People: Catalonia's homage to Lennon the peacemaker

NEXT time you visit Barcelona, take a stroll round John Lennon Square. Mayor Pasqual Maragall inaugurated the new Plaza John Lennon at the weekend in honour of the former Beatle's efforts towards world peace. To the strains of Imagine, the mayor released a white dove and unveiled a marble plaque inscribed in Catalan: 'Doneu una oportunitat a la pau (Give Peace a Chance).'

THE face of a new democracy? Hong Kong's police chief vowed yesterday to resist a plan which he says will undermine his force's pride and threaten the well-being of the entire colony. It's a dangerously subversive plan to auction for charity the No 1 number- plate on his official limousine.

Pressure has been mounting on Li Kwan-ha to agree to the auction since the colony's Financial Secretary, Hamish Macleod, raised almost 10m Hong Kong dollars ( pounds 928,000) for charity by selling his No 2 registration earlier this year.

But Mr Li is holding out, even though the government auditor called for the auction last week. 'Anything which will be detrimental to the . . . force hence will be detrimental to the well-being of Hong Kong and its people,' he said. 'My stand is firm.' The Treasury Secretary, K Y Yeung said the government would make a decision soon but admitted: 'It is not going to be an easy matter.'

MONICA SELES, recovering from Friday's knife attack at a tennis tournament in Germany, arrived in Denver on Sunday and was expected to receive treatment at the nearby ski resort of Vail. Seles, the world's leading female tennis player, walked unassisted from her private jet. She was expected to be treated at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail, a town known as much for its celebrity visitors as for its ski slopes.

THE British motorcycle stuntman Eddie Kidd will try to jump over China's Great Wall next Tuesday after attempting a world record jump in Peking this weekend. 'It will be one of the most dangerous jumps in my life,' Xinhua news agency quoted the 33-year-old Briton as saying. Kidd will try a world record jump over nine double-decker buses before his Great Wall stunt.

THE Kennedy family is apparently to dispose of a piece of property with unfortunate memories - the ocean- front Florida estate where a sexual encounter led to the rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, Senator Edward Kennedy's nephew.

According to this week's issue of the magazine Newsweek, an unidentified source said the dollars 3.6m ( pounds 2.4m) property in Palm Beach was going to be offered for sale.