People: Model bares soul to talk of love

THE knickerless Brazilian model who was photographed wearing only a T-shirt while kissing President Itamar Franco apologised for the scandal she unleashed but said she still dreamt of romance with the President.

'I can't deny it. Itamar is free and uncommitted,' Lilian Ramos said when asked whether she believed love might flourish between her and the 63-year-old divorced President. 'He's a sweety, a gentleman, an interesting person. I'm pleased we started this friendship. That is how big love affairs are born,' she said.

Ms Ramos, 27, was at the centre of a national scandal when newspapers published photographs of her wearing a thigh-length T-shirt with no knickers underneath, holding hands and exchanging kisses with Mr Franco during Rio's carnival parade.

Lingerie manufacturers have cashed in on the scandal with full-page newspaper advertisements recommending Ms Ramos buy their knickers.

Jeanne Calment entered in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest woman, celebrating her 119th birthday and attributing her longevity to a good sense of humour. Ms Calment, who lives in a retirement home in Arles, the south of France, gave up smoking two years ago and her only remaining vice is chocolates.

She not only survived two world wars but also a meeting in 1889 with Vincent Van Gogh, whom she remembers as 'ugly as sin, bad-tempered, a grumbler and smelling of alcohol'.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's first foray into semi-serious cinema is likely to be his last. Last Action Hero is almost certain to become the biggest box-office flop in Hollywood history. New Yorker magazine reports that the film had lost dollars 124,053,994 ( pounds 83,820,270) when it was pulled from theatres last September, and video sales are disappointing. Perhaps Arnie should make a disaster movie next.

Michael Jackson was booed by an audience of 11,000 people on Saturday when he declined to sing at a concert honouring his friend Elizabeth Taylor and Motown music mogul Berry Gordy.

Taylor, who is to undergo hip-replacement surgery next month, hobbled on stage and chided the booing audience, saying, 'That's not nice. Don't boo. That's an ugly sound . . . I know you'd like him to sing but he doesn't have any music prepared.'

The actress Meg Ryan rode in an open car through streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and led an audience through feigned orgasmic gasps before being presented with Harvard University's Hasty Pudding award. 'I'm flattered, I think,' said a radiant Ryan. 'Someday I hope somebody tells me exactly what I did to deserve this.'

To earn the traditional 'Pudding Pot' from Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals troupe, Ryan was handed a conductor's baton and led the audience through a re-enactment of a scene from her film When Harry Met Sally, in which she faked an orgasm in a crowded restaurant. 'The truth is I thought I forgot how to do that,' Ryan confessed after the audience responded enthusiastically, yelling: 'ooh, aah, yes]'