Yeee-ha: Country and Western music fans will be delighted to know that one of their highest profile performers is coming to Hong Kong for a performance on Friday morning. He's John Ashcroft, attorney-general of the most powerful nation on Earth by day. But at night, he becomes a C&W crooner and composer. He's even been known to break out in song on talk shows such as The Late Show with David Letterman. Dave played the performance over and over. The song on that occasion was Let the Eagles Soar, a patriotic tune which doubles as a call to arms as the United States gears up to re-order the world. A sample: 'Like she's never soared before, from rocky coast to golden shore, let the mighty eagle soar.' Mr Ashcroft's 30-year career certainly hasn't suffered as a result of his music hobby. He has been in the US Senate, as Governor of Missouri, Missouri state attorney-general and Missouri state auditor before becoming the chief law enforcement officer of the world's most super superpower. A devout Christian, Mr Ashcroft holds to strict moral values. Each time he is sworn into office, he undergoes a ceremony where he is anointed with cooking oil, like King David. Earlier this year, he ordered two statues in the Justice Department building covered up because breasts and other body parts were visible. Well, wouldn't you? C&W fans can line up outside the Island Shangri-La Hotel Ballroom before 8.15am but security will be rather tight for this music performance-breakfast meeting. Oh and the topic for John's presentation in Hong Kong: 'Law Enforcement Co-operation in the Region.' Public restructuring: Have you ever been 'restructured?' Lai See has, several times, and it's, well, memorable. So we remove the usual wide grin from our face when we report that Merrill Lynch and its head of marketing and communications Bob Sherbin have parted ways 'due to a restructuring'. Both sides were fairly tight-lipped last night but they confirmed what market whispers had been saying for a couple of days: the veteran 'marcoms man' has moved on. We hear the restructuring was a very sudden affair. Headhunter readers may recall that Mr Sherbin has had some prime marcoms and corporate spokesman jobs around Hong Kong in his time, at HSBC in the early 1990s, then First Pacific until 1999 before moving to personal computer distributor Gateway and then the thundering Merrill in May last year. Merrill has had its share of public embarrassments recently including an incident involving unauthorised e-mails sent out amid the China Telecom initial public offering. Otherwise what can we say other than US investment banks are a revolving door at all levels. And watch for Mr Sherbin to appear soon in a senior position at some other Big Name corporation. Well promoted: Lai See has a new favourite Hong Kong movie star: the wonderful Athena Chu Yan. And many thanks to the concerned woman who contacted our office complaining of 'outrageous' pictures of Ms Chu on the PCCW-owned now.com.hk Web site (best accessed through the photo at Quamnet.com). We checked the pictures out immediately and we agree with PCCW that they 'meet the standards of promotional material used by entertainers'. Nothing very revealing in those pictures. Except, the pictures reveal the existence of Ms Chu to Lai See, who reads so many books there is never any time to go to the movies. We discovered she is a Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts graduate, former TVB actress and sings too. And she is Lai See's Star of the Week. Fair readers: Yesterday was a big day in the Lai See office. We opened our e-mail inbox and there was our first e-mail message from a woman reader. Ms Jia Ling-wai asked us to look at an ad in a rival publication to see if we thought it in bad taste. A group of us studied the ad - we find it OK. Anyway thanks for proving to us Lai See has women readers. Or one, anyway. Graphic: whee24gbz