Who's in
Sorry for 'slip of tongue'
Li Yong (pictured), a well-known game show anchor with China Central Television (CCTV), apologized through his blog for jokes about people from Northwest China's Shaanxi Province on Wednesday.
In the January 12 episode of Luck 52, a top-ranking TV program on CCTV, Li addressed Shaanxi people as "lazy bones singing Qinqiang (a local opera genre)" while presiding over a singing contest featuring opera arias from that province.
Over the past few days, the CCTV hotline has been flooded with hundreds of complaints from TV viewers about Li's inappropriate jokes.
"The motive behind my joke was to lighten up the atmosphere and help the contestants, one of them from Shaanxi Province, relax in the studio. But as a veteran anchor, I should have avoided such a slip of the tongue which has hurt my audiences so much. I have no excuse and feel really sorry about the incident," Li wrote in his blog.
Jolie, Pitt move to New Orleans
Globe-trotting Hollywood couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have moved to New Orleans and plan to send their three children to school there, US Weekly magazine reported on Tuesday.
"We love it there," Jolie was quoted as saying in confirming the move at the Golden Globe awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Monday night. "The kids are going to go to school there. We're really looking forward to it."
Old Friends reunite
Two old television Friends will soon reunite on the small screen, this time playing rival magazine editors rather than coffee-drinking pals.
Jennifer Aniston (top of picture) has agreed to guest star in an upcoming episode of Courteney Cox's new TV drama Dirt, marking the first time the two will be working together since their former NBC comedy hit, Friends, left the airwaves in May 2004.
Production on Aniston's guest appearance, the season finale of Dirt set to air on March 27, will begin soon, FX spokesman Jon Solberg said on Tuesday.
Cox plays a scandal-obsessed tabloid editor-in-chief Lucy Spiller, a character far removed from her role as the sensible neat freak Monica Geller on Friends.
Aniston, best known for her Emmy-winning Friends role as lovelorn Rachel Green, will appear in Dirt as Tina Harrod, a rival magazine editor with a personal history with Spiller, Solberg said.
China Daily-Agencies
(China Daily 01/19/2007 page18)
