With trailing cables and color cameras, NBC-TV traipsed through the Chicago apartment of Inland Steel Vice President Leigh Block, 58, last summer to film his celebrated art collection, which ranges from ancient Chinese to modern French. It was all for a January program on "The Art of Collecting," but then he discovered that the show would have commercials (Humble Oil) as well as culture. "If I had known in advance that it was going to be sponsored, I would not have permitted them to film," blocked Block. With that, he refused to sign a release unless NBC promised to contribute $5,000 to the Chicago Art Institute. Against our principles, mumbled the network, and the whole $10,000 worth of celluloid was destroyed.

There was some talk that she had wanted to be cremated and have her ashes scattered over the Adriatic Sea. But no written record of the wish could be found, and so Elsa Maxwell was buried in Hartsdale, N.Y., after a quiet Manhattan funeral. Only 100 gathered to say a final goodbye to the woman who had given thousands of parties for thousands of people, and few of the glittering names she had called "dear" and "darling" were on hand. One mourner there who didn't get much society-gossip-column attention was Dorothy Fellowes-Gordon. And to this longtime friend, the international party giver left her entire estate. It amounted to less than $10,000.

As Germany's new Chancellor, one of his first decisions was to do away with the Porsche police escort that whisked Konrad Adenauer to and from the office. Then Ludwig Erhard, 66, issued orders that no government official was to be supplied with the new 20 1/2-ft. Mercedes 600 (U.S. price: $23,000), adding that the 300 SE (around $10,000) was snappy enough. And just the other day he was seen waiting patiently in line at a Bonn pastry shop to buy two pieces of cake to take home for the afternoon Kaffee und Kuchen with his wife, Luise. But a Chancellor cannot lead the simple life forever, and der Dicke has made his first concession. He has reluctantly agreed to have an official residence built in the park of the Palais Schaumburg for $250,000, complete with swimming pool.

Why go all the way to Las Vegas or Puerto Rico just to roll a few legal dice? Grand Bahama Island, a mere 75 miles off Miami, has been granted a ten-year license for a gambling casino, and now Huntington Hartford, 52, wants similar licenses granted to the rest of the Bahamas, including one small dot named Paradise Island (H. Hartford prop.) just off Nassau. It would solve a lot of problems, he says. First he would immediately build 1,000 first-class hotel rooms on Paradise, thus providing jobs for unemployed Bahamians. Then he would give 50% of the net gambling profit to the government for "improved housing, medical care and social welfare." The last problem it should solve: the profits from his island investment.

The Post Office announces that children writing to Santa Claus should no longer address their letters to the North Pole. That location has been assigned zip code number 99701.

Imagine the natives' surprise in 1954 when a grizzled old American William Willis, then 61, hit the beach on Pago Pago, Eastern Samoa, after floating 6,400 miles across the Pacific--on a raft, no less. That was even better than the Kon-Tiki expedition. "It was a nightmare, and a beautiful dream," said Willis, and decided to do it again some time. Last week it was the natives of Apia, Western Samoa, who were star tled, as in over the reef came Willis, two cats and raft, four months and 6,500 miles out of Callao, Peru. "I wanted to show that a 70-year-old could do what men years younger would never dream of trying and couldn't dp anyway," said he, and prepared to sail on another 2,700 miles to Sydney, Australia.

One of the most important things to know for any American girl hoping to become a princess is how to conduct a TV tour. Grace Kelly led the way in Monaco, and now the U.S.'s only other princess in a ruling family is doing it too. NBC is traveling to the Indian Himalayan protectorate of Sikkim to be shown up and down and all around by Hope Cooke, 22. The wife of the Maharajkumar (Crown Prince) hopes that the cameramen, currently crawling through New Delhi red tape, will hurry. She is shortly due to go into confinement to await the birth of her first child in late February.

Her only connection with athletics is size. But no matter. Her voluptuous, 6-ft. 8 1/2-in. body (52-39-51) and flawless marble complexion are eternal symbols of grace and beauty; so the Japanese government has requested her presence in Tokyo and Kyoto next summer. For Venus de Milo, such a visit would be unprecedented, and it required a d'accord from De Gaulle himself. But everything is set, and following the tradition of Mono. Lisa, she will go on a carefully packed ocean voyage. All this gallivanting-around by Louvre ladies has at least one young Frenchman upset: "If we want to convince the world of the beauty of our women, why do we have to do it with the smile of an Italian and the body of a Greek?"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.