Comment: Pandora

MO MOWLAM was on holiday on a mountain in Turkey when she learnt that The Sun was running a competition with a pounds 10,000 prize. To win, you had to tell Wapping where Dr Mowlam was on holiday. So she did. Did Mowlam get her pounds 10,000? "The competition is over," The Sun told her.

KEN KESEY, the beatnik crumblie, is alleged to have been the fall guy for a stunt where media guests' drinks were spiked with a supposedly hallucinogenic additive. It was at his party at the ICA this week. Maybe baby. But Pandora's girl on the bus says Ken appeared at 10-ish the other night to ask three boys playing the guitar to desist, pronto: "I need my sleep," he explained. Like, uh, wow!

WESTMINSTER RUMOUR. Michael Heseltine and John Major will stand down as constituency MPs in October 2000 - true or false? The cries and whispers are deafening - e-mail in if you know.

EUROSTAR HAS registered its logo in Brazil. Why?

THE NEW GQ has a great feature about It girls, as in "Are they over?" Now that Tara P-T is to plight her troth, who will pick up the Gucci bag and fill the media's voracious appetite for glossy posse profile? Some like Jemma Kidd, the Poshopolis mannequin. But don't discount Shebah Ronay. She's 27, connected and moving up fast. This scion of the foodie dynasty is a real woman; she works, so she's... a boss chick?

POACHER STRIKES but is shown the red card? Derek Dougan, the international centre-forward who scored for Wolves during their glory days, appeared in a different box this week. It's the dock at Wolverhampton magistrates court. Dougan, 61, is charged with aggravated burglary. He's on bail until 28 September.

JOHN PRESCOTT was travelling on a Silverlink County train from Northampton to London on Tuesday afternoon. But he had to bail out at Berkhamsted and take a taxi all the way to the metrop - because someone had tried to commit suicide on the line. Both Jags in the shop? Anything can happen.

DATE COACH is the hot new job title in Silicon Valley. A date coach is a qualified psychologist who shows guys how to pull.

MILBORROW IS the jet-black feline (pictured) who won the top cat competition known as The Arthurs this week. Well, the working cat section. Milborrow's got a gig for a rather grand chimney sweep called Giddings, who cannily hires him out as a good-luck charm at weddings. Milborrow's officiated at more than 300 to date. His only purrfessional preference? "No bagpipes please," Giddings says.

EDINBURGH PLAY of the day: Theatre Cryptic, a Glasgow-based troupe, use a bag of human hair as a prop in their show Electra. They misplaced it. Bad hair day - until some blade suggested hitting the streets with scissors, a winning smile and a book of free tickets. Come for the haircut, stay for the show...

RICH AMERICANS are now ordering two pairs of trousers with each suit, according to Anthony Hewitt, the bespoke merchant at 9 Savile Row. Because strides wear out faster than coats? "Client wanted one pair to wear with Y-fronts, one with boxers," he reports.

GEORGE ROBERTSON va prendre un cours intensif de francais prior to getting his feet under the Nato desk.

OH, AND a Norwegian man claims that a dolphin tried to rape him. The 28-year-old told the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang that the dolphin mistook him for a female after getting alongside him off Farsund, south Norway, this month. The excited animal became entangled with the man's swimming costume before he managed to clamber back on board his boat. "At first I thought it was a fin," the unidentified Norgie said, "but dolphins don't have fins on their underbellies."

Contact Pandora by e-mail: pandora@independent. co.uk