brendan Cole may be on the show but they need new faces as the people they have been using are all too famous now to be fresh and interesting.

 

Dom's Lil old party

DOM BOWDEN celebrated his birthday last Saturday night at Auckland bar Shanghai Lil's, with his TV3 journalist wife Claire and a few other friends. It was impromptu as Shanghai Lil's doesn't take bookings and it was lucky for gorgeous Dom that the birthday bash didn't end in disaster. Shanghai Lil's is nothing if not eccentric and owner Russell Green doesn't pay much attention to Who's Who.

It's a magnet for international A-Listers like Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Bedingfield, Kate Bosworth and Sir Ian McKellen.

When Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson were in town two years ago they couldn't get in because the place was too full and two weeks ago he evicted a large group from Louis Vuitton because he didn't like their overbearing attitude.

Said Russell: "There's the door. You found your way in. Now find your way out!"

 

Sally goes to the mall

THEY SAY things are bad economically but we've just had Louis Vuitton and Gucci open very big stores on Auckland's Queen St and last week I raved about Suzanne Paul and Candy Lane launching clothing ranges. Now it's Sally Ridge who is taking the big step. Her underwear range, James & August, which featured in a riot of colour at Fantasia (see page 37), has done so well that she is now opening a James & August shop in Milford Mall.

If that goes well, says Sally, she will be opening in Riccarton and Dunedin as well.

I remember when James & August was launched in 2003 at Fashion Week and a few people, myself among them, thought: "What's this about? What are undies doing at Fashion Week?"

The show turned out to be one of the year's best though, thanks to clever styling and mind blowing black-as-the-ace-of-spades Sudanese models with bodies that defied anatomical possibility.

 

Bob each way

SIR BOB Jones never fails to delight. We recently reported him as saying that he was drunk when he said on radio that he'd vote National.

This week I received a business letter signed by Sir Bob apologising for an errant employee.

I quote: "Please convey our apologies to your client and further, advise him never to employ anyone with an Irish name, a golden rule in a fit of madness I broke on this occasion."

 

Huffer in the hood

MANDY MOORE'S and Nicole Richie's ex-Adam Goldstein aka DJ AM, right, was in Auckland a few weeks back to DJ for a tech industry party and while he was here he bought himself a "Holy Mob" jacket in black from Huffer. Said Adam: "I LOVE it, and thank you for making radical clothes." Pretty cool, eh? But Huffer has already made a name for themselves in the US. Their launch party at the hippest club in Vegas was huge and, as it turns out, that's where Adam is opening his new venue with partners Shaquille O'Neal, Justin Timberlake and Pete Wentz. Huffer's Steve Dunstan DJs too. He'll be behind the decks at the fashion show/party/fundraiser being held by the Friends of the Red Cross on August 2 at Auckland's Powerstation. The night's called WAR! And it will have some of the hottest names in music and fashion, like Karen Walker, giving their time and talent for nothing. By the way black models are required. You don't need to be a model but if you are black (not brown black!) and can walk tall, email caty@ihug.co.nz. Casting is next week.

 

Outrageous Simon

SIMON DALLOW is a hardcore westie. And his credentials are bona fide. He grew up on what has become the set of Outrageous Fortune. The West's house is number 87 and he lived over the road at number 86. The view of the now famous house that you see every week on television is the view he had from his bedroom window! His wife Alison Mau says that when they watched the first episode of the first season they nearly fell off the couch in surprise. She feels a real connection to the place because Simon's parents lived there until about seven years ago and that was the first bit of Auckland she saw when she came from Australia to meet them. Simon picked her up from the airport and took her straight... out west! She says they are huge fans of the show and get a real buzz off details like the steep street. Simon used to be a hot athlete and would do wind sprints up the hilly street, which leads to the motorway. What has the Dallows giggling is that often when cars on the TV3 show burn off, they go down hill. But there isn't anything down hill. It's a dead end.

 

From the bedroom to the Sophie

IF SOPHIE "Angel Barbie" Lewis, the 22-year-old who sold her story of sex with UK rugby player David Strettle for the delightful sum of $12,000, was on an hourly rate she would be doing very nicely.

$12,000 is a pittance for UK tabloids but it's a lot for her I would imagine. As a receptionist for a film and television production company she quite likely earns around $15 an hour, so she must be smiling. Strettle is unlikely to be.

The interview was pretty embarrassing. "He pressed all the right buttons and kissed me in all the right places." "He was so energetic." "It was very romantic. He was a fantastic lover. We made love for more than two hours." "He was such an accomplished lover and we did it in every position imaginable."

As for where the very modern Miss Lewis is at now, she's over it and not saying what she is going to spend her easily earned cash on. (See my blog on www.abouttown.co.nz "Feminist or slapper?" for some interesting takes from posters on the matter.)

This is an extract of what streaker/stripper/Alt TV naked newsreader Lisa Lewis (who claims to charge $7000 a night for sex) had to say on Facebook about the subject (mistakes included): "I am so sick of people that judge someone for their life choices. All on their high pedastles thinking they are better. The majority of one's life choices and faults are very hidden from public eyes. Sophie Lewis' is maybe not. I believe and in my opinion she is no different to other girls that go out every night and sleep with a stranger. Why should we throw rocks at her? After all she is one of our own (kiwi)... we shouldn't hate her."

 

In the Driver's seat

ACTOR, MC and now television executive, Oliver Driver (he's a capo at Alt) was smiling quietly to himself last week.

He was on TV3's Sunrise plugging his latest play, Betrayal, when host James Coleman asked him how Alt TV was going.

Quickwitted Oliver shot back, "Fantastic, we scooped you on the Corrections file 24 hours before you claimed it was an exclusive". (The Corrections file relating to the release of 150 of New Zealand's worst offenders being let out into the community, had been found by someone who tipped off Alt, who then ran it as a news story. Next day the police were knocking at Alt's door and TV3 ran it as a breaking story.)

That wasn't too good for James and TV3 though, so he quickly interrupted Oliver's triumphant rant saying they had to move onto the next story, which involved cats.

Good try by James but Ollie scored again saying: "That's the important story we need to move on to? Rather than debate the important issue of the day? Cats? No wonder it took you 24 hours!"

I think Alt is still sniggering now.

- © Fairfax NZ News