Is Tom Hanks about to cash a 500,000 quid ticket?

That Tom Hanks. What an actor.

At Monday's opening in London of new film Hologram For a King, Hanks was lobbed a red-carpet softball question about his favourite English club Aston Villa's fall from grace and the Premier League. He promptly hit it out of the park.

Did he or didn't he? Only his bookie knows for sure.

Whether he's cashing or not, though, Hanks could well come off looking a little better than former England international turned pundit Gary Lineker, who vowed in December he would appear on the BBC's venerable Match of the Day highlights show in his underwear if/when the former 5,000-to-1 outsider Foxes nail down the title - which could well happen this weekend:

"The conversation's been had," Lineker said in The Independent. "I've told them many times, 'please tell me I can't do it.'"