When both ends are the scoring end

ONE wonders how many hobbling footbrawlers in the Old Xaverians footy club plunged their hard-earned into Timbercorp, the investment disaster chaired by financial guru Chris Garnaut (pictured). Garnaut did, and still does, hang his shingle on the Old Xavs website as a proud sponsor of those hairy old jockstrappers and, we are told, was happy to offer his scintillating fiscal knowledge to the alumni. But Timbercorp is now Timbercorpse, a body being embalmed by company doctors Korda Mentha, which nutted out Monday's historic bee deal - 1.6 billion of the little critters are to be released to pollinate 12,000 hectares of Timbercorpse almond trees.

However, here's the beauty of it: Korda Mentha is also a sponsor of the Old Xavs footy team, with a shingle on the same website. "Assisting businesses facing challenging financial and performance issues" is their slogan - so what one Old Xav boy loses on the swings, another Old Xav gains on the roundabouts. It's what they call in business "a nice fit", almost as nice as the property trade Garnaut is hoping to pull off in Kooyong Road. As reported last weekend, Chateau Garnaut is on the market for $8 million - while the new digs in St Kilda Road are costing him a trifling $3.3 million. Perhaps Chris could cough up a bit of the surplus and sponsor the oranges at three-quarter time.

Bucking up

DIARY notes that the appalling punster at Henry Bucks is still on the job, taking his pen to the winter sale brochure in the same excruciating way he did last year. "Polo shirts are being "chukka'd out" at $75; classic trousers are "cord napping" at $145; jeans are "around our ankles" at $155; and as for sports jackets, "out Hugo" at $595. What's that saying about the lowest form of wit?

Published weakly

WHICH mag has the deadline advantage: a weekly or a monthly? Not what you would expect, judging by the way that publishing misnomer, the monthly Women's Weekly, had Julie Goodwin - winner of MasterChef on Sunday - all bundled up in yesterday's new edition. She's their new star columnist. Meanwhile, this week's Woman's Day has made do with a spongey cover story about "Julie's Meltdown" (without actually saying she'd won) and No Idea hedged its bets by featuring three finalists on the cover. Trouble is, none of them is Julie.

Hard covers

HEADLINE on Page 10 of Murdoch's national broadsheet yesterday: "Cousins guilty of ethnic cleansing." (Jeepers, Ben, we thought you were going to stay out of trouble.) Meanwhile, at the same publication, national arts scribe Corrie Perkin, daughter of the late Age editor Graham and sister of the Hun's In Black and White columnist Steve, is leaving to open a bookshop in Hawksburn in October, continuing a family retailing tradition (Perkin's mother came from a grocery clan and father Graham from the bakery trade). Meantime, the Oz has been rocked by a palace coup, former Time Australia mag editor Steve Waterson dethroning the weekend magazine editor Helen Trinca, who will now write editorial leaders. Perhaps a thundering piece on job security would be in order.

Hastening slowly

THINK of all the things that have happened since September 30 last year: Melbourne Cup, Christmas, grand prix, the February bushfires, swine flu, Malcolm and Godwin's email. Through all of that and more, the Victorian Department of Transport's legal team has been mulling over a freedom of information request from Age transport scribe Clay Lucas, asking about a trip to Europe last year by the department's secretary, former punk rocker and communist Jim Betts. It has been 295 days so far, but no luck despite the FOI Act 1982 requiring a response within a "period of 45 days". They must be running on Connex time.

Dicky's flat out

"HE'S lying face down in the back of my car at the moment," John Blackman told Diary yesterday when we asked how his little mate Dicky Knee was faring. "I take him out every now and then. He likes the trip down to the National Golf Club." Occasionally, Blackman lets his mates drive and Dicky, the head on a stick from the long-running Hey Hey It's Saturday TV show (see ancient publicity shot below), does a routine from the back seat. Blackman and fellow Hey-Hey alumnus Wilbur Wilde are teaming up on Thursday night next week to host a Celebrity Trivia Night at the Kinisi Live club in Richmond, raising money for Support Act. That's a fund to help stage folk who fall on hard times. Tickets 5982 3711.