NEWS LITE\Pretty woman needs a date.

Julia Roberts says it's a brave man who dares to ask for a date.

"Nobody ever asks me out. Ever. Almost never. Almost absolutely never," she told Entertainment Weekly magazine. "Look, if you read the paper, you figure I'm booked till, like, 2004. Like, why would you even ask me? I've got so many balls in the air, I can hardly stand up!"

One man who did ask was Matthew Perry of "Friends."

"I love being engaged in conversation with this man, because he's so terribly clever," she said. "Wit is the key, I think, to anybody's heart, because who doesn't like to laugh? Who? Show me the person who doesn't like to laugh and I'll show you a person with a toe tag."

Marla gets rid of 'that body'

Marla Maples Trump says The Donald thinks she's too thin and prefers a "more voluptuous" look.

"Donald's always saying, 'You're so skinny,' " she said in the current issue of Fitness magazine.

Trump, who is 5-foot-8, said she weighed 140 pounds when they met, but has trimmed down to 118 pounds. Her reason?

"People weren't seeing me for what's on the inside as much as for that body," she said.

Trump, 32, said she practiced yoga to get in shape after the birth of their daughter, Tiffany, now 2. She said she doesn't mind having a few stretch marks and has no plans for cosmetic surgery.

"I have nothing against it, but it frightens me and I don't think I could stomach it."

War and Peace: The Sequel

Readers left dangling at the end of Leo Tolstoy's voluminous "War and Peace" can now pick up an equally hefty sequel, released this week by a Moscow publisher.

"Pierre and Natasha," a two-volume, 970-page extravaganza issued by Vagrius publishers, is expected to reach Russian bookstores by the end of the month, the English-language Moscow Times reported Tuesday.

The book was written by one Vasily Staroi, a pseudonym for an unknown author, the newspaper said.

"Pierre and Natasha" begins in 1825, when a group of Russian noblemen staged a December rebellion. Pierre Bezukhov, hero of "War and Peace," takes part and is sentenced to 20 years of forced labor in Siberia. His wife, Natasha Rostova, joins him there, becoming one of the legendary "Decembrist wives" who followed their husbands into exile.

Anticipating many Russians will be appalled at trifling with the classic, the publishers note in a foreword that the idea for "Anna Karenina" came to Tolstoy as he imagined an ending for an unfinished tale by another literary giant - Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

Ice fisherman lands in hot water

When a Norwegian fisherman found himself floating out to sea on a chunk of ice Tuesday, he kept his cool and let his fingers do the walking - to safety.

The 55-year-old man, whose name was not released, was ice-fishing when he noticed that his patch of ice had broken adrift. He couldn't reach land across the rapidly widening expanse of frigid ocean water.

So he whipped out his cellular telephone and punched in the number of the fire department in nearby Fredrikstad, a town in southern Norway, to let them know of his involuntary voyage.

The fire department called the police, who called the Royal Air Force, which sent a rescue helicopter that picked him up within 30 minutes of his call, police said.

"They even rescued his sled," said Johan Skjulhaug of the Fredrikstad police. Skjulhaug said the fisherman probably owes his life to his phone.

To say nothing of those limber fingers.

Pitt passes manners test

In a Manhattan hotel recently, a woman got into an elevator wherein Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow were kissing madly.

"Now cut that out," said the woman.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," said Pitt, "I'm afraid I can't."

The New York Observer noted that the actor's gentlemanly response "quite transcended any breach of etiquette entertained by his public display."

Autographing in the rain

Barry Manilow, whose string of hits includes "If I Make It Through the Rain," found himself in the middle of a weather-related car crash Tuesday on the southbound Golden State Freeway in East Los Angeles.

The 52-year-old singer was not hurt, and his 1993 gray, four-door Range Rover sustained only minor damage, said CHP Sgt. Ernie Garcia.

Manilow, who was alone at the time, was going about 25 mph and "was the number two car in the crash," Garcia said.

While waiting for the tow truck, Manilow reportedly spent about an hour signing autographs for passing motorists and CHP officers, and posing for pictures. An aide eventually took the entertainer home.

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(1) Julia Roberts Enjoys wit (2) Barry Manilow Meets fans (3) Dawn Gallyot takes the lead in the annual Shrove Tuesday pancake race in Olney, England. A sister race was held in Liberal, Kan. Associated Press