Retreat over combat balm
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday November 25, 2009
She is being dragged through the media mill courtesy of her footballer boyfriend, Greg Bird, who is appealing his conviction for recklessly wounding her. But Katie Milligan now finds herself caught up in what appears to be a marketing stunt organised by her cousin that is being strongly condemned by a leading domestic violence campaigner. A Washington skin-care specialist, Sara Damelio, has launched a "combat-ready" healing balm for abused women to coincide with this week's court case. Damelio said she created the balm Milligan used to help treat scarring following the attack by Bird last year. In a press release dated yesterday, Damelio offered people the chance to buy reduced-price jars of the organic balm to send to domestic violence crisis shelters in Australia. "The shelters [abused women] flee to are desperate for the most basic of items, including underwear and kitchen utensils. Providing them with Combat-Ready Balm is a practical way to help," she says in the release. Damelio conceded to The Diary the name was "strong" but said the balm had also been sent to US troops in Iraq, hence the name. "It also can be used in your beauty arsenal - it's a very healing balm," she said. Speaking outside Bird's court case yesterday, Milligan confirmed Damelio as her cousin but said she had nothing to do with the campaign. "I am unhappy with it to say the least," she said. "It's being taken care of [legally]." A NSW Domestic Violence Coalition convenor, Betty Green, said the idea was completely inappropriate. "Where do you start? If it's a joke it's a very sick joke," she said. Damelio later said references to Milligan in press material would be removed.PETER BUT NO PAULThe prospect of the former federal treasurer Peter Costello and the man who derided him as a "policy bum" following his appointment to the Future Fund board, the former prime minister Paul Keating, mingling in the same room flickered briefly to life ahead of the 25th anniversary celebrations for the Herald's Good Weekend magazine. Sadly, it was not to be. Costello accepted the job of guest speaker at last night's celebration dinner at Centennial Parklands Dining. However, Keating, one of those named by the magazine's expert panel as the top 25 people who changed Australia, was not present. But he did appear to be in good form in responding to the magazine's request that he participate in a group photo. "Mr Keating regards these group shots with bucket loads of fake bonhomie as naff in the extreme," his assistant Susan Grusovin wrote. "And with people, only some of whom, would he find any common cause. The fact that the Good Weekend has made up a list of 25, which he happens to be on, is a matter for the Good Weekend. It is not his matter."SIM GOVERNMENTHis predecessor as premier, Bob Carr, was often cynically derided as "Bob the Builder". Now Nathan Rees has found himself on the receiving end of Opposition cynicism about the Government's ability to match with actions its promises on fixing Sydney's housing and transport woes. Craig Baumann, the Liberal MP for Port Stephens, "presented" Rees with a copy of the community building computer game Sim City yesterday. In a press release, Baumann points out the point of the game is to build a city within budget. "To succeed, the player has to provide essential services like power, water, hospitals, roads and transport, manage population growth and all the while make the city as pleasant as possible for its citizens within the bounds of a realistic budget," Baumann noted, suggesting the Premier might not achieve a high score. "However, he's certainly mastered the art of virtual infrastructure," Baumann said.JOURNOS' HIGH JINKSTonight's press gallery Christmas party at State Parliament for politicians and staffers is expected to feature an entertaining "goof reel". It has captured some behind-the-scenes moments of the gallery - given the tragi-comedic state of NSW politics over the past 12 months. It will also be a big night out for Adam Walters, the one-time television reporter and former beau of the former health minister Reba Meagher. Walters has been named the new state political editor at The Daily Telegraph, replacing the long-serving Simon Benson, who is off to the Canberra bureau.GOT A TIP?Contact diary@smh.com.au. 0r 9282 2179."When it comes to whistling in the dark, I can see a lot of those arise from the ranks of those opposite." The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, taking a dig at the Opposition after a group of about 20 climate change protesters interrupted question time atParliament House.WHAT€™S ON TODAY Sports Performer of the Year Awards gala night at Star City. White Ribbon Day. The Australian Bureau of Statistics to publish data on causes of deaths last year. The haj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, begins.STAY IN TOUCH...WITH PINK STARWINETHE US singer Pink, pictured, has reportedly announced her intentions to bypass the grand celebrity tradition of putting her name to a bottle of perfume for something with a more palatable alcohol content - wine. Britain's Daily Mirror went almost as far as offering up the iron-clad assurance the singer will be harvesting the grapes herself when it quoted a "pal", who confirmed: "It'd be much more rock'n'roll to have your own bottles of booze than perfume." Sure, but that could also be the sour grapes talking. Victoria's Secret appears to have already cornered the fragrant market between "red" and "white" with its very unrock Pink perfume marketed as a "floral green fragrance for women". The wine idea gets no points for originality, either. A musical act of a similarly pigmented persuasion, Pink Floyd, put their name to a bottle of Provence rose made from cinsault and grenache grapes from the Miraval region after the band recorded part of The Wall in the area in the 1970s. Another winemaker, Wines That Rock, has since also gone on to release a The Dark Side of the Moon Cabernet Sauvignon, part of what they have declared a "new category of wine". But fellow performer Sting could offer up perhaps a now somewhat disheartened Pink some tips on secondary fermentation and the bulk ageing process. About 30,000 bottles of his wine, grown on his 300-hectare estate in Tuscany, went on sale in September.The estate's manager, Paolo Rossi, told The Times the dry Italian red amounted to "rock music wine" with "a bit of swing and a bit of international pop thanks to the addition of cabernet and merlot grapes".WITH BONO AND GLASTOU2 have been confirmed as the headliners of next year's Glastonbury Festival.The Irish rockers will make their first appearance at the event's Pyramid stage on its opening night, June 25, coinciding with the festival's 40th anniversary.The festival's organiser, Michael Eavis, said it was a case of a 26-year-old rumour finally coming true."We've been trying for years ... and now we've finally made it happen. I'm sure they will pull out all the stops to make next year's Glastonbury the most memorable ever," he said.U2 will fly in to perform at the festival midway through their North American tour. Bono told BBC Radio this year that the band were sure they would get to Glastonbury eventually."It's something we're working up our whole life to do," he said.No other headliners have been confirmed for the three-day festival, but it has already sold out.A BIG DAY FOR JULIA GILLARDThe Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, appears in a striking photo spread of the December edition of The Australian Women's Weekly. She is among the prominent men and women who were asked to talk about their "favourite Christmas moments". Gillard recalls visiting her birthplace, South Wales, when she was 17. "It was the Christmas of 1978 and it was the first time I'd ever seen snow ... It was bitterly, bitterly cold and my grandmother had an outside toilet!"
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald