People: Zsa Zsa gets serious

AFTER losing another round in the California courts, Zsa Zsa Gabor is threatening to move to England. Gabor and her husband, Frederick von Anhalt, were ordered to pay the actress Elke Sommer dollars 1.3m ( pounds 866,000) in punitive damages, following a dollars 2m payout for libel.

'I'd rather see her starve to death than give her one single dollar,' fumed Gabor, who had been accused of telling a German magazine in 1990 that Sommer was broke, balding and frequented sleazy bars.

'Frankly, one more case and I move to England,' said Gabor, who is no stranger to legal troubles. She was convicted three years ago for slapping a Beverly Hills police officer.

Asked why the libel jury went against her, Gabor said: 'Being Zsa Zsa Gabor is bad publicity. They think I am frivolous.'

FRIVOLOUS or not, the astrologer Mauricio Puerta was right. He predicted in May that the Colombian cocaine baron Pablo Escobar would die by the end of the year. Escobar's astrological chart clearly showed that 'he could not hold out longer than between October and December this year', according to Puerta. A Sagittarian, Escobar 'had aspects pointing to dialogue, but as this didn't happen, he died; it was another kind of dialogue which took him away - a phone dialogue.'

Electronic scanning equipment picked up telephone calls Escobar was making, so security forces could locate him. Escobar died of gunshot wounds rather than be captured by the police.

POLICE also caught up with Bernard Tapie, the French tycoon and Socialist politician whose parliamentary immunity from prosecution over alleged financial irregularities was lifted on Tuesday. Judicial sources said Tapie was caught speeding. He was challenged by police motorcyclists as he drove at 206kph (128mph) on his way to a football match in Angers on 29 October. The top speed allowed on motorways is 130kph. The flamboyant president of Marseille football club pointed to his watch and refused to pull over. He was stopped by police at a motorway toll booth further on. A local court is to decide how much to fine him and whether to suspend his driving licence.

LIFE in the fast lane of the Spanish rock scene is over for Angela Rodriguez. The 'Rockin' Granny', who got turned on to heavy metal in her seventies, has died in Madrid of heart failure at 93. She liked to ride powerful motorbikes and dress in studded black leather gear and boots. Rodriguez was at a rock concert with her grandson in the 1970s when she got the heavy metal bug. She became a friend of rock stars, was a regular at parties during Madrid's movida (action) years of the early 1980s, and was renowned for a photo of herself in black leather on the cover of an album by the Spanish group Los Panzer.