The star of the latest Bond movie might not turn out to be Pierce Brosnan but his multipurpose mobile phone. Erics son has paid the makers of Tomorrow Never Dies an undisclosed sum and is spending £2 million to promote the special agent's gadget in Britain. Moviegoers will see Bond's mobile phone knock out villains with its sonic beam, drive a BMW, blast open safes and keep tabs on enemy aircraft with radar. Ericsson hopes the phone will become a style icon such as the famous Aston Martin DB5.
Nicholas Park shared the limelight at Buckingham Palace yesterday with Wallace and Gromit's milkman. James Shorrock (91), a milkman for a record 82 years, used to deliver to Park's family home in Lancashire. The two men met at the palace when Park was made a CBE and Shorrock an MBE.
Emmerdale is to have its first Christmas Day special this year. Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost, starring Ian Richardson, Pauline Quirke and Rik Mayall, heads ITV's drama highlights, while former Heartbeat star Nick Berry is playing in Black Velvet Band, a South African adventure set in the 1880s and to be screened over Christmas and the new year.
An American heiress has been accused of murdering an Argentinian polo player who became her lover while playing for her team. Susan Cummings (35), is the daughter of an international arms merchant, Sam Cummings. ,
Prosecutors claim she shot Roberto Villegas (38) four times while he sat at the kitchen table. The defence maintains she fired in self defence as Villegas came toward her brandishing a knife.
Sir Chris Bonington yesterday called for a national park to be created across southern England. He believes the South Downs should be given the special status to celebrate the millennium.
The Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas - an icon with a chequered past - is to be blown up to make way for a newer, bigger £750 million resort complex. Linked in its early years to mob figures, the Aladdin is where Elvis and Priscilla Presley were married in 1967.
Emmylou Harris, Mariah Carey, Sinead O'Connor and Boyz II Men are to perform at a concert in Oslo next month in honour of 1997 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams and the anti-landmine organisation she heads. The concert will be held the day after the prize is presented to Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the anniversary of the death of Nobel prize creator Alfred Nobel.