David’s and Victoria’s Secrets Safe With Him

Christmas is a-comin’ and the butler’s getting cranky.

Small wonder if the butler in question is employed by David and Victoria Beckham, otherwise known as the Real Madrid soccer star and his former Spice Girl wife.

It seems the Beckhams’ former butler, John Giles-Larkin, quit earlier this month and, gosh, they just didn’t have anyone to unwrap all those presents when Christmas Day arrived.

Victoria Beckham put her foot down -- stamp it like Victoria? -- and her hubby bowed, agreeing to hire a highly recommended chap at a reported $1,800 a day to hover about on Dec. 25 and play Jeeves.

The new butler is supposed to spend four hours on Christmas morning, unwrapping the mountainous pile of gifts the Beckhams have bestowed on each other, their offspring and other relatives. The rest of the time he is charged with making sure all cellphones are turned off so the Beckham clan can enjoy an uninterrupted Christmas dinner.

P.G. Wodehouse would be so proud.

Trivia time: Of the 59 Division I-A football teams eligible for bowl games this season, only one was not invited. Which school was it?

Ride ‘em, cowboy: Boxing wasn’t the only game in town when Vitali Klitschko and Danny Williams punched it out in Las Vegas recently. The National Rodeo Finals also were in progress, and caught the eye of John Rawling.

“Just about every cowboy and wannabe cowboy in the West converged on the city to see who would be named champion bare-back rider, steer wrestler, calf roper and bull rider,” Rawling wrote in England’s Guardian newspaper. “It was not an occasion for animal rights activists.”

Takes a licking: The NBA has signed a licensing agreement for 30 of its players to appear on postage stamps in 50 countries, and Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times has a couple of questions.

“With the Vince Carter stamp, can you mail it in from Canada?” he asks, adding, “Who better to go postal than Ron Artest?”

A net gain: Scott Draper’s bad knee might force the former Australian Davis Cup player to give up tennis. But no worries, mate, he will just drop his rackets and pick up his golf clubs.

Draper, 30, plays to a plus-1 handicap and last week gained his playing card for the Australasian PGA tour for 2005.

“I still love tennis,” he said, “but it’s frustrating when your body won’t do what you want it to.”

Inflammatory: Comes word out of England that Manchester City midfielder Joey Barton, 22, has been fined six weeks’ pay, about $170,000, for poking a lighted cigar into the eye of teammate Jamie Tandy.

It happened during an argument at the soccer team’s Christmas party after Tandy, 20, who was not seriously injured, reportedly tried to set fire to Barton’s fancy dress costume.

Trivia answer: Akron.

And finally: “Sammy Sosa and his wife solemnized their marriage in a Catholic ceremony in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic,” noted Greg Cote of the Miami Herald. “Everything went smooth, except for the corked wedding cake.”