People

By Belinda Luscombe

JERRY'S JOKES FROM...DOWN UNDER

There you are, all forlorn on Thursday nights, and there's JERRY SEINFELD, swanning around in Australia on tour. As a public service, we humbly offer you some of the material Seinfeld is trying out in foreign climes. (Warning: comedy sometimes becomes misplaced in translation.) On Australia: "I love your flag [above]: Britain at night." On his neuroses while scuba diving off the coast of Queensland: "I see a rock, there's a fish, and, yes, I'm still alive." On Australian sport: "You have Australian-rules football here. Of course you do. You're in Australia." To a fan who shrieked out, "Jerry, I love you!": "I love you too. But I think that we should see other people." --Reported by Tim Blair

PATTY'S PARANOIA PAYS OFF

When you've lived as strange a life as PATTY HEARST's, you learn not to do things regular people do, like open your mail. According to the New Yorker, Hearst's lawyer has a few questions for the Drug Enforcement Agency after the heiress received an odd parcel, called the two numbers on its address, found they were pay phones and immediately called the cops. Had she opened it, she would have found $20,000 to $40,000 worth of drugs. She was informed of this by the DEA officials who showed up on her doorstep moments after her call to police. The agents were actually going to arrest her, but were stymied because she had already reported the package. Hearst believes the incident has something to do with the presidential pardon she's seeking.

THE ROLLING (IN IT) STONES

They know it's only filthy lucre, but they like it. Demonstrating exactly how grownup they have become, the members of the ROLLING STONES have announced that they are postponing the British leg of their Bridges to Babylon tour on the advice of their accountants. Because of a new wrinkle in British tax law, if the Stones make any money from the tour in Britain, they would have to pay taxes on the whole tour, which means it would end up costing them $20 million to perform four dates at home. The Stones will tour Britain eventually, just as soon as that new financial year rocks around, in June 1999, when they will be taxed on those dates alone. "I was tempted to bite the bullet," said Mick Jagger to an outraged British press, "but I'm not the only one affected."

BREAK UP MARIAH, UP FOR GRABS

MARIAH CAREY was named after the wind featured in the song, so perhaps it's not surprising she has blown out of Derek Jeter's life. The relationship between the singer and the New York Yankee shortstop was under a particularly hot spotlight, followed by celebrity and sports reporters alike. "It's bad enough when just one public person is involved," she said to IN STYLE, whose photo spread of her closet revealed an Imeldaesque collection of Manolo Blahnik shoes. "But with two, it's really hard to have something to yourself." That must mean rumors that she's now dating basketballer Grant Hill are off base, mustn't it?

LIFE ON THE FARM

Although there were stars, food and music aplenty at the premiere of The Farm: Angola, USA, something was missing: none of the featured players were able to attend. Incarceration will do that to you. But the celebs who saw the film, shot entirely in America's largest prison (situated on a former slave plantation in Louisiana), gushed with praise. "Where can I get a subscription to the Angolite?" asked Anne Heche about the prison's magazine. Warden BURL CAIN, left, gave the film crew unprecedented access to all areas of his Big House, and the film's director, Jonathan Stack, found so much material there that he's now working on a film focusing on one of the inmates. He's also got a whole new crew of pen pals. "I'll ask one of them a question, and two weeks later I'll get a 10-page handwritten letter about it. They've been thinking about nothing else," he says. "It's like having your own personal think tank."

With reporting by Tim Blair