The left thighbone he broke in a fall in the bedroom of his Monte Carlo hotel nearly eight weeks ago was neatly knitted, and there was no trace of the bronchitis that had worried doctors during his convalescence. So, after 54 days in London's Middlesex Hospital, Sir Winston Churchill, 87, went home at last. Carried to a waiting ambulance in a sedan chair, the couchant old lion, chomping his usual Havana cigar and giving a victorious V-sign to a cheering curbside crowd of 1,000, was whisked away to his Hyde Park Gate home for a champagne toast to his recovery. Puffed one proud bystander: "He's a ruddy marvel."

Sure to provoke a row when it comes out next month is Letters from the Earth, containing hitherto unpublished, antireligious essays by Humorist Mark Twain. In the guise of Satan writing to the Archangels Gabriel and Michael, Twain pictures man as the foolish and conceited victim of his own preposterous religious beliefs. Coming from manuscripts dated in the last few years before Twain's death in 1910, the book was pieced together by the late Bernard DeVoto in 1939. But the content so disturbed Twain's Christian Scientist daughter, Mrs. Clara Clemens Samossoud, now 88, that she refused to allow publication because she felt the essays presented "a distorted view" of her father's ideas. It took 23 years before she finally agreed that "Mark Twain belonged to the world."

Was she or wasn't she? After a quick look at photographs of Princess Margaret and Husband Tony taken during her 32nd birthday party in Abbeyleix, Ireland last week. London's Daily Mirror assumed that she was, bannered: ANOTHER BABY FOR MARGARET. The princess' press officer, besieged by queries, refused to confirm or deny the story. "I simply don't know," he muttered. "To ask the princess herself would be impertinent."

Mecca for fashion models is Paris' House of Dior, but for redheaded Welsh Mannequin Maggie Griffiths, 23, Dior was becoming a bore. "Fittings from 10 in the morning until 10 at night; the same clothes in the same shows day after day.

And I earned less in a week there than I can in one day in London." So Maggie packed her hatbox and flew home to London, leaving other aspirants with a word of advice: "It is great prestige to work for Dior. I am fed up with prestige. You can't bank it."

On an evaluation mission for the Peace Corps, two critics of underdeveloped U.S. statesmanship dumped some fuel on a fire they themselves ignited. Sashaying toward the Champagne Room of the Manila Hotel in the Philippines. Eugene Burdick, 43. and William J. Lederer, 50. authors of The Ugly American, were refused entry because they were wearing Bermuda shorts. Squawked Lederer: Bermuda shorts are the national costume of his homeland--Hawaii. Answered the assistant manager: "Hawaii is part of the United States, and I didn't think Bermuda shorts were the national costume there." Miffed, Lederer threatened to write a letter of protest to the Philippine foreign office.

In sober tones befitting his position as a corporation president, bongo-bopping Producer Desi Arnaz, 45, told the 75 stockholders that Desilu Productions Inc. netted $611,921 from such TV productions as The Untouchables and Ben Casey last year and aims for $1,000,000 in fiscal 1963. On the president's left, looking like a rainbow in red hair, green slacks, yellow blouse, white loafers, sat Lucille Ball, 51. his exwife, a major stockholder and $25,000-a-year vice president. Grinned Desi introducing Lawyer Milton Rudin: "He was so good representing Mrs. Arnaz in our divorce, I thought he should be working for both of us."

"You've been following us with that thing ever since we left the Crinan Canal." bellowed England's Prince Philip, 41, to a telephoto-toting Scottish newspaper photographer chasing along the bank as the duke's royal yawl Bloodhound maneuvered through locks near Fort William, Scotland. "Do you want a bloody picture of my left earhole?" he cried. At least the Scottish edition of the Daily Herald did, next day ran a picture of the regal left ear along with a verbatim account of the royal remarks.

Shouts of "Is Maith Liom Ike"--Gaelic for "I Like Ike" greeted Ike as he landed in Dublin for a four-day visit. After a day's rest, he took off in a helicopter for the tiny village of Roundwood to visit former Irish President Sean O'Kelly. "I told you I was coming," Ike grinned, the rain streaming down his face. Inside, the two old friends chatted for an hour over warming mugs of coffee, then he returned to Dublin, for a round of golf that was cut short after six holes because everyone was soaked to the skin. Next day, his nostalgic 2,000-mile tour of Western Europe ended, Ike and Mamie, 65, boarded the liner America at the port of Cobh as cathedral bells pealed and a crowd of hundreds wished them bon voyage.

Playing a garment-district secretary named Miss Marmelstein who has all the sex appeal of an eight-day-old bagel, Actress Barbra Streisand, 20, is about the only bargain in the Broadway musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale. So having arrived at star status, she felt compelled to utter a few words on her Method that would make Stanislavsky spin. "It has to be a little false to show the truth," she told a New York Post reporter. "Like I used to wear my hair down for a show, and they couldn't see my eyes, they couldn't see the truth. That's the way I wear my hair, but now I push it up so they can see. The truth has to come out of falsity. Like it has to be exaggerated to show the truth. You know what I mean?"

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