She had the gossips to worry about, what with her husband traipsing off to Tokyo and New York and the newspapers printing rumors about a rift in the family. He had the critics to worry about, what with tackling Shakespeare on screen tor the first time--and with his wife as a costar. So Actor Richard Burton asked the obvious question when he encountered Princess Margaret at the London premiere of The Taming of the Shrew: "Are you as nervous as I am?" She sure was, said Meg. She was ready to bet on it. Burton was more than willing, and he was confident that he had the greater stakes. "I've got my own money in that film," he explained.

The newsmen at New York's Kennedy Airport had a little trouble with titles when Israel's ex-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, 80, arrived with his wife for a three-week visit to the U.S. Some reporters called the indestructible old statesman "Mr.," others "Prime Minister." The Mrs. set them straight. "Ben-Gurion would be the nicest thing," she said. "Prime Minister anyone could be--Ben-Gurion nobody could be." Said B. G. with a smile: "I'm not responsible for her answers." New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller got all mixed up too. When he greeted Ben-Gurion at the Hotel Plaza, Rocky started out: "It's such a pleasure to welcome you to your second home in New York State . . ." In midsentence, Ben-Gurion cut in: "This is my third home--my second is in Tel Aviv" (his first is Plonsk, Poland). "All right," said Rockefeller, "we'll settle for third."

Oh, the wails that came out of the Orient last month when Folk Singer Joan Baez, 26, was on a tour of Japan. And the noise was not just protest songs. Joan complained bitterly that the CIA had pressured her Japanese interpreter into censoring her public comments about Viet Nam and the Bomb. But when she returned to San Francisco and called a press conference, all Joan wanted to talk about was love and peace. Newsmen persisted: What about those dark tales of CIA meddling? "We don't have a shred of evidence," admitted Joan's manager. Then the alleged interference hadn't hurt the tour? Said Joanie, with a Cheshire smile, "Obviously, it was enhanced by this."

Downstairs, the 70 Congressmen were huddled with the President. Upstairs, their wives discovered that a White House is a home, as four former residents invited by Lady Bird entertained them with stories about the good old days. Charles Toft remembered how he and Brother Robert annoyed Papa by jamming an elevator and flicking spitballs at the solemn portraits on the walls. "Sistie" Doll Seagraves recalled a testy bit of advice from Grandmother Eleanor Roosevelt: "Go find a bathtub to cry into." Margaret Truman Daniel told of the spooky night she shared Lincoln's bed with two school chums; Father Harry had planned to throw a scare into the girls by sending in a servant dressed in his inaugural top hat --only he couldn't find the top hat. For Barbara Eisenhower, moving out of the White House was a moving experience. "This is the end of something beautiful," she remembered saying--and son David replying: "Don't worry, Mother. I put notes behind all the pictures, and they say 'I shall return.'''

What with diplomatic relations so bogeyish and all, nobody was quite sure what would happen when Malaysia Premier Abdul Rahman (handicap: 24) and Singapore Premier Lee Kwan Yew (handicap: 12) met in the Kuala Lumpur diplomatic corps' annual golf tournament. Happily, nothing much went up in the air on the 5,000-ft.-high, nine-hole course at Tanah Rata except divots. Lee laughed pleasantly when Tunku Rahman turned up in a tweed deerstalker hat, and looked even happier when he and his partner romped home as the best pair, with a score of 68. The Tunku shot well over 100 but accepted it philosophically. "If I play well, then I am golfing," he said. "If I play badly, then--well, I'm just out for the exercise."

Ever since Architect R. Buckminster Fuller, 71, was chosen to design the U.S. exhibition hall at Expo 67, the Montreal world's fair has known that there was a big bubble in its future. How big? Big enough, said Bucky Fuller, as he shook out the plans for a $9,300,000 geodesic bubble of transparent plastic and steel spacious enough to hold the Statue of Liberty without its pedestal. Not only will the 250-ft. by 200-ft. sphere be the most imposing structure on the fairgrounds, where 62 nations are competing for attention, it will also have a totally controlled environment. A computer system will direct 261 electric motors operating 4,700 metallic-fabric shades on the inside surface of the gigantic globe, regulating temperature and changing the dome's color from silver to rainbow. The general reaction was summed up adequately, if somewhat unimaginatively, by a fair official: "It's wild."

"They are glorious, glorious. Without them life would be a blank." So wrote Charles Dickens about the Victorian craze for mustaches. A century later another British dandy, Beatle George Harrison, decided to fill the blank between nose and lip with a splendid Pancho Villa brush. George grew his on a sojourn to India, and when he came home, John, Paul and Ringo began theirs at once and told their business manager Brian Epstein to please follow suit. Always leaders in matters hirsute, the boys have inspired soup strainers all over Europe. Terence Stamp and Jean-Paul Belmondo have shaggy profiles now, but the thickest thatch belongs to Sean Connery. He thinks it might make people forget about 007.

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