Side show

THE REPORT OF HIS IRRELEVANCE WAS A SLIGHT EXAGGERATION: Practically no one is buying Michael Jackson's latest album. To say the singer and his life are perceived as a circus side show is an understatement. Newspaper reports have his record company trying desperately to dump him. Yet Jackson's appearance at a London train station Friday was described as "Beatlemania" as fans gave him love.

"He is stronger than ever," Sinead Woods, from Wicklow, Ireland, told Reuters. "It is his looks that attract me. He is gorgeous, so handsome."

Jen Winings, 20, traveled from Cincinnati when she heard that the usually reclusive Jackson was going public as a fundraising favor for friend Uri Geller (the psychic best-known for bending spoons with his, uh, mental powers on the Tonight Show when Johnny Carson was still the host). "I never get tired of his music. He is so great to all of us," Winings said.

Miriam Vidreid, 19, from Bergen, Norway, said: "I just wanted to get a glimpse of him. He is an amazing artist. His music is fantastic."

Jackson was at Paddington Station to catch a train to Exeter, in southwest England, to appear at a fundraiser for local charities and the town's soccer team, of which Geller is a co-chairman.

British newspapers reported that tickets for the event weren't selling well because no one believed Jackson would show up.

THE REPORT OF HIS ODDNESS WAS NOT A SLIGHT EXAGGERATION: Before leaving for Exeter, Jackson took a tour of the British Parliament building. During the tour, an assistant brushed Jackson's hair at regular intervals, the BBC reported, while Jackson dabbed at his face with a makeup sponge.

His continual personal grooming did cease long enough for him to shake hands and sign autographs when accosted by other tourists at one point.

WE MIGHT NOT AGREE, BUT THEY DON'T CARE: The "Top 10 Canadians in U.S. Television," as chosen by a panel of Canadian TV industry figures from a list compiled by the Banff (Alberta) Television Foundation:

Jim Carrey (got a big break on the now-defunct In Living Color on Fox); Michael J. Fox; Raymond Burr (Perry Mason, Ironside); Lorne Greene (Bonanza); William Shatner; comedian Rich Little; journalists Peter Jennings, Robert MacNeil and Morley Safer; and Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek.

Not making the cut: Anyone from SCTV, The Kids in the Hall or The Red Green Show; Celine Dion; Guy Lombardo; Phil Hartman; Dan Aykroyd; Wayne Gretzky; Mike Myers; Conrad Bain (Diff'rent Strokes); Shania Twain; economist John Kenneth Galbraith; Monty Hall (Let's Make a Deal); Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek); or Pamela Anderson.

TWO STAGES OF GRIEF: Ralph Fiennes' name was dropped as male fodder for the now-separated Jennifer Lopez last week (the two are making a movie). He wasted little time responding. "What a load of rubbish. There is no truth in it whatsoever," Fiennes said in a statement reported by Zap2it.com. Fiennes' live-in companion, actor Francesca Annis, responded to the reports by laughing heartily, according to British media.

It's off again. For now. Justin Timberlake is feeling so unattached to Britney Spears that he let People name him one of "America's Top 50 Bachelors." He even talked about the pain of their breakup(s). "You get to a point where you're crying yourself to sleep at night," he told the magazine. "I feel like I'm in the middle of a soap opera. I honestly know what it's like to have a broken heart now."

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