MR Transact, the relentless Ivan Slavich, is to leave full-time work with the now Perth-owned telco at the end of May to strike out on his own as a consultant.

He has created Trident Business Services, which will operate from the Barton offices of accounting firm Joyce Dickson, from August.

As MD, Slavich was the very public face of the former Actew-AGL subsidiary’s brand for five years until the business was acquired by iiNet 17 months ago. Since then, the cost-conscious sandgropers have chopped and changed Transact, including dismantling local jobs and moving the largely staffless Slavich to a sales and relationship role with government accounts.

Pushed or jumped, Ivan? “Definitely not pushed”, he says. It was “a mutual thing” now that Transact is fully integrated with iiNet.

He’s keeping a finger in the telco pie as non-executive chairman (and only local face) of the Transact board of three other distant iiNet executives.

Going for a song

CANBERRA Centre marketing manager Tero Blinnikka and his partner are cheerfully off to watch the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden, next month as the result of losing a bet!

Keen Eurovision watchers (125 million TV viewers can’t be wrong), last year they disagreed with a Swedish friend that his country would win the contest, but agreed that if it did they would go to Malmö for the next event. Sweden won.

Right place, right time

LOCAL rapper and poet Omar Musa was in SA for the Adelaide launch of his second book “Parang” and, while loitering with not much intent at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival launch, was commissioned on the spot by artistic director Kate Ceberano for a gig at next year’s festival.

Foulkes flies off

SINCE 1990 Alan Foulkes has been the imperturbable “face” of  the Canberra Theatre Centre, heading up its front of house come rain, hail or shine,  for 23 years. Until March 28, that is, when he astonished everyone by retiring. Foulkes is known as a fastidious consumer of fine art and music, so has chosen New York for some R&R before returning to the ACT to consider his next move. “Alan left on friendly terms with the theatre for personal reasons,” a theatre flak cooed.

Len’s grey matter

ENERGETIC octogenarians Len and Joyce Goodman celebrated their collective 160th birthday the other day with three cakes (a pretty one for Joyce, a tennis theme for Len and a thoughtful gluten-free one) at a family soiree at home in Flynn.

The party date was exactly midway between the six months that separate their birthdays. Irrepressible Len, who turned 80 in late December, told the gathering he’s always been seen as Joyce’s “old coot” having started turning grey in his early twenties!

Corkage watch

Judi Pearce writes: “What about $15 a bottle at Artisan in Narrabundah!” and fellow reader Jack Kirkup bemoans that Flavours of India, Gungahlin, charges $4 per stubby of beer.

“Being charged $16 for four beers out of a six-pack of stubbies, which we bought for $15 seems slightly unreasonable,” he politely grumbles.

CC welcomes feedback about excessive BYO charges. Email confidential@citynews.com.au

The runway has landed!

THE runway seems to have landed for Canberra’s much-anticipated upcoming fashion festival, Fashfest. New “CityNews” snapper Brent McDonald got a look at the exclusive location at the modern-industrial space, still under construction at 3 Molonglo Drive, Brindabella Park. The unfinished space will ultimately be used as five-star accommodation, but for next month at least, it will be transformed – and construction will halt – for the

four-night red-carpet fashion extravaganza, with a runway, bar, massive screen and special lighting.

Things that make you go hmmm

TONY Nesci, of innovative Civic barbershop Martinos, tells CC his new in-house therapist is doing more facials on men than she did in her previous women’s salon. “Male beauty is booming,” he beams.

THE Rotary Club of Queanbeyan may have set a world record with its recent “save the date” alert for its World Polio Day Dinner at Turquoise Turkish Restaurant. They urge an early response (qbnrotary@gmail.com) to avoid disappointment for the banquet from 6.30pm, on Wednesday, October 23!

FARMER’S Daughter, the trendy little coffee shop that’s just expanded into the defunct newsagent space at the Yarralumla shops, is apparently also heading for a presence in the Canberra Centre.

FRIES with that… Organisers of the second annual, ginormous Ronald McDonald House charity ball at the Convention Centre managed to separate more than $340,000 (and rising) from the pockets of enthusiastic gala goers to cover a big slice of the annual costs of running the hospital-based hostel for out-of-town parents of sick children.