Pandora

MINISTER FOR Agriculture Jack Cunningham is privately annoyed by one aspect of yesterday's proposed EU lifting of the ban on British beef. The EU document requires a cull on the calves of all infected cattle. Cunningham himself proposed a cull some months ago, but the Treasury, in its niggling approach to every new budgetary expenditure, refused approval. As a result, British farmers will have to wait longer before the lifting of the beef ban takes effect.

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THE LADS OF Westminster were just as excited by yesterday's inaugural World Cup match between Scotland and Brasil as the rest of the country's football fans. As reported, the Prime Minister was forced to leave Labour's laddish Commons viewing room before the second half in order to attend a Downing Street reception for carers hosted by Cherie Blair. Millions of British husbands will sympathize with his domestic plight, but what will they make of William Hague?

The Boy Wonder persisted in holding a Shadow Cabinet meeting at the same time as the match, sending his laddish approval rating down to near zero. As for Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, one of his aides told Pandora that he was "around the office while the rest of us were watching the game". Still, although never a great football enthusiast, Paddy remains an astute politician. He asked for the final score to be paged to him so he could report it to his colleagues at a Parliamentary Party meeting.

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ASTEROIDS HAVE replaced Nazis, commies and even terrorists as Hollywood's favourite villains in films like Deep Impact and the soon-to-be-released Armageddon. But it's not just Tinseltown that's taking this flying space debris seriously. America's Nasa is spending $3m this year for research on how to deflect the rogue rocks from Earth's atmosphere, with a further $1bn budgeted over the next decade. Closer to home, Pandora spoke with the British National Space Centre. Total UK expenditure on "near earth object" research? A miserly, Dr Who-like pounds 50,000.

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EDITORS Tina Brown and Graydon Carter are turning into the "George and Martha" of New York-based magazine empire Conde Nast's very own Edward Albee drama. (In this case, it's Who's Afraid of Si Newhouse of course.) The professional rivalry between the two has grown into active hatred since Carter first replaced Brown as editor of Vanity Fair after she became editor of the New Yorke., Now Vanity Fair has published an attack on Tina by media critic James Wolcott, a former Brown acolyte. He accuses her of encouraging a critical biography about former New Yorker editor William Shawn "rooted in a desire to pollute and undercut the moral high ground of the Shawn era, which the present regime finds burdensome." How wonderful to think Tina and Graydon will soon be together under the same roof in the new Conde Nast building in Times Square.

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THE REPUTATION of Warwick University is on a roll, but everything is not idyllic back on campus. According to The Boar, the university's newspaper, the theft of crockery from the dining halls has become so widespread that a new incentive system has been established for Hospitality Services staff. This has resulted in "overzealous" room searches by porters, upsetting a number of students. One porter, who insisted on remaining anonymous, explains the rules of the hunt: "If you collect five of these pieces, you'll get a free meal." It must be extraordinary school food.

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UMA THURMAN (below) next hits our screens as Emma Peel in this summer's release of The Avengers. Better catch it, as this may be her last role for a long time. The actress, who is pregnant with actor Ethan Hawke's child, recently told Premier magazine between bites of stinging nettle soup ("superhigh in iron") that "I put off having a life for years because I was working." Now she and Hawke are refurbishing a haven in upstate New York. Far less aloof than usual, Uma gave her interviewer unique "access", including an invitation to accompany her shopping because "I need to buy a toilet." Pandora salutes Premiere Magazine for going way beyond the bog standard celebrity profile.