cries & whispers

More Jerry Maguire fallout. Last week I mentioned all the effing and blinding. And you may remember Dennis Lim, my colleague on our American Graffiti column, reporting that the film-makers were in trouble for featuring the line "Fuck Reebok!". Legal proceedings continue, as the shoe company had bunged the film-makers some dough for a positive reference and this wasn't exactly what they had in mind. This row has now affected a sweet little British movie which was counting on some lucre from the Lancashire-based Reebok. Wartime Wanderers, the story of the plucky Bolton football team who enlisted en masse in WWII, has been cold-shouldered by the trainer-touters after the Jerry Maguire debacle. "They have left the option open of doing something with the film," says a spokesman for the project, "but sadly it won't be the sum of money we were hoping for." Financial pressures on the film are all the more intense since the crew has got to get into Burnden Park for shooting before October, when the legendary Bolton ground is due for demolition. Stars lined up for the production include Sean Maguire, Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet, and Aled Jones (piping the theme tune: "We're walking on the pitch ... "?)

Cor, strike a lite, he's at it again. Nige Kennedy - sorry, that's Doctor Nigel Kennedy to you - plays at London's Royal Festival Hall on 10 April (tickets pounds 8-pounds 30) in a "celebrity recital", doncha know. On the bill is Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone From the Sun", "In 1983 a Merman I Would Be" and "Little Wing". (Mem from Dillie to subs: are these song titles? Get someone really old to check). "Hendrix's music," opines Nige, "shows an amazing musical mind putting idiomatic references into interesting new structures ... my approach to Jimi's music for these concerts is a chamber/acoustic one, with my acoustic string trio obviously aiming for more intimate areas than the standard power trio." Well, obviously. Oh, and there'll be a bit of Bach and Bartok on the bill n'all.

Dillie, Dillie, I hear you cry, what is the forthcoming U2 more-expensive- than-ever-before world tour all about? Like, what is its caaahncept, man? Confusingly, the word from the band is that this is a tour with hips. Would that be arthritic hips? Replacement hips? Or hedgerow berries noted for their high vitamin C count? Any or all of the above, it seems. Oh no, the boys have finally been Hoovered up by the giant sphincter of their collective ego! Mind you, perhaps it's understandable. You know how every other band adds dates to their tours with a modest "Wigan Astoria on the 29th" scribbled in crayon on a press release? Apparently U2's revised schedule features teensy afterthoughts like "South America" and"China". Bless!

Overheard at the Hayward's Howard Hodgkin exhibition (now extended to 2 March), from a young couple earnestly contemplating a typical squeegee- merchant's fantasia: "I get a real sense of nature in this one: woods, fields and trees." "Oh no, I'm getting a strong urban feel - skyscrapers and rainy pavements ... "