WHAT to do with a pair of boxer Mike Tyson’s jeans? That was the creative challenge “CityNews” cartoonist Paul Dorin faced recently as he picked his assignment for this year’s Jeans 4 Genes.

Paul has painted 23 pairs of celebrity jeans for the Children’s Medical Research Institute over two decades and the choice was his to select from celebs such as James Franco, Robert Duvall, Henry Winkler, William Shatner and Chris Pine.

“My wife was really keen to have Chris Pine’s jeans in the house, but we couldn’t go past knowing l would have fun painting the jeans of world champion boxers Mike Tyson with the bonus of having Evander Holyfield signing them as well,” he says.

“Ritually, when l first receive the jeans l get excited with a gazillion of creative ideas and I am always curious and hold the jeans up to myself for a comparison to their height and size.

“I sit on the jeans for about three weeks scribbling ideas down on paper.

“I spent about a week painting and cut the jeans down and used them for Tyson’s boxer shorts. I couldn’t get away from the idea of including something about the infamously referred ear-biting incident,‘The Bite Fight’. l will admit to doing a boxing dance around the easel a few times.

“I kept it pretty tame and included a set of chatter teeth on Iron Mike’s denim boxing shorts and a slight bite from Holyfield’s ear.

At last year’s gala auction Paul’s painting of Jonah Hill’s jeans sold for $9000, the third highest bid on the night.

The Jeans 4 Genes Gala Dinner will be held in Sydney on August 22.

Check those TransACT bills

MORE woes from the TransACT accounting upgrade:

1. “The invoice from TransACT, which claims I owe $800 but in fact, if you add it down, it is only about $15. When I rang, it was explained that it had to do with an amount they wrote off in 2009, which they seem to be trying to recover!” writes an astonished inner-south business owner.  “I hope the rest of their customers are checking their bills very thoroughly. This standard is just not acceptable.”

2. “Here’s a quick reminder about your invoice from TransACT”, writes Mat Conn, GM customer service, in an automated email to a loyal client whose account was still days from being due. “They are sending me a reminder to pay a bill that isn’t due until Thursday and which I rang up and queried last Friday! This is nuts,” she harrumphs.

ALTITUDE addict Rick Agnew, he of mountaineering fame, has piloted his glider to great heights recently via winds producing a phenomenon known as an atmospheric wave.

On a cold Saturday last month, the conditions allowed him to record the highest height gain for several years reaching well over 24,500ft, travelling from Bunyan (the near-Cooma home airfield of the Canberra Gliding Club), to Bredbo, Adaminaby and the Snowy Mountains, near to Perisher and Jindabyne, and back to Bunyan, via Cooma.

Rick says the atmospheric waves allow glider pilots to extend flights to potential heights above passing jet airliners and to travel considerable distances without engines.

Rick, best known as the first Canberran to achieve the famed Seven Summits status (climbing every mountain of the world’s seven continents, including Mt Everest), is the Australian glider altitude record holder at 33,000ft set in 1995 and has set the annual record 16 times over the last 19 years.

Just in time

KIRSTEN Paisley, from the Shepparton Art Museum, was announced as deputy director of the National Gallery of Australia on June 29. But it took the gallery a month – until July 29 – to include the news of such a senior appointment on its own website, a heartbeat ahead of her starting date on August 10.