“In lockdown I was able to have a guitar for quarantine and I always find the best way to process stuff is to write songs, be it good news, bad news or whatever ... here is a song I finished last week,” he said.

As the hushed crowd of just over 7000 people watched on at Melbourne’s iconic Rod Laver Arena, Sheeran revealed his grief over the sudden loss of his mentor, singing: “Well, I wish that heaven had visiting hours/So I could just swing by and ask your advice/What would you do in my situation?”

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Love finds a way for Keneally and her soulmate

Federal Labor Senator Kristina Keneally assured PS that she and her husband Ben would still be celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in July, just not as they had planned. They had hoped for a romantic holiday to Poland to revisit the place they first met 30 years ago during a church youth pilgrimage.

“We haven’t been back to Poland since, but with border closures that’s not going to happen now; we’ll celebrate the anniversary, just a little closer to home and maybe with some pierogi,” Keneally told PS.

Keneally was 22 when she met her future husband at the World Youth Congress in Poland in 1991.

“We were young,” she later told The Australian Women’s Weekly, “and I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I remember the moment I first saw him. I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight but it was an instant recognition that this was somebody who was going to be important in my life. It was across a crowded room and, yes, I thought he was attractive, but there was something about him that was compelling too.”

And she still feels that way to this day.

Lachlan and Sarah’s mystery move

Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch have another day left in quarantine but mystery surrounds precise details on why the couple and their family have unexpectedly come to Sydney for an extended period, which PS understands could be six months or more.

Friends have told PS, somewhat obliquely, that they have come to Sydney for “family reasons”, with the comparative safety of Australia compared to the United States during the pandemic one of several factors behind the decision to relocate. It’s a move which has taken even their closest friends by surprise.

The Murdochs are described by their friends as being very “hands on” parents, with Lachlan making a conscious decision to be a more “present” figure in his children’s lives than perhaps his own father Rupert Murdoch was during his childhood.

With four marriages and six children, Rupert Murdoch also managed to build a global media behemoth, though as his second wife Anna has previously revealed, his constant ambition for global domination did come at a price to his family life.

In contrast Lachlan and his family have spent their quarantine together and happily confined to the luxury Bellevue Hill estate Le Manoir, having flown into Sydney from Los Angeles aboard their private jet on March 14.

Last week The New York Times described Murdoch as having “decamped to Sydney”.

PS understands the executive chairman and CEO of America’s Fox Corporation and co-chairman of newspaper giant News Corp intends to run his vast global media empire from here.

The couple’s three children – Kalan, now a towering 16-year-old, Aidan, 14, and soon-to-be 11-year-old Aerin – were all taken out of school in Los Angeles. Given the children have left their American lessons mid-term, it is not clear if they will be enrolled in local schools or tutored privately during their extended visit.

Glamour gone to the dogs

A few years back luxury glamour queen Tracy Baker, who previously ran public relations for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, would whip out a tape measure to ensure canapes were arranged exactly as dictated by the style overlords she so willingly served.

Now all that attention to detail and glamour has gone to the dogs ... literally.

In what must rank as one of Sydney’s ultimate COVID “pivots”, Baker has opened a luxury dog beauty parlour in Double Bay after teaming up with former banker turned dog walker, and one-time Gucci devotee, Simon Cary.

The pair have opened the doors to Fido and Fido House Of Dog, just a stone’s throw from celebrity hairdresser Joh Bailey’s eponymous temple of glamour and beauty for humans.

And with prices for a cut, wash and blow dry (including an ear clean) starting at $45, PS can only imagine just how envious some of Bailey’s clientele must be after shelling out hundreds on their own follicle upkeep.

Fido and Fido has its own puppy limo service to pick up and drop off the freshly coiffeured hounds, while hanging from the ceiling dangles a marvellous chandelier festooned with dog biscuits rather than crystals.

“I’m in the salon every day. While I’m not actually grooming the dogs, there is a highly trained team looking after the clients,” Baker informed PS, adding that her pet schnauzer, Miuccia “as in Prada”, was the salon’s “house model” and fast becoming a social media star on the Fido Instagram account.

“The luxury business has changed so much and so has PR; even before the pandemic it wasn’t the same as it once was. I wanted to be able to apply all the skills I had learned in that world to something new ... and it’s working, business is booming.”

Dream home dramas for shoe queen

Shoe queen Terry “The Biv” Biviano admits she is feeling anxious about whether or not her new walk-in wardrobe in Vaucluse will be big enough, but that’s not the reason why work on her and football legend husband Anthony Minichiello’s multimillion-dollar new home has been at a standstill for months.

Nearly four years after building began, neighbours inform PS the weed-strewn site remains dormant and looks the same as it did a year ago. However, Biviano explained work had come to a halt while approval was being sought for several design changes, including a new skylight.

“It all takes time, and we want to get it right. But that’s all been sorted out now and they can get back to it, I think we will be in by Christmas,” she told PS.