All power and Gloria on party cruise for Alan Jones
Three weeks after retiring from radio, broadcaster Alan Jones shows no sign of putting a stop to the celebrations, spotted in high spirits on board the private yacht of the man once dubbed “celebrity accountant”, Anthony Bell, during a cruise of Sydney Harbour.
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Three weeks after retiring from radio, broadcaster Alan Jones shows no sign of putting a stop to the celebrations.
On Friday Jones was in high spirits on board the private yacht of the man once dubbed “celebrity accountant”, Anthony Bell, during a cruise of Sydney Harbour.
Five weeks after announcing he was closing the book on his 35-year radio career, Jones apparently still has people to thank for his success - this despite spending his last two weeks on air at 2GB doing just that.
On Friday, 50 of Jones’s closest friends converged on Bell’s boat Ghost II to raise a glass and listen to Laura Branigan’s hit Gloria, Jones’s theme song, be played several more times.
The party kicked off at Rose Bay Marina at noon, wrapping at around 4.30pm for most, though not all, guests.
A small group – including cricketers Shane Watson and Brett Lee, league player Craig Wing and his new wife Johanna, and Jones’s loyal assistant and protégé Jake Thrupp – partied on into the evening along with 79-year-old Jones and his niece Tonia Taylor, her husband Justin, and their children.
Among those clambering onboard the cruiser on a picture-perfect Sydney day was former prime minister Tony Abbott, Jones’s co-presenter at Sky News and Abbott’s former chief of staff Peta Credlin, Sony Music boss Denis Handlin, ex Sydney Olympics boss Rod McGeoch, former One Nation leader Mark Latham, Sydney silk Margaret Cunneen SC (who Jones supported during an ICAC investigation), developer John Baxter, jeweller Nic Cerrone and Wallaby Kurtley Beale.
Five of Jones’s former 2GB radio producers were among the group – Paul Christenson, Dan Mullins, James Willis, Tim Barton and Thrupp – although notably not one member of the 2GB executive.
The speeches were generous and long.
Bell kicked off proceedings before throwing to Abbott, who handed the microphone to Handlin, who passed it to singer Mark Vincent who sang a couple of tunes including Time To Say Goodbye (made famous by Andrea Boccelli), before Credlin addressed the poop deck, and then passed the mic to Cunneen.
One of Bell’s best friends, onetime TV presenter Laura Csortan, looked thrilled to have been invited.