Crystal balls

JILLY Cooper's new schlockbuster Appasionatta is set in and around the orchestra pit, but it's not so much the catalogue of racey…

JILLY Cooper's new schlockbuster Appasionatta is set in and around the orchestra pit, but it's not so much the catalogue of racey goings-on that has classical music Purists in a sulk (there was a raging discussion on Marian Finucane's radio programme this week), it's more that there is a classical CD being launched to go with the book. The idea is that you read the book while listening to the sonatas.

All of which is in the ha'penny place when compared to Uri Geller's latest publication. The Seventies spoon-bender's new Mind-Power Book comes not with a CD, but with tape and a rather dinky crystal which the book promises "is good, for healing all kinds of ailments. Now that, in marketing terms, has to be the ultimate in "value-added".