Jockey loses his car in Liverpool blaze

WITH Daniel Craig expected to be replaced as James Bond after his next mission, could his wife, Rachel Weisz, become an action hero? The Oscarwinner shot to fame in The Mummy, but has since appeared in more cerebral fare. ‘I’m totally open to doing the big movies,’ says the 47-year-old. ‘But I just can’t make it happen — someone has to offer it to me.’

FORMER jockey Bob Champion was at the Liverpool International Horse Show on New Year’s Eve when it was abruptly ended by the devastating fire in a nearby car park.

Champion’s new £23,250 VW Tiguan was among some 1,600 cars destroyed in the multi-storey next to the Echo Arena. ‘ It was like a war zone,’ he tells me. ‘Explosion after explosion. The firemen did a wonderful job containing it.’

The 69-year-old, whose 1981 Grand National win was immortalised in the film Champions, starring John Hurt, didn’t enjoy being trapped in his hotel: ‘New Year’s Eve TV was desperate.’