Life's tough as a former foreign minister.
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Just days after holding court for the ACCI's General Council dinner at the Opera House, Bob Carr was seen slumming it Wednesday morning in one of Dante's circles of hell – otherwise known as business class on a Cathay flight to Hong Kong.
Thanks to his recent tome, Diary of a Foreign Minister, we know exactly what the former NSW minister thinks of cattle-class travel.
"Business class. No edible food. No airline pyjamas. I lie in my tailored suit," read one snippet.
"Eating plastic – no ceramic – food, passengers lying in cribs, packed in business class, a design that owes a lot to the trans-Atlantic slave trade ..."
Mind you, even first class did not always prove to be up to scratch for our former foreign minster for one-legged Romanian deadlifts.
His book included a letter from Singapore Airlines concerning the quality of its in-flight entertainment.
"Please accept my sincere apology if any part of our First Class in-flight offering fell below your expectations," the official wrote.
"Specifically, I have taken note of the lack of English subtitles for the Wagner opera Siegfried."
On a Downer
Carr's equally humble predecessor, Alexander Downer, seems to be having a whale of a time as our high commissioner to Britain
He revisited his alma mater, Newcastle University.
"I remember having a great time in the bars in Newcastle," he told one of the local rags.
"There were the bars here in the university and down by the Quayside. I had a great time."
Rubbish dumped
Should Vocation's hapless investors read anything into the fact that their new CEO, Stewart Cummins, only recently parachuted in from the waste management industry?
Cummins officially takes over from current wunderkind Mark Hutchinson in May, but one would hope that all the garbage in this IPO embarrassment has already been dumped on the curb.
Not that Hutchinson has not done some fine work in recent months.
"In the past four months Vocation has overhauled its quality and compliance processes and it now has a viable ongoing business," said Hutchinson.
It's a pity investors did not pay $1.89 a share for a viable ongoing business when it listed in December 2013.
That might have saved a fortune in tax losses with the stock hitting a low of 7.2¢ this month.
The IPO will take pride of place on the CV of Vocation's former chairman – the Hawke-Keating-era minister known as the father of our modern university system, John Dawkins.
Saville's Orbit
ERG, the transport ticketing provider that couldn't tame Sydney's transport system, must have worked out well for its current owner, Duncan Saville.
He has now decided to tackle another Perth-based technology straggler: Orbital Corp.
It was the internal combustion engine, invented by Perth inventor Ralph Sarich in the 1970s, that was going to change the world of motoring – if it weren't for all those minor technical issues that have got in its way ever since.
Saville's Utilico Investments has owned up to a substantial stake in Orbital, which has performed so well over the years that investors probably wish they had taken Sarich's lead when he left for a career in real estate.
Putin it on
Australian spirits will be rocked by the news that Russian President Vladimir Putin has won back the rights to the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya vodka brands on behalf of his countrymen, after fighting businessman Yuri Shefler in Dutch courts for more than a decade.
The legal battle stretched across the globe to every country where Shefler distributed his vodka, including Australia.
Russia claimed the Stolichnaya trademarks were stolen from the state-owned monopoly exporter during the turmoil of its shift to a market economy, by its then boss, Evegeniy Sorochkin.
It claimed Mr Sorochkin forged documents allowing him to transfer the Stolichnaya trademarks away from the government and into a new company with a similar name.
Schefler then bought the company that held the trademark a few years later.
Quiet Brooke
Speaking of parachutes, former Myer boss Bernie Brookes is probably enjoying some quiet time behind the scenes at the department store operator he ran until a few weeks ago.
He is helping with the handover for another month or so, but leaving quibbling issues such as last week's profit downgrade, and this week's lawsuit, to the new talent led by his replacement, Richard Umbers.
Got a tip? ckruger@fairfaxmedia.com.au
