Pandora

ROCK'N'ROLE - once flicks were vehicles for music stars. Think Sinatra, Elvis, Cliff, Beatles, Jagger, Bowie. But the wheels came off. Despite Spiceworld's success, the action's moved to club flicks such as Human Traffic. So rockers now take what they can get. If you're John Taylor, ex-Duran Duranie, that's four films this year - nice work when you can get it. In the forthcoming Sugartown Taylor plays an Eighties hearthrob hitting bottom in Nineties LA depsite the groupies in the garden. Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp has a smaller part as a washed-up muso. Next, perhaps he could team up with brother Gary, who plays a homicidial type in EastEnders...? Did someone say "The Krays"?

TOP CAT? What's claimed to be the first private clinic offering reflexology, acupuncture and homeopathy for cats has just opened in West London. The Cat Place also provides feline dentistry, radiology, and cardiology. More? 0207 289 1000.

BAR BET of the day: can you fill in the final three letters in this sequence? YYHLYEYTR (?) (?) (?). The solution forms today's penultimate item.

OZZY OSBOURNE, another Midlands rocker who's gone Hollywood, is the subject of "a comedy-drama" based on his controversial antics. When the idea was first pitched, a suit at the indieprod currently developing the idea supposedly said: "Ozzy Osbourne? It sounds a bit batty to me."

ANNA WINTOUR, the Brit editor of American Vogue, is in town. She's landed from Manhattan to comfort her father, Charles, (editor of the Evening Standard 1959-76). He's ailing.

CAMP TOMMY is the new name for a country retreat in upstate New York. Tommy Hilfiger, who opened a flagship store in Bond Street earlier this year, donated more than pounds 1m for renovations to the summer camp. Perhaps the next move is to appoint an "official camp photographer"?

CENTRAL CASTING. Today's lexicon features the slanguage of casting directors. Bread & butter: a constantly working character actor. Breaking top: when a producer pays over budget for a name. Day player: a bit part actor. Name: star. Read: the audition. Straight to wardrobe: when a player who auditions aces the read and wins the role. TOYS: abbreviation of "take off your shirt", the cd's standard opener for no-brainer beefcake roles where brawn beats thesping skills.

WIRED. INSPIRED. But for how long? As Freeserve, the Dixons Internet spin-off, hits the markets this week, some interesting data has emerged. First, most commercial I/net activity is business-to-business rather than business-to-consumer. American firms alone did $43bn-worth of deals on the Net last year. Forrester Research, the tech consultancy, predicts that that figure should rise to more than $1 trillion in less than five years. New model economy? Or North Sea bubble?

BRIDGET FONDA (pictured) loves reptiles. In Lake Placid, her new thriller, she gets personal with a killer crocodile. "If it's small and manageable and guaranteed not to grow, I'd love to own one. They have wonderful skin." Really? Placid has already been savaged by cold-blooded critics...

MONDO CELEBRITY: Michelle Williams, who plays Jen in Dawson's Creek, will topline alongside Sharon Stone and Ellen DeGeneres in a TV mini-series that will tell the story of 40 years of lesbianism... Eric Idle will play opposite Brooke Shields in the new series of Suddenly Susan... Bruce Willis is reportedly en route to Sweden for a "secret" hair transplant... Leif Garrett, 37-year-old former teenybop idol, may face the slammer after his mid-August sentencing on heroin and cocaine charges... Sylvester Stallone has just wrapped principal photography on Detox, in which he stars as Detective Jake Malloy, a character he hopes will rival Rocky and Rambo... Malaysia has banned Mike Myers' The Spy Who Shagged Me because it's "socially damaging".

BAR BET - the solution. The sequence represents the final letters of the 12 months of the year, so the missing letters are R, R and R.

OH, AND last word on Rocket and SoftBook, the new e-books heading our way later this year: "Read 'em and beep".

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