The Peruvians said their offer was not a passports-for-sale scheme, although investors could eventually gain Peruvian residency permits.

But the Hongkong firm, Blooming Strong Development Ltd, lacked subtlety. They splashed out on an ad in Playboy, complete with a price-list for passports, and even a chart showing bulk discounts for large families.

Also included was a photograph of Peru's President Alberto Fujimori, although we suspect a large percentage of readers preferred to look at the other photographs in the magazine, featuring unclad young ladies.

The corps diplomatique was not amused. Nor were senior officials in Peru. The Peruvian ad hoc Commission for the Migration Investment Programme has decreed that, although the scheme will continue, the contract with Blooming Strong is declared null and void.

Talking of porn, the bosses of Panart Co Ltd should be ashamed of themselves, getting ''actress'' Ronnie Yip to open their oil paintings exhibition last week. And what about those articles about ''singer'' Samantha Fox going to Bosnia? Let's face the truth. She and Ms Yip are perpetrators of porn. We suppose their publicists reckon ''Pornographer in staged publicity event'' is a less desirable headline.

Flat tasting PACIFIC Wine Cellars Club of Pacific Place is holding a ''tutored vertical tasting'' next week.

Guy Spooner of Ince and Co, a law firm, showed us his invitation, and that's what it said. We prefer the old-fashioned ones, where everyone becomes horizontal after a while.

Storming party A FINAL lunch party is being held today at the old Football Club Bar in Happy Valley, which is shortly to be demolished.

There are some good builders' puns in the invitation (''Don't be a bore - pile in!'').

By coincidence, the organiser, Dragages, is a French firm, and July 14 just happens to be Bastille Day, an important Gallic holiday commemorating a day when an old institution was stormed.

The invitations say: ''Bring Your Own Hammer.'' A user of the bar said: ''It makes a change. In the old days it used to be the drinkers who got hammered.'' As a newt ISOBEL Williams of Warren Williams International picked up a leaflet from Waterworld.

This is exciting stuff, with a picture of a man in flames flying through the air.

The text says: ''The highlight of every evening is the spectacular Fire Dive. See an All-American High Diving shooting star set himself alight and dive . . . ppssssstt . . . right into the middle of the Splash Pool!'' Isobel was impressed. ''But I thought he would have been better off doing it sober,'' she said.

Boom-mongers WE are all going to be rich. The Hongkong share market will reach 11,000 by June next year, according to a new report by South China Research.

Then it will boom further, to 18,000 by 1997.

Investment adviser Marc ''Dr Doom'' Faber was clutching his copy and looking stunned yesterday morning. ''It reminds me of the James Capel report in 1987 which said on the front: 'Buy, Buy More, Increase Weighting, Fill Your Boots, Buy'. The next workingday was the crash of Black Monday,'' he said.

We applaud South China Research for being courageous enough to make public their dramatic predictions, just as we often applaud Mr Faber for the same reason.

But one side or other is going to end up deeply embarrassed. The index closed almost unchanged yesterday, so it could go either way.

These brave forecasters contrast greatly with a broker quoted in a newspaper last year who predicted: ''The trend will continue until it ends.'' Holy orders THE taxi queue outside the Fringe Club in Lower Albert Road was waiting patiently at about 4.15 pm yesterday. An occupied taxi drove past the queue - and then stopped to let down a passenger a few yards away.

A passer-by dashed to grab the taxi door handle. Eyebrows were raised as they realised the queue-jumper was a clergyman, complete with black suit and dog collar.

Would God allow such a thing to happen? He would not. He used His magic powers to cause the taxi driver to stick his Out of Service sign up, leaving the repulsed man of the cloth to slink away.