Coffins for the fans

Buenos Aires, April 8 (Reuters): Many fans of Argentina’s most popular soccer team, Boca Juniors, pledge eternal devotion to the club. And with new Boca caskets on sale, they can put their money where their mouths are.

Die-hard fans can buy their own coffins decorated in Boca colours and symbols for between 2,000 pesos and 2,500 pesos ($650 to $800), a small fortune for many of Boca’s working-class followers. “The coffin lets me express my feelings and show what happened to me during my life. And maybe it will bring a smile to someone’s face who remembers when we went to see a match together,” said Hernan Marini, who works with a funeral home that offers the caskets to prospective corpses.

The idea is not entirely original. One of Boca's soccer field chants says: “The day I die, I want my coffin, painted blue and gold, like my heart.”

Brangelina on Africa safari

Windhoek, Namibia (AP): Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are staying at a secluded Namibian beach resort, surrounded by tight security, prompting speculation their baby will be born in Africa. Namibian media reported that immigration officials confirmed the stars and five other people, including two children, arrived in Walvis Bay on Monday morning on a chartered jet from Paris. Pitt’s publicist, Cindy Guagenti, said on January 11 that Jolie, 30, is pregnant with the actor’s child. It was unclear when the baby will be born. A call to Guagenti’s office on Friday wasn’t immediately returned.

Calmly comes Tomkat baby

Los Angeles (Reuters): After the giddy fanfare of their highly public courtship, actor Katie Holmes is expected to give birth to Tom Cruise’s baby any day now as quietly as humanly possible. The “TomKat” baby may be the most hotly anticipated celebrity birth of the season, but it is expected to be delivered in line with the little understood Scientology method of quiet or silent birth. Cruise, 43, is one of the best known adherents of the Church of Scientology founded by L. Ron Hubbard, who believed that the best possible start in life for a new baby is a calm and loving environment free of screaming obscenities, chatty doctors or shouts to “push”.