US actors Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke became parents of a baby girl when Thurman gave birth to a 7 pound, 11 ounce baby girl. The baby was born at a Manhattan hospital but there is no word on the choice of a name for the child. The 28-year-old Pulp Fiction actress married the 27-year-old Hawke in May at the New York Cathedral. The movie stars met in 1996 on the set of the sci-fi thriller Gattaca.

Memory problems

French actor Gerard Depardieu, who crashed his motorcycle after allegedly drinking too much, claimed he fell asleep over the handlebars on his way to make his latest film. ``I don't think I'll ride a motorcycle again,'' said a still limping Depardieu. ``Things didn't quite happen as the press told it -- it's a bad memory but at the same time I don't remember.'' Depardieu broke his leg when he came off his machine in a village southwest of Paris last May, putting him in hospital for ten days and booking him a date in court later this month. The actor,presently making a film of the adventures of comic book hero Asterix, is alleged to have drunk more than five times the French legal limit for driving.

From the ranks

Tony Blair delivered the final blow to the old Labour Party mould when he confirmed Margaret McDonagh as the party's first woman general secretary, the first in recent times not to come from a union, and the first to have worked her way up through the party ranks. ``Margaret's effective, hard-working and totally devoted to the party and the people we seek to serve,'' the Prime Minister said after announcing her promotion from deputy to the outgoing general secretary, Tom Sawyer, recently made a peer, in a move which will ensure party organisation and leadership pursue identical objectives. McDonagh, 37, faces the tough task of managing the party's inevitable reverses after the heady days of last year's landslide election victory. Her first tests will be next May's local elections, together with elections in Scotland and Wales, swiftlyfollowed by June's European elections. She said: ``Labour is a great organisation that allows people like me to work their way up from being a party activist to achieving this post.'' She joined Labour while at school and began working as a volunteer agent. She has a master's degree in advanced marketing. A former colleague said: ``Margaret delivers, she's 100 per cent reliable. Anything she does, works.'' Despite a reputation for being ``cold and intimidating'', she is also credited with the wooing of celebrity converts and senior newspaper people to the New Labour cause.

Estrada's son

One of the illegitimate sons of Philippine President Joseph Estrada has gone public, admitting to having difficulty adjusting to his new status, in a front page story. But Joseph Victor Estrada, 28, had nothing but praise for his father, and said he had cordial relations with Estrada's legitimate wife, Luisa. The businessman better known as JV said he was born when Estrada was separated from his wife and living withanother woman. When he was young he believed he was Estrada's only child until his father later reconciled with his wife in 1987. J.V. Estrada said he had to adjust to being known as merely one of Estrada's ``other'' children. And he admitted: ``I do feel bad about not living at the (presidential) palace but I guess I just have to keep an open mind that my status in life is a reality.'' President Estrada, a former movie star with a history of womanising, admits to having several illegitimate children but will not say how many.

A gay arrangement

A british lesbian couple are planning their dream baby after buying œ280-worth of frozen sperm on the Internet. The couple have picked their perfect potential father after tapping specifications into the Net site of a Californian company, NewLife. Offered a choice of height, weight, age, nationality, income level, personality and even sexual preference, they have chosen a 30-year-old tall, dark, handsome American as the biological father. Credit card detailshave been exchanged, and the sperm -- stored in liquid nitrogen or carbon dioxide -- is being couriered from the US. It will be administered at home with a syringe.

As they awaited the arrival of the package at their home the duo, a solicitor and teacher, insisted they had exhausted every other avenue in their three-year quest for a child. ``The path has been rocky,'' said Sarah, the solicitor, who, like her partner of six years, is identified only by her first name. ``Local councils say they have no policy restricting gay people to adopt or foster but (gay) friends of ours who have tried desperately for a baby have not had a lot of success -- and besides we want our own flesh and blood.

'' The 32-year-old added: ``This approach sounds very clinical, and not at all how a baby should be conceived, but it is the most feasible option and we are grasping the opportunity.'' Jane, aged 27, who will carry the baby, was equally insistent about her desire for a child. ``Neither of us believe this to be abnormal ormorally wrong,'' she insisted. ``We have as much love as a man or a woman starting a family and we have plenty of male role models for its childhood to be as stable as any other child's.''