WHEN news first broke that nude pictures of Edison Chen and Gillian Chung were posted online, newspaper vendor Ms Lau was among the first in Hong Kong to know.

The gripping stories were all splashed out right in front of her, in the form of screaming headlines on various newspapers.

She recalled: 'I remember Apple Daily's headline on 29 Jan shouted 'Edison Chen and Gillian Chung nude pictures exposed'.

'Many people picked up the paper that day.'

Ms Lau, 32, is a helper at a huge 24-hour newspaper and magazine stall situated at the busy junction of Cameron Road and Carnarvon Road in Tsim Sha Tsui.

As the media got into a frenzy keeping tabs on Edison in the following weeks, Ms Lau was also kept on her feet, selling her newspapers and magazines fast.

'The magazines sell well especially whenever there's a new expose, such as when Edison's scandal broke, or when there are new revelations to a case.

'I can finish selling them all in one afternoon,' she told The New Paper recently.

But she added that readers will soon get sick of the current hot topic and sales will dip.

Ms Lau should know.

The stall she mans, which has been around for the past decade, is perhaps one of the biggest in Tsim Sha Tsui, and possibly Hong Kong, with close to 1,000 newspaper and magazine titles.

She says she doesn't have time to read what she sells but she gets a pretty good picture of what's happening by scanning headlines.

Besides the rumble created by Edison, Ms Lau recalls Hong Kong's top hot scandals that were the talk of the town and which helped her move magazines.

Edison Chen's nude pictures scandal

THE breaking news of the now infamous Hong Kong lad bedding countless actresses and models such as Gillian and Cecilia Cheung, and what's more, making pictorial records of his romps, certainly counts as THE most talked about scandal in Asian showbusiness.

Hong Kong cab driver Henry Pang said: 'Many overseas celebrities may get into similar scandals too but the audience there can still embrace them.

'But ours is a Chinese society after all, even supposedly open-minded Hong Kongers like us cannot accept what he has done.'

Still, it hasn't stopped the Hong Kong community from obsessing over it.

Till today, there are still new 'revelations' being reported, with the latest being that two of the women involved with Edison, 27, have contracted sexual diseases.

As Mr James Kang, marketing director of Warner Music here, said, it is something that 'will never be forgotten.

'It's the biggest scandal ever,' he added.

Jackie Chan's affair with beauty queen

THE action star's philandering ways are well-known, but his Hong Kong fans were still taken aback when it was revealed in 1999 that he could have fathered a daughter with 1990 Miss Asia Pageant winner Elaine Ng.

While he acknowledged that he had committed adultery, he never admitted that little Etta was his.

'I'm not a saint. I've done something wrong. I've done something that many men in the world have done. Maybe it was a moment of playfulness,' he had said then.

Jackie, 54, has been married to former Taiwanese actress Lin Feng-chiao since 1982 and has a 25-year-old son, Jaycee, also an actor.

Said Ms Susan Chan, 28, a fan from Hong Kong: 'Jackie is like a hero and role model for many Hong Kongers.

'He has frequently been linked with his leading ladies, but it was still shocking to find out that he actually had an affair with Elaine and that it could have led to a love child.'

Gillian Chung's dressing room expose

BESIDES starring in Edison's videos, Gillian also found herself in the limelight two years ago when she was photographed changing inside a dressing room after a Twins concert in Genting Highlands, Malaysia.

Easy Finder magazine published a series of voyeuristic pictures which showed the 27-year-old singer-actress in her bra.

That prompted Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang and film star Jackie Chan to protest while the Hong Kong Journalists Association condemned the photos as a violation of professional ethics.

Mr Jeffrey Chick, public relations manager of Hong Kong's Sundream Motion Pictures, felt that the incident was unthinkable.

He said: 'It happened not in Hong Kong, but in Malaysia, where we couldn't imagine such things could happen.

'It's also very perplexing how the guilty ones had access to the backstage to plant the camera,' he said.

Carina's topless shots

TOPLESS pictures of the distressed actress on East Week Magazine in 2002 shocked the world.

She was supposedly kidnapped and assaulted by the triads in Hong Kong around 1990, not long after she started dating actor Tony Leung.

Massive protests and petitions were held by fellow Hong Kong entertainers while Carina, 42, was applauded for participating in the protests. The magazine, which was owned by entrepreneur Albert Yeung, was temporarily shut down.

Said Hong Kong cabby Tang Chi Man: 'The thought of what Carina had gone through and how helpless she must have been during those moments simply sends shivers down my spine. But these people in showbusiness have no choice but to plough on.'

Leslie Cheung's suicide

THE king of Cantopop killed himself in 2003 and left a note which spoke of 'affairs of the heart'.

His sudden death at age 46 shocked and shook Hong Kong, with speculations of what pushed him to fall to his death from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong's Central district.

Hordes of inconsolable fans expressed their grief for the singer nicknamed Gor Gor (elder brother in Cantonese).

Ms Carrie Chu, communications manager with Hong Kong's Celestial Movies, said Leslie's suicide was heartbreaking.

She added: 'It was simply shocking. As it happened on April Fools' Day, I was then wondering if it was a prank.

'Leslie was one of the great legends in the Hong Kong entertainment scene. His departure was just too sudden.'