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GIVE THE GIFT OF DISEASE: Who would have thought the National Institutes of Health has a gift shop? It does. And one of its biggest sellers is an anthrax necktie.

The tie is printed with a repeating design of spores as they appear magnified under a microscope. It's silk, available in red or gray and costs $35, the Washington Post says.

"We can't keep them in stock," said Homaira Hamid, vice president of store operations.

The ties are a product of former dentist Roger Freeman through his company, Infectious Awareables. Freeman started the business in 1997 to spread awareness of infectious diseases.

He also has anthrax boxer shorts and anthrax scarves. And clothing that features designs based on cholera, ebola, breast cancer and AIDS, among several other diseases.

Freeman said he began stocking anthrax designs two years ago. He sells through his Web site, www.iawareables.com.

I'M ENTHRALLED ALREADY: The gossip columnists for London's Mirror proudly state that they are the first journalists in Britain to get a look at Britney Spears' movie debut, Crossroads, due out next year.

The plot has Spears and two friends going on a road trip after their high school graduation.

The movie begins with "scantily clad Britney dancing on her bed to Madonna in her underwear" and ends with her losing her underwear on her way to losing her virginity to an ex-con, the Mirror girls report.

"Overall, Britney proves herself to be as competent at acting as she is at singing," they write.

That's all we need to know.

IF ONLY THEY COULD LOSE THEIR MARBLES: Hot on the heels of the controversial portrait of Queen Elizabeth II (scowling Jack Nicholson? a dog having a stroke?) is a huge marble statue of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher that can't find a home.

The problem is not how it makes Thatcher look. It's the size. The statue is almost 8 feet tall and weighs almost 2 1/2 tons, including its base.

The National Portrait Gallery says the piece would take up too much space and dominate other works, London's Sunday Telegraph says. Parliament rejected it for a new office building because officials feared the floor would collapse. Other potential sites didn't have spaces large enough.

So it's gathering dust in sculptor Neil Simmons' studio.

MORE ON THE MARBLE LADY: Thatcher, who sat for the Simmons in secret last year, loves the statue. She said it makes her look "visionary."

LOVE AND HAPPINESS ON ANOTHER LEVEL: Grammy-winning singer-preacher Al Green is marking 25 years in the pulpit.

The Rev. Green gave his first sermon at Full Gospel Tabernacle, the church he bought in Whitehaven, Tenn., in 1976. The man who already had had hits with Let's Stay Together and Love and Happiness says people came at first out of curiosity.

"You have to work and work and work to weed out the ones who were not interested in God," he says in an Associated Press report.

And parishioner Beverly White, who coordinated a special banquet and program held Sunday, says Green, 55, gets you interested in God and keeps you interested.

"He wears out Bibles like he does shoes," she says.

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