The Dalai Lama is to see French director Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet at his residence in northern India, since he lives in a town with no cinemas. Annaud said a screen would be installed in the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala. The movie, starring Brad Pitt, will open on Monday in Los Angeles.
Dick Morris, Bill Clinton's campaign guru until he was fired last year for consorting with a prostitute, has undergone another change. Born Jewish, he has decided to convert to Catholicism. "For much of this year, spirituality has come into my life," said Morris, who now works for political campaigns outside the US. "I know a lot of people may view it cynically, but it is a sincere and genuine fact of my life."
Rolf Harris has confessed that when making his hit, Sun Arise, he didn't play the didgeridoo. Nor did anyone else.
The record, which got to number three in 1962, first introduced the Aboriginal instrument to a European audience. But Harris couldn't play it, so he and arranger Johnny Spence and Beatles producer George Martin made up the sound in the studio.
British Home Secretary Jack Straw has insisted he did not smoke cannabis as a student. Straw, who declared his opposition to the legalisation of drugs at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton, said his views on drugs had remained consistent for 30 years.
Asked whether he had "had the odd puff" when a student at Leeds, he replied: "I didn't have the odd puff myself, no. There was very little of it around as it happens."