Pandora

WENDY DENG, Rupert Murdoch's third bride, was "a bit of a robot" when she worked at Star TV, according to one former colleague. "She was annoyingly perky," the female reporter remembers. "She kept coming over to my desk and always asked `How's your new project?'" It'll be interesting to see whether Deng has any new family development projects of her own in the works - they'll fuel the Murdochs' already potentially incendiary dynastic succession issue.

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JAMES BROWN, that newish lad, has been spotted doing the unspeakable - his own ironing.

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GERMAINE GREER is advertising her book, The Whole Woman, on a turd-brown P-reg London cab. The vehicle sports this strapline on its rear: "It's time to Get Angry again". Is this a Lysistrata-style feminist path to urban peace... or did someone say "road rage"?

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ANNA KOURNIKOVA (pictured) - the poster girl for the new breed of tennis talent - is a convert to solitaire. She's taken to playing it to relax between matches...

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MILLENNIAL BREEDERS should love this: Scott Rudin, the film producer, is currently pitching Acme vs Coyote, the story of Wylie E Coyote's court action against the manufacturers of the kit he tries to clobber Roadrunner with. Could this be the mother and father of all lawsuits?

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PAUL McCARTNEY's hair is currently being offered at pounds 99 a strand by Fraser's, the showbiz memorabilia specialists. The five dark brown hairs "were obtained on 13 July 1966 by Beatles fan club president Freda Kelly". If the price is right, that means Macca's barnet is currently worth around pounds 10m. Maybe he should grow a beard. This isn't just celebrity commodification; the DNA implications are fascinating...

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MARIE CLAIRE's July coverline screams "We send Tamara Beckwith to live on a council estate". Dreamy idea, should go far, let's get packing and cracking. How about "We Send Bernard Ingham to live among Trappists"? "We Send Martina Hingis to a Charm School"? And "We Send Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to Saturday Morning Extra Maths Tuition (so they can learn to count their blessings)"?

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ANDREW THRASYVOULOU is the property player who has just launched myhotel (sic) in Bloomsbury. If you've got pounds 200 to blow, you can ask a cabbie to take you to myhotel and get the reply (sure to impress cerebrally challenged dates) "Where is your hotel?" Oh, and at the venue's opening binge earlier this month, in line with its Conranised feng shui ambience, guests clutched lit candles as a Gaelic choir moved among them. Then the MC told everyone to tear flowers from their stems and throw the petals in the air. Very New Age...

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TIM HUTTON is a Qatar-based 14-year-old Brit whose website profiles Cilla Black, Julie Andrews, Petula Clarke and Twiggy. The producers of If Love Were All, Twiggy's new Broadway show, were so impressed with Hutton's research on their leading lady that they've arranged for Virgin Atlantic and British Airways to join forces and fly Hutton to Manhattan for a long weekend with his heroine. They'll do lunch and tour the sights before Twiggy gives a performance of Noel Coward choons in Hutton's honour. Does this suggest: a) The Internet can make dreams come true? b) Only the show- wise can cajole BA and Virgin to get into bed together? c) Any 14-year- old who prefers Twiggy to Twigs and Twiglets isn't necessarily out of their tree?

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DONNA SUMMER, the disco diva and grandmother, isn't ready for her last dance just yet. She's on a puma, with a new disc out this summer and a tour in the works. But is Summer, who's spent the past eight years on her farm in Tennessee, ready for a 21st-century pop planet populated by MP3, Class A dealers vulnerable to spontaneous combustion, and Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley getting down and dirty at Glastonbury? Billboard magazine said of "I Will Go With You": "Both lyrically and vocally, she's on." Hot stuff!

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HARVEY NICHOLS, the fashion-led department store beloved by ladies who lunch and dames who dine, is to open its doors on an 80,000-sq-ft site in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital. According to Marketing Week, the new store has already been nicknamed "Arab Fab".

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