Boy matador flirts with death
Lima: Battle scars from being gorged by bulls ten times his size line the face and right leg of the matador Michelito, a pint-sized 10-year-old from Spain who is one of the world’s youngest bullfighters. Armed with just a cloak and a sword, he has fought 56 bulls, slicing off 106 ears and seven tails as trophies. The bulls weigh upwards of 500 pounds (256 kg). A graceful entertainer since age five, Michelito, whose full name is Michael Lagravere Peniche, works mostly in Mexico because he says he is too young to perform in Spain. “Ever since I was young, lots of bullfighters visited my house and I went with my dad to the fights,” he said. “That’s how I developed a taste for bullfighting.” Over the weekend, Michelito defeated four bulls at Lima’s bullring, considered the oldest in the Americas, after a young Peruvian matador he was supposed to compete against pulled out because of an illness.

Missing penis makes Royal Opera blush
London: Britain’s Royal Opera House agreed to stop using a picture in its advertisements after an actor complained that his penis had been air brushed out of a nude image. Argentinian Juan Pablo Di Pace, who stars alongside Meryl Streep and Colin Firth in the new film version of Mamma Mia!, appeared to have no penis at all in the full-frontal shot used in publicity material for a production of Verdi’s Rigoletto. The actor complained to the opera house via his lawyer that the photograph, taken during a 2001 production of the same opera, was used to promote shows six years later, even though he no longer worked there. “In his letter he expressed a concern that, to Juan’s embarrassment, his penis had been airbrushed out,” said a Royal Opera House spokesman. “We explained in our correspondence with him that we had legal reasons why we had to do that because we are not allowed to display posters with nudity.” The picture features a nude and seemingly unconscious Di Pace supported by a woman in the centre of a busy scene. In posters for the show, which appeared at London Underground stations, the actor’s modesty was covered by a cloak, while in brochures and leaflets his penis disappeared entirely. The Royal Opera House, established in 1728, said it would not use the image again.

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