WHAT TONGUE-LOLLINGLY gobpunching reminiscences surrounded the glorious state funeral of Kerry Packer last weekend!

Among generous recollections by sportsmen, observing that Kerry Packer had given large tips to waitresses and contributed as much as 0.00000000000000000000001% of his income to charity, the Prime Minister declared Kerry "had a deep love and affection for what he regarded as the average Australian". Which is why we average Australians were delighted to return such great favour by paying for his funeral. Wahay!

And we had to. Mr PACKER certainly couldn't have afforded a state funeral… because he never paid taxes! Like his business ventures in life, this one in death was a fair deal that evened out for all concerned.

On top of that, his generosity. Packer was a great keeper of secrets when it came to the extent of his own generosity. It's no secret that his generosity was extremely secret. Indeed, he is publicly known for never making his donations publicly known.

What you REALLY don't know about him though is that he was not merely Packer the philanthropist, Packer the sports fan, Packer the businessman, Packer the family man and Packer the organ transplant aficionado… he was also Packer the great Victorian novelist.

His last great secret is this unfinished manuscript. It's a mere tantalising fragment of a much larger planned work of breathtaking literary genius. As befits his greatness, Packer wrote it in the grandiloquent style of the mid-nineteenth century.

Some say it is a subtly disguised autobiography – you may decide.

The Devilishly Handsome Businessman
A Possibly Autobiographical Novel by Kerry Packer

Along the Sydney streets, the limousines rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrels – one for the man himself, the others for his various internal organs kept in portable refrigeration – bear the mighty weight of the magnificent and munificent Mr Derry Backer, Esq, to the fixed and unchangeable stillness of the office of Consolidated Press Holdings. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters since imagination could record itself are terrified in the one realisation, that Mr Backer's philanthropy held no equal in this or any more distant world.

There is not in Australia, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this man's perfection. Perfection… except for his internal organs, which were delicately indisposed, being under the nervous strain of constantly maintaining their owner's selfless generosity.

Six limousines roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of philanthropic saints, men for whom it wasn't really their fault that they accidentally recruited South African cricketers immediately after the Soweto riots; and who in all likelihood did perhaps pay appropriate taxes; and who ended up being worth $6.5 billion – as any kind, well-natured fellow worthy of state funerals would.

As the sombre wheels of the six limousines go round, they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Mr Backer, discreetly and so no person would ever know it had taken place, reaches out the window and offers a large tip to a passing waitress. Slobbering gratitude and quite overpowered by the man's bounteousness, and acknowledging the pain the loss of so large a financial sum must have caused him, she whirls gleefully away along the pavement. So used are the regular inhabitants of the nearby offices to the spectacle of Mr Backer's secret generosity, they simply ignore it.

"It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done," says Mr Backer. He has spoken this selfsame sentiment many times during his pious life – upon the opening of the Perisher Valley Express Quadruple Chairlift; upon his axing of Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos; upon the time when he selflessly and secretly plastered Channel Nine logos all over the Farmhand appeal; and upon five or six other occasions when he gave large tips to waitresses.

A man who is foremost of just judges and honoured men, a man so exquisite in his…

[Manuscript trails off as its author's organs collapse.]

Next week… the unfinished novel of the only slightly less philanthropic Pope John Paul II!