TVB's "Gam Pai Bing Yan" (Better Halves) held a promotional event yesterday and each of the cast members taking part received a watch from the sponsors, the mens' were worth $3800 and the ladies' were worth $4500 each, exceeding the limit of the present allowance for TVB employees from sponsors. Producer Mui Siu Ching explains that she didn't know the value of the presents and she sees this as a souvenir from doing the promotion, in the same way that artistes get paid for doing store openings and she is not in a position to refuse these on behalf of the artistes. She adds: "When they were filming they received a lot of gold as presents, if they are left over from filming then we give them to the artistes as souvenirs."

As for Steven Ma and Moses Chan, they had no comment about receiving the watches, Steven then went on to tell about his "gold-store", saying: "Every time we do a show, then we receive souvenirs, I don't worry about this being a problem, the payment is handled by the company so there are no problems there." Moses says: "I am not really sure, doing promos is different because the souvenirs are arranged by the company."

Cerina De Graca was frighted away from appearing at yesterday's show after she was photographed having dinner with Auguste Kwan, August explained the rumours: "Because Cerina is quite a good singer, I invited her out to meet some record company friends of mine. If I was dating her then we wouldn't bring our assistants along with us. We got on well when we were filming so having dinner is just a normal social activity. (Cerina is well known as a man magnet!) Don't say that about her, she is very direct, very tomboyish. You make it sound so bad, why doesn't anyone say I am a babe magnet?"

http://www.singpao.com/20030720/gossip/413317.html