FALLING STAR: Pop diva Whitney Houston has been handed a life-line following her fall into allegations of drug taking and mysterious illness.

Arista records have agreed a £70m recording deal with the star, including an advance of £14m. This means fans of Whit can expect seven new albums. Her troubled marriage to womaniser Bobby Brown has made her last few years pretty unstable but this new deal should put her music career back on track. Whitney is a modern diva and we don't have many of those, so it will be nice to have her back where she belongs in the recording studio. Let's hope her fans and the faith of the record industry will catapult her back to super-stardom.

HAPPY GREETINGS: A Spanish council has taken a leaf out of the Americans' book and decided to greet its residents with a smile. Officials in Castellcir have decided to telephone ten of its citizens every morning to wish them a good day. The idea behind the scheme is to improve relations between the authority and local people and to make them feel someone cares, a bit annoying for the majority of busy people, but there are bound to be some elderly and house-bound residents who will enjoy the contact. The ten lucky people will be chosen at random every morning. Rather than spending their time tying us up in red tape and giving us the runaround, councils in this country should follow this lead and make someone's day for the price of a call.

BERRY GOOD: Will Anthea Turner never learn? The one-woman publicity machine has roared into another stunt, this time for her latest TV show. The fact that she's been relegated to one of the lesser-known satellite channels has not dampened her enthusiasm or her desire to strip off. Advertising her new cookery show, Anthea has been snapped in the nude - apart from a few strategically placed strawberries. Apart from putting you off berries for life, this picture screams of desperation. If she has something to plug, Anthea will use the only resource she has - an above-average body. She lost massive public support when she broke up her boyfriend's marriage and then turned her wedding to him into an advert for a new chocolate bar. Instead of trying to put her sordid past behind her and being taken seriously, Anthea has simply taken everything off again. Sadly, these new snaps will do little to improve her credibility.

BURST BUBBLE: Poor old Bubble - he's only been in the public eye for five minutes and he's already feeling the strain since leaving the Big Brother house. He says he is finding it hard being a celebrity, he keeps crying and has been put off his food. Bubble may have found fame over night but he has no one to blame but himself. What exactly did he expect after the last series which catapulted Craig into a DIY expert and Nasty Nick into a terrible game show host? With all the hype surrounding the show, any Big Brother housemate has to expect to give up their privacy once they agree to appear. If Bubble had wanted a quiet life with no hassle from strangers he should have remained a nobody. Now, with a job as a host on Chelsea TV, Bubble is no doubt earning more than he has ever done in his life. He said he went into the house to earn money for his little girl - so now he should carry on bringing in the money and just keep his whingeing to himself.