THE DIARY
Pass go ... backstage at the show. Photo: Wolter Peeters
WANT to dress like Mayfair or Park Lane? You could look like a house, a hotel or maybe convict black and white stripes would better suit the tenor of the times. Ten students from the Whitehouse Institute of Design unveiled new collections based on the board game Monopoly in Sydney on Monday night. The Monopoly licensees released a Sydney version of the game last month, but the Whitehouse students resolutely stuck with London properties. They were given carte blanche with Monopoly's iconography, logos, fonts, colours, money, tokens, houses, hotels, property, chance and community chest cards, to base their collections. All had a wealth of childhood Monopoly memories to draw from and their interpretations ranged from city slick, dress for success collections to urban street savvy day wear, while others exuded the elegance of the older times. Anthony Heggie used the silhouette of Mr Monopoly in his design. Emma Jacobs's collection was influenced by "black humour and paradoxes" as she adapted and reinterpreted key aspects in the game, such as Monopoly money and the "Don't pass go'' darkness of the jail. Keith Kho was inspired by one of the original game tokens, the iron. The students are vying with young designers from Melbourne for prizes of $2000.
JUMPING OFF THE CAMPBELL SHIP
In the oxymoron that is Queensland politics, the proximity of absolute power is showing a tendency to corrode. Despite a gargantuan majority, Premier Campbell Newman's government is displaying all the comic timing that surrounded the last days of power 25 years ago of Joh Bjelke-Petersen. A former butcher and licensed dogger, Ray Hopper, a Liberal National Party MP, has defected to Bob Katter's Australia Party. He claims another eight MPs are waiting to jump ship. Bush-based MPs are copping searing heat from constituents as Newman remorselessly cuts government programs. One government backbencher, Alex Douglas, went public yesterday saying he'd seen ''extreme'' behaviour by the leadership. Mind you, he's Bob Katter's nephew and let's not forget that the prat in the hat was a member of Bjelke-Petersen's National Party government himself. Meanwhile, with a maelstrom of stupidity engulfing Queensland politics, the Jenny Craig of the state's mining industry, Clive Palmer, not content with having been suspended from the Liberal National Party, reinstated and then resigning last week, has demanded that Campbell depart. ''He's destroying the state because that's what he wants to do - he thinks it's a council and he's the mayor and he can be the dictator and everyone can live in fear," Palmer said. Talk about the Titanic.
FAT FALL-OUT
Former Biggest Loser host Ajay Rochester has hit out at the reality weight loss show, accusing producers of allegedly faking weigh-ins and promoting dangerous weight-loss practices. In a posting on her blog findingmymojo.com, Los Angeles-based Rochester hit back at season one Biggest Loser winner Adro Sarnelli for comments he had made about Rochester, pictured, apparently calling her ''massive'' on Facebook (in a post that has since been deleted). Under the headline: ''It's time to cut the crap!'', which paraphrases a Biggest Loser tagline ''It's time to cut the fat!'', Rochester calls Sarnelli's recent online comments (since deleted) ''disgusting, pathetic and sad''. As her tirade continued, she claimed the show's producers allegedly allowed him to weigh in ''behind closed doors and a few days before filming so contestants had time to recover and look healthy'', and said that another contestant allegedly ''drank bottles and bottles of tea tree oil'' to lose weight. She summed up: ''I would much rather have a large arse than a small mind like yours!'' Both Network Ten and Fremantle Media, who produced The Biggest Loser at the time of Sarnelli's win, have refused to comment. Sarnelli himself, however, took to Facebook to have his say in a long response which defended his time on the show and invited Rochester to contact him personally if she had anything further to say. ''With the finale, I got there because I pushed my body to its absolute limits, it was a game show and I was in it to win it … I owned my body and made it win,'' he says. ''This is my right to reply, I am not looking to continue arguing the point unless it's with you personally, Ajay.''
MOGUL FETED
One of the most powerful men in India, Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, is to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of NSW. With Australian universities chasing student enrolments from India, it is good business sense to honour the great and good of a client country. And in India, they do not come much greater than the Tata family. The dynasty's business links go back to 1868 when it started as a private trading firm in British colonial India. Today it is the subcontinent's biggest corporation with interests across the world including steel making, trains, cars and planes, chemicals, education, insurance and Tetley Tea. The UNSW honorary doctor of business is in recognition of Tata's eminent service to the global community and is presented on the eve of his retirement. Following today's ceremony, he will take part in the Wallace Wurth Dialogue with UNSW chancellor David Gonski and vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer.
STAY IN TOUCH ...
WITH SIGNED COFFEE MACHINES
WHEN Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli brought his sunglasses to the Melbourne Cup, he was busy chatting up ladies and autographing Lavazza's A Modo Mio coffee machine. Other guests also left their hand scrawl on other machines for the ''Greater Good'' charity initiative and now they will be auctioned on eBay from December 3. People wanting a touch of celebrity with their morning coffee can bid for machines signed by soccer champ Alessandro del Piero, actor Mena Suvari, actor Sharni Vinson, chef Ainsley Harriott, racing royalty Emma Freedman, David Jones model Samantha Harris. Another signee is Real Housewives of Beverly Hills socialite Taylor Armstrong, a woman whose wide, pumped-up lips would struggle to sip from a weeny coffee cup. All proceeds will go to Vision Australian and the National Breast Cancer Foundation, a pleasing outcome for Lavazza's business manager, Trent Knox, a man full of beans.
GOT A TIP?
Contact diary@smh.com.au or 92821797
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