The weather was simply divine in Sydney on Sunday afternoon, sunny but brisk. Not the sort of day to be spending inside St Mary’s Cathedral listening to an organ recital – or later drinking fine French champagne, good beer and eating exquisite finger food at the Quay Central. But around 100 people braved the bracing Sydney afternoon. The occasion: the 70th birthday of Geoff Harvey, former music boss of the Nine Network and, most notably, its Midday program.

It’s become something of a tradition for Harvey to celebrate a major birthday with a recital and then good food and wine amongst friends. Harvey rattled off a number of musical numbers at the Cathedral: four or fives pieces by Bach (including the Toccata in C), the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony, as well as some joke pieces.

The occasion was notable for the cast of heavyweights who fronted. Ros Packer, wife of Kerry, and Sam Chisholm and wife Sue were there, Ray Martin made a speech, as did Gerald Stone, former boss of 60 Minutes and now an SBS board member. He described Harvey as a “young man,” being around four years older himself. Mike Williams, a former warm-up man for Midday also spoke, following Martin. Penny Spence, Harvey’s first wife was also present, as was Vicki Jones, Nine’s stylist, who also spoke.

But there were two other quite notable speakers. Glenn Pallister, formerly a cameraman with Midday who went on to The Footy Show in Sydney, and ended up as an executive in charge of light entertainment on the third floor, before falling victim to the first round of Chisholm’s purges at the end of June.

He was some ten metres away from Chisholm as he spoke, no doubt remembering the rather flint-hearted manner in which Chisholm sacked him. The other notable, who surprised a number of people by his appearance, was Trevor Kennedy, the former CEO of PBL and a man keeping a very low profile after all those Swiss banking account and share trading deal claims made by the late Rene Rivkin.

Ray Martin showed no signs of any worries after reports surfaced in the Annette Sharp gossip column in the Sydney Sun-Herald that he was facing replacement by Tracy Grimshaw. The story (or “tale”) followed a claim a week earlier that Grimshaw was all glum at the prospect of losing her gig fronting the Today Show, should Nine bite the bullet and hire Ms Congeniality, Juanita Phillips, the still-contracted ABC Newsreader in Sydney.

The claim by Sharp that Grimshaw was going to replace Martin had all the hallmarks of a suck job and make-up fable after two solid whacks at Grimshaw the week before and a fortnight earlier.