People: Bubble-heads clash with the eggheads

WHEN the ex-actor Ronald Reagan was president there wasn't half as much debate over Hollywood's influence on the White House. Now, with Bill Clinton accused of being star- struck, the 'airheads' of the West Coast and the 'eggheads' of the East Coast have been firing transcontinental barbs.

'The idea that these insulated and bubble-headed people should help make policy is ridiculous,' argued Leon Wieseltier, cultural editor of New Republic magazine, from the Right Coast. 'Actors are even more out of touch than elected politicians. In Hollywood, politics is another way of dressing and talking.' From the Left Coast, one film executive dismissed such sentiments as 'regional chauvinism' and cited Barbra Streisand: 'Here is a highly successful, dynamic business person . . . If she had achieved the American dream in the steel business she would be taken seriously.'

ONE Clinton aide clearly not star-struck is the Ragin' Cajun, James Carville. Addressing a group of Tinseltowners invited to a briefing, he told them he did not believe their affluent lives had equipped them to devise a plan to sell health-care to average, struggling Americans. A television producer, Gary Goldberg, stormed out of the meeting, saying Mr Carville had acted like 'Anthony Perkins playing Fidel Castro on acid'.

The Cajun was unrepentant, however. 'They started telling me how many degrees they had. Somebody blurted out, 'I have a PhD in communications from UCLA.' Well, wowee-kazowee]'

THE President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zaid bin Sultan al-Nahayan, has urged citizens to cut back on lavish weddings and house servants. Large dowry demands and costly wedding parties have pushed men to seek foreign wives, and the sheikh sees it all as contrary to Islamic traditions.

In Kuwait, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al- Sabah, is putting his money where his mouth is. He has vowed to dig into his own deep pockets to pay the cost of repatriating about 400 Filipina maids allegedly abused by their employers.

ITALY'S new driver's test is enough to drive a transport minister mad. Raffaele Costa took the written exam after receiving hundreds of complaints about trick questions. He got eight answers wrong, twice the number permitted.