Carreras draws flood of entrants
JOSE Carreras has an avid following in Hongkong if the respondents to The Guide' s Carreras competition are anything to go by.
Inundated with answers, the three winners - Mr Wallace Wong, Mr Thomas Wernicke and Ms Sandra Li - drawn from the hat all confirmed the tenor was Spanish, had suffered from leukaemia, and was the artistic director of the opening ceremony of the last Olympic Games.
All three won tickets to Carreras' concert on Friday at the Cultural Centre, while Mr Wong, as the first prize winner, also gets to meet the man after the show. BBC World Service Television opens the line to talk to a second world leader in the It's YourWorld series. Tonight it is Pakistan President Mr Nawaz Sharif who also joins BBC World Service Radio for a simulcast phone-in programme.
To join in, viewers in Hongkong have to phone London from 8 pm tonight on 00144-71-379-7444 and leave their questions with the BBC.
If a question is deemed suitable, the viewer will be phoned back by the BBC.
Last week's phone-in with the Prime Minister of India, Mr P. V. Narasimha Rao, brought a strong response. INXS is planning a tour starting in April for Europe, the United States and Australia.
Once the dates are sorted out, Mr David Loiterton, managing director of INXS' agent, MMA Music Group Asia, will look at Asia for concert dates.
Although the band has expressed interest in playing in Hongkong, as well as in China, the feasibility of staging performances needs to be worked out. Howards End, the award-winning adaptation of E. M. Forster's classic novel, is coming soon.
But before the film arrives one of its stars, Helena Bonham Carter, and Ismail Merchant - one half of the lauded Merchant-Ivory production team responsible for Room with a View - are to arrive in Hongkong for promotional interviews next month.
