Historians may note that former President Lyndon B. Johnson takes about four seconds to sign his full name, and only half a second for his initials. "Lyndon's faster than I am," panted Lady Bird Johnson, trying to keep up with her husband as they both frantically autographed books, pamphlets and postcards at a benefit for the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas. Between autographs, Johnson chatted with book buyers, kissed babies and studiously avoided answering reporters' questions. Other than the newsmen, however, only one visitor left dissatisfied: a student who was yanked from the autograph line because he was carrying a copy of The Pentagon Papers. Said a library spokesman: "Mr. Johnson only autographs books that are sold at the library sales office."

"This road work is making me a prisoner," the statement read, "since my friends can't visit me any more unless they are mountain climbers or cave dwellers. As for myself, at 90, I just am unable to scramble over the ramps and jump across the ditches which they are digging around me." The angry plaintiff was Painter Pablo Picasso, and his target was the construction company that had torn up the road in front of his Riviera retreat. The artist's words were worth a thousand pictures. A French judge gave the company 48 hours to fill in the ditches and restore Picasso's right to a constitutional.

The room in the Dayton hotel was supposed to have been vacant. So it was assigned to Zsa Zsa Gabor, in town for a summer-theater production. But when Zsa Zsa walked in and switched on the lights, she discovered that the room was occupied by a couple of stark-naked men. "I was petrified," she said. "It was scary." The outraged Zsa Zsa checked into a rival hotel and refused to be mollified when the manager of the first hotel had the message "Zsa Zsa, We Love You" emblazoned on his marquee and sent her a bouquet. "He's worse than an ex-husband," said she. "He sent me white mums, which are for dead people."

"Even if her name was Anne Bloggs," says her riding instructor, "I would say that she is good enough to ride for Britain in top international events." Actually, her name is Anne Windsor. Princess Anne wants to ride in the Olympics next year, and if she doesn't make the team this time, predicts one acquaintance, she will discourage prospective husbands until after the 1976 games. To keep in training, the blonde princess celebrated her 21st birthday with an all-night discotheque party highlighted by the nonappearance of Princess

Margaret and her husband Tony Armstrong-Jones, who are widely rumored to be spatting.

A fruit-juice diet has whittled his weight down to 102 lbs., and he expects to level off at 70 to 75 lbs. But Comedian Dick Gregory vowed last week that he will continue his 15-week fast until the war in Viet Nam is over. "Right now peach juice is flipping me out. I shop for clothes in the children's department. It's strange to see a 39-year-old man buying underwear in the diaper department." What will he do if the war lasts ten years? "Well," he admitted, "I'll just call a press conference, declare the war over and eat."

Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who has long articulated the importance of a multicultural society, put his garb where his gab is. During a tour of the provinces, he took time out to stroll the streets of the French island of St. Pierre in an apache outfit, accompanied by his wife Margaret in a billowing peasant skirt and shawl. Shortly before, he had visited the town of St. Ann's in the Scottish stronghold of Nova Scotia, where the versatile Prime Minister donned the tartan of his mother's Elliott clan. Said Trudeau to the assembled Scots: "I admire the tenacity of your struggle to keep your language, your culture and your traditions."

The 1926 trip from France to England took 14 hr. 31 min., and it made Channel Swimmer Gertrude Ederle one of the most famous woman athletes in the world. In New York City, the Flushing Chamber of Commerce honored Gertrude with a luncheon on the 45th anniversary of her historic swim. "I proved Women's Lib 45 years ago," said Gertrude, 64, looking proudly at a photograph taken after she had emerged from the chilly water. "People said women couldn't swim the Channel, but I proved they could."

"I don't interfere in my son's love affairs," said Aristotle Onassis in response to reporters' inquiries about his son Alexander's girl friend. Residents of the Greek village of Porto Heli probably wish that Ari would take more interest than that. Alexander, 23, works for Ari's air-taxi fleet at Olympic Airways in Athens, 60 miles away, and until recently was whirring back and forth from the city to the villa rented by Fiona Thyssen, the 39-year-old divorcee he has been seeing for more than three years. Vacation over, Fiona left for Switzerland, but until she did, say the locals, the chopper noise was as regular as clockwork--and a lot louder.

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