TVB's "Gam Pai Bing Yan" (Better Halves) has seen a good response and a restaurant has sponsored the cast and crew with a five table abalone feast worth over HK£25,000. Maggie Cheung rushed back from New York to take part in this meal and although she has been away for a while, she has been in touch by phone and heard about the ICAC's operation against corruption, but she dare not respond as she is a TVB employee.

When it was mentioned about Miss Pak [Radio Host] revealing the dark secrets behind beauty pageants, Maggie was asked about her experiences when she took part in the contest and whether she was "taken out for dinner". She says: "No. I didn't even get into the top three, so there is nothing like that in my dictionary. No-one knows if the beauty contests are fixed or not, but I felt that my year was very fair because there was a vote from the audience and they were all very supportive of Halina Tam." Before, beauty contests were very revered, but now they are being smeared, if there really was result fixing in place, then this would be very unfair to those contestants without backing or a good background.

Also hailing from Miss Hong Kong, Cerina de Graca had also heard the news about the rigging of the competition and she says that she will not believe that there is a dark side to the contest because Rosa is very caring towards the girls and even if there is a dinner, then everyone would be there. Recently she has been linked in rumours with Auguste Kwan, she says strongly that she will not hide away because of these things and believes that the viewers know how to tell truth from rumours.

Also, Steven Ma left today to head to Guangzhou to receive an award from the local TV station for "Best Adaptation of a Song". When asked whether he has to appear at a mainland version of the "dinner", Steven says: "I don't need to, corruption used to be rife in the mainland, but after entering the WTO things are a lot fairer now." As for his good response to his book, leading to his new publisher venture, he says he hopes to be a giant in the publishing world one day.

http://www.singpao.com/20030722/gossip/414728.html