Pandora

WIDELY TIPPED to get a share of the Nobel Peace Prize, the former US Senator George Mitchell, so highly regarded for his work as mediator in the Northern Ireland peace negotiations, came away empty-handed in Oslo. But, it seems, not entirely unrewarded in Ireland. Mitchell has just become chairman of a US-backed $20m (pounds 12.4m) seaside golf course development in County Clare, called the Irish National Golf Club. In addition to his salary, Mitchell - who is a partner in the prestigious Washington law firm Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand - will be given a plot of land to build a house at the resort, which will include three golf courses, a luxury hotel and a conference centre. Mitchell was appointed because he's "an icon of Irish-American relations", the development's chief executive officer, Doug Barton, told The Washington Post. His mediating talents may also have had something to do with it. The resort is under attack by Irish environmental groups, and there are questions about an American company (and its Irish subsidiary) receiving $4m (pounds 2.5m) in EC funds for the project.

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IS WOOLWORTHS the first British retailer to ditch sterling in favour of the euro? Not really, but anyone who buys a packet of Woolies' festive milk chocolate coins this year may get that impression. The "classique" selection includes gold-foil-covered Deutschmarks, French francs, Danish kroner and, yes, euros - but not a single pound. "We buy this from a supplier," a Woolworths spokesman explained to Pandora yesterday. "They tell us that they are forbidden by law from making chocolate money in sterling. Other currencies are fine. You'd better check this with the Mint, I guess."

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AS THE world eagerly awaited clarification of a rumour that the All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, has quit, and that the girl group will split, she was visiting a Notting Hill record store this weekend with her boyfriend Robbie Williams. Pandora suspects that the influence of Williams, who busted up Take That when he quit to launch his successful solo career, may prove decisive. There's no doubt about Williams's self- consuming professionalism. According to the record shop assistant: "The last time he was here, his album was out, and he came in to see if we were displaying it properly."

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READERS WILL recall Pandora's report on Sports Minister Tony Banks's annoyance with Iain Dale's book The Wit and Wisdom of Tony Banks. Over the past two weeks, this column has demonstrated - with choice quotations - that the book is in fact a glowing homage to Banks, and that the Sports Minister's ire is surely misguided. However, when the most recent Mail on Sunday ran a story suggesting that the Prime Minister was thinking of dropping Banks from the Cabinet in his next reshuffle, it seemed a good time to ring Banks and offer our encouragement. Had he not read Dale's book to cheer himself up? "It will make him mad if I ask him," an aide said. "He will have no comment. He's having a pretty stressful time at the moment."

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SIR BOB Hope, ennobled last May, is the subject of a humiliating attack in the new issue of The New Yorker. Foremost among his critics is Woody Allen, who is scathing about Hope's later TV career. "He was lazy - and nobody cared. He would come out and do these old-fashioned sketches, and after a while, he was unashamedly reading from cards. It was just awful," carps the arch-neurotic Allen. Far more hurtful, however, will be the words of Hope's former colleagues. Melville Shavelson, who wrote and directed a number of Hope's films, says: "The woman-chaser. The coward. The cheap guy. We just put them in. He thought he was playing a character. He was playing, really, the real Bob Hope." His former manager, Elliot Kozak, says Hope was "the most self-centred person" he had ever met and, commenting on Hope's wife, Dolores, says: "She longed for romance from this man, and he was cold as ice to her."

Other former colleagues go into interesting details about the comic's alleged cruelty and parsimony. Perhaps it's time for Sir Bob, born 95 years ago in Eltham, in south-east London, to emigrate back to the land of his forefathers?