Saintly soap

AFTER the big announcement from the Vatican, Strewth was anxious to learn what was available in the world of Mary MacKillop souvenirs.

AFTER the big announcement from the Vatican, Strewth was anxious to learn what was available in the world of Mary MacKillop souvenirs. We popped over to www.marymackillopplace.org.au - that's the website of the Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel - and discovered a surprisingly diverse range of material ways in which to celebrate this spiritual moment, not least Mary MacKillop soap-in-a-bag, possibly an interpretation of that injunction about cleanliness and godliness . There are also Mary Mac coathangers, aprons, cushion covers, pincushions (stigmata reference, perhaps?), along with keyrings, pens, greeting cards and candles. We're not so sure the Mary Mac tissue packs are the best idea, even if they would lend a post-sneeze "Bless you" that much extra weight.

Inside info

WHILE the trade in saintly coathangers proceeds apace, our ambassador to the Holy See is focusing on the plonk. Back in September, Tim Fischer, for his forthcoming first Australia Day function in Rome, took a punt and selected South Australia's Penola and the adjoining Coonawarra wine region as rotating feature town and region. It was at Penola that MacKillop established her first school in 1866. DiGiorgio Family Wines and Zema Estate from the Coonawarra, both with Italian connections, immediately stepped up and donated the wine, which is now en route to the Australian embassy at the Holy See. Or in other words, party at Tim's place! As Fischer told Strewth yesterday, "Once a trade minister, always a trade minister." In the meantime, we enjoyed an accidental juxtaposition in Sydney's Sunday Telegraph, where a half-page picture of Mary Mac's face was pressed up against an almost equally large but unrelated headline on the opposite page: "Now we can pay her off".

Missing in action

ONE of Strewth's undercover scientists in the field was amused to tell us about the Christmas party thrown in Sydney by the NSW Forensic Dental Unit. Apparently, the only people who didn't show up were members of . . . small drum roll, please . . . the police missing persons unit. Our Deep Throat boffin assures us the missing persons unit has a solid track record in not finding its way to Christmas parties. Sounds as if it may actually be a tradition.

Playing penalties

IF you're looking forward to that extra Boxing Day public holiday designed to make up for the fact that the Boxing Day falls on a Saturday this year, don't imagine the Victorian Employers' Chamber of Commerce and Industry shares your enthusiasm. VECCI is deeply grumpy that penalty rates will now have to be paid on two days. "VECCI has vigorously argued against this change," quoth a spokesperson. Should employers be toiling this time next week, we're sure they'll lead by example and pay themselves non-penalty rates.

Writer's block

LIKE butchers who reveal what really goes into sausages, there are few ways a writer can dismay their readers more than by giving too much of a glimpse into the writing process. So we thought it brave of The Good Weekend's Maggie Alderson to commence thus: "December 25 is looming, and that can only mean one thing: panic stations! Very unusually for me, I have been staring at this screen for a while wondering what on earth to write. This doesn't happen very often because there is always some little thing I urgently need to vent, moan, rant or rave about. So I've been sitting here at a loss trying to figure out why my brain suddenly feels like the Empty Quarter - and finally the reason has become clear. It's the date." Except, as she goes on to admit, she was writing the piece in November. Still, our sense of panic - and Alderson's - was clearly premature, given the bittersweet treasures that empty screen eventually yielded, such as: "I will also be cursing myself for failing to make it to New York's Metropolitan Museum gift shop this year, in a month when they had their tree ornaments on sale."

Moving on

ANOTHER writer to cause a mild sense of deflation over the weekend was prominent Liberal backbencher Malcolm Turnbull, who got busy updating his previously troublemaking blog. Would there be a repeat of the hand grenades lobbed at Tony Abbott and his emissions trading scheme non-supporting colleagues? Sadly, no; Mal hosed down expectations with the words, "Without going over ground covered in previous blogs . . ."

Puntastic

IF you're going to make a pun, make one that not only entertains but educates, such as this effort from Fark.com that teaches the reader something about history and the periodic table at the same time: "King Henry II's mistress may have died from consuming too much gold. That's Auful." (That's enough - Ed.)

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