LONDON (Reuters) – Director James Cameron’s 3D blockbuster fantasy film “Avatar” tied with British drama “An Education” and Iraq war movie “The Hurt Locker” with eight nominations each at the BAFTAs, Britain’s main film awards.

They were closely followed by extra-terrestrial film “District 9″ with seven nominations. Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” starring Brad Pitt and “Up in the Air” with George Clooney each received six nominations, organizers said on Thursday.

The BAFTAs are awarded on February 21.

Avatar, whose 3-D effects have wowed critics and fans and helped it earn $1.6 billion at global box offices, claimed best film, cinematography, editing, music, production design, sound and special visual effects. Cameron, whose “Titanic” is the world’s highest-grossing film, was nominated for director.

LONDON (Reuters) – Technological advances have led to a sharp fall in the weight of women’s handbags, research from British department store chain Debenhams has revealed.

Women’s handbags now weigh an average of 1.5 kg (3 lb), 57 percent less than the average of two years ago, Debenhams said in an emailed statement on Thursday.

A new generation of smaller, lighter multi-purpose gadgets such as Apple Inc’s iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd’s Blackberry have replaced heavy laptops, old fashioned mobile phones, music players and paper organizers.

Debenhams Handbag Buyer Sue Tebbitts said that two years ago, women were carrying around 3.3 kg (7.3 lbs), the equivalent of three and a half bags of sugar, everywhere they went.

LONDON (Reuters) – Sotheby’s auction house said on Friday it plans to sell one of Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti’s rare, life-sized bronzes next month.

The February 3 sale of “L’Homme qui marche I” will mark the first time a Giacometti figure of a walking man of this size has come to auction in over 20 years, Sotheby’s said.

It has given the work — cast in 1961 — an estimated sale price of over 12 million pounds ($19 million). The record for a Giacometti bronze was set at $27.4 million in May 2008 for a life-sized sculpture of a woman entitled “Grande femme debout II.”

The auction firm said the bronze was being sold by German banking firm Commerzbank AG, which acquired it when it took over Dresdner Bank in 2009. Dresdner acquired the sculpture in 1980.

When everything and everyone around you is part of an act, you start to wonder where the make-believe ends and reality kicks in.

The hundreds of buskers and performers riding unicycles, juggling, dancing, doing magic shows, mind tricks, comedy acts at breakfast restaurants and even offering free butler services in the streets of the Scottish capital during the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe can be unsettling for anyone unused to the barrage of the bizarre.

Small troupes promoting themselves will lie on the streets begging for you to come to their shows, people in pajamas, funny hats, colored hair, dressed as poppies or in giant lizard suits may roar for your attention and there is an army of young women all toting placards, handing out flyers and even Chinese fortune cookies.

Everyone wants to be your friend, providing you’ll stump up for their show of course. And some acts at the world’s largest open access arts festival are so in-between reality and make-believe that their players have no theatrical ambitions at all.