People

The 3D animated film version of Beowulf, which opens later this week, may have convulsed critics with its nude vikings - the eponymous hero is played by digitally enhanced Ray Winstone and the Danish king by a very Welsh Anthony Hopkins - but it's enough to terrify Angelina Jolie. She plays the monster Grendel's mother, a creature who appears, incongruously, in high heels. But it is not this mild anachronism that causes Jolie problems but the fact that the movie has been given a 12 certificate here: "It's remarkable it has the rating it has. It's quite an extraordinary film and some of it shocked me." Fortunately, she believes it is not graphic for the sake of being graphic. "It's amazing and very creative," she claims.

The Jewish Chronicle has a new take on upwardly mobile women by featuring Laura Saperstein, who has given up a highly-paid job as a City solicitor to become a professional boxer. She's won 10 amateur fights and became British amateur lightweight champion before turning pro. "I'd like to become a role model for all women, especially those who may be afraid to break out of a mold," she told the paper. Her other sideline is property development.

Senator John McCain has discovered the perils of taking his 95-year-old mother, Roberta, on the road to boost his US presidential election chances. She laid into fellow challenger Mitt Romney's Mormonism during a broadcast interview, referring to the corruption scandals surrounding the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics a few years back: "He's a Mormon and the Mormons caused that scandal ..." As her son tried to deflect attention, she added: "Well, that's my view and you asked me." "I know my mother is certainly in favor of Mormons," says McCain. Mums, eh? You can't take them anywhere.

Proof that Norman Mailer kept it up until the end comes with the news that the old pugilist was in line to win the Bad Sex award for his last novel, The Castle in the Forest. His description of sex between a woman and an elderly man - "The Hound began to come to life. Right in her mouth. It surprised her. Alois had been so limp but now he was a man again!" etc - is up against such weedy rivals as Irvine Welsh, Ian McEwan and Paul Theroux. Surely the award later this month would come as a fitting climax.