Sir Elton John and David Furnish have called their 3D animation Gnomeo and Juliet a “labour of love” they hoped to one day share with son Zacharay. The film, a love story about garden gnomes based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, has been in production for 11 years and has premiered in London’s Leicester Square, which had been transformed into a giant garden for the event.

Furnish, who executive-produced the project with partner John, said: “We’d love to make more kids’ films. This has been really wonderful. We’re very excited that in four of five years’ time Zachary will be able to see this film.”

The story, featuring the voices of Emily Blunt and James McAvoy as Gnomeo and Juliet, along with Ozzy Osbourne, Maggie Smith, Michael Caine and Patrick Stewart, has been altered to give it a happy ending. (PA)

Roller coaster fall

A man has died after falling from a roller coaster at a Tokyo amusement park.

Police said the man fell yesterday as he was riding with a friend on the Spinning Coaster Maihime at the Tokyo Dome park. He was taken to hospital but was declared dead two hours later.

The small roller coaster has single cars which spin like a tea cup as they travel along a track. (AP)

Fake ‘nuns’

Six women were detained at Manila airport after being caught trying to sneak into Lebanon dressed as nuns in a bid to get around a travel ban to the country.

The women on Saturday were pretending to be on their way to Hong Kong for a religious seminar but their unusual dress and behaviour alerted officials. Under questioning they eventually admitted they were actually on their way to Lebanon to work as domestic helpers.

The Philippines has banned people from going to Lebanon to work as helpers since 2007 due to the security situation and inadequate legal protection for its labourers there. (AFP)

All stuck up

Emergency crews are rescuing about 90 skiers from cable cars in Austria after they came to a standstill because of a technical problem, officials said yesterday.

Werner Laimgruber of the Kasberg-Bahnen company that runs the cable cars says the effort is going smoothly and that no one was hurt in yesterday’s incident in central Austria’s Grunau-Kasberg ski area. He said those rescued were being taken to nearby lodges.

Earlier this month, about 160 skiers and snowboarders were stuck on a defective chairlift in the same region. Some had to be attached by cables to helicopters and flown out because of the rugged terrain below them. (AP)

Tasteless mementos

While Britain has a public holiday to celebrate Prince William’s wedding, one company is taking the party one step further with souvenir contraceptives.

However, critics have dismissed the novelty as “tasteless”.

Prince William, second in line to the throne, is to marry his university sweetheart Kate Middleton on April 29 at London’s Westminster Abbey. All manner of predictable unofficial souvenirs such as tea towels, chinaware and postcards have been rushed out by manufacturers, with contraceptives now joining the ranks.

Presented in regal-looking purple and gold, each pack bears a picture of the couple gazing into each other’s eyes. The manufacturers stress that they are not supplied to or approved by Prince William, his fiancee or the royal family.

Ingrid Seward, editor of the royal-watching Majesty magazine, told The Sun newspaper: “This is completely tasteless and really rather hurtful. .. This is a cheap swipe to make money.” (AFP)

300-metre fall

A climber who fell around 300 metres from the summit of a Scottish mountain is lucky to be alive, his rescuers said yesterday.

The helicopter crew sent to search for the man were astonished to find him standing up and reading a map. The man lost his footing on Saturday and fell down the craggy and near-vertical eastern face of Sgurr Choinnich Mor, a 1,094-metre high mountain in the western Highlands.

The unnamed 35-year-old from Glasgow was spotted at around 790 metres, making his tumble almost 300 metres from the summit. A Royal Navy Sea King helicopter reached the scene 35 minutes later and spotted a man at the bottom of the slope.

“We honestly thought it couldn’t have been him, as he was on his feet, reading a map,” said Lieutenant Tim Barker. (AFP)