Tenor Luciano Pavarotti is shaping up at an Italian spa near Austria. "I feel very, very well. I was just out to walk in the mountains. I just returned," he said from Merano, Italy. "I used a cane. If you walk in the mountains, go up and down, you must have the cane."

Rumours of retirement swept the opera world when Pavarotti cancelled three appearances in November, citing more recuperation time needed from hip replacement and knee replacement surgery over the summer.

Pavarotti, 63, said he hopes to do without the cane on November 22, when he'll perform at a gala marking the 30th anniversary of his metropolitan opera debut. The superstar tenor plans to spend 10 days at the spa, taking walks and exercising in a pool.

Separate entry

Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles jilted photographers at the wedding of friends by showing up 20 minutes apart. The paramours dashed media hopes that they would mark their first appearance as a couple at the nuptials of SantaPalmer-Tomkinson and Simon Sebag-Montefiore.

Charles brought along 14-year-old Harry. Parker Bowles, who is divorced, arrived before him with her two grown children.

The couple broke precedent earlier by issuing their first joint statement to deny cooperating in a new book that contains damaging allegations about Charles' former wife, the late Princess Diana. While Britons have warmed to Charles since Diana's death, opinion polls show a majority of people still object to the possibility of the heir to the throne marrying Parker Bowles.

French connection

An elegant 50-year-old unveils the details of her liaison with former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in her book, La Putain de la Republique, (Whore of the Republic), to be published next week. In the book, Christine Deviers-Joncour, 50, recounts how she was generously paid by the then state-owned oil company Elf-Aquitaine to influence Dumas on the sale of French frigates to Taiwan in face of strong Opposition from China.

Shepublishes photos of herself and Dumas in bathing suits embracing on a beach and says she was Elf's Quai d'Orsay (the French foreign ministry) card for obtaining rendezvous and contracts. On Thursday, the influential daily Le Monde demanded that Dumas, now the fifth personage in the state hierarchy as President of the Constitutional Council, resign.

Both he and Deviers-Joncour have been indicted for abuse of corporate assets in the case when Elf-Aquitaine, since privatised, acted as an intermediary on behalf of the state-owned ship-builders.

War on Starr

Ten leading literary and cultural figures, led by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, called for an official investigation into Ken Starr in an open letter. The stars condemned Starr's role in the Clinton sex and perjury scandal, and called on Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate and dismiss him.

The ten accused Starr of ``outrageous abuses'', claiming that he had ``exceeded his mandate'' and sent a ``biased, incomplete andmisleading'' report on President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky to Congress. In particular, they said they were ``alarmed'' by reports that Starr violated the secrecy of grand jury testimony by giving news reporters information from it before the testimony was given. They also registered ``grave concern'' about apparent conflicts of interest that affected Starr's ``objectivity and judgment''.

The other nine signatories include the writers Peter Carey, Cristina Biaggi, E.L. Doctorow, Carol Shields, actress Lorraine Bracco, Gail Zappa, the widow of musician Frank Zappa, Lynsey Sale Lonberg, Maggie Kortchmar, and Stacey Beinhorn.

Sinatra's home

Frank Sinatra will be permanently present in Times Square now that New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has approved a statue of the late singer in the heart of the theatre district, syndicated gossip columnist Liz Smith reported. The statue will be placed in front of Paramount Theatre where Sinatra started his legendary career, Smith, whosecolumn is published in dozens of US newspapers, reported. Frank Sinatra was born in a New York suburb and died May 14 in California. He was 82.