In the red corner we don't have Tommy Sheridan

Saturday's boxing, boosting as it did the head counts of Amir Khan and Joe Calzaghe, was not so much two fights as a couple of ticket-only assassinations. What, though, of that other bruiser, Scotland's "Sunbed Socialist", Tommy Sheridan?

Six weeks ago, Pandora reported that the keen amateur pugilist had also agreed to take to the ring over the Easter weekend, in the famous socialist enclave of Dubai.

I hear that Sheridan, who successfully sued Rupert Murdoch's News of the World last year for calling him a "spanking swinger", pulled out of the celebrity charity fight on moral grounds.

His (now-redundant) man with the towel and bucket of water explains: "It all went tits-up. Tommy basically relayed his concerns that it was being held in Dubai, a rich man's paradise." (Good to see that he has seen the light since holidaying there with Gail, his airline stewardess wife and star libel witness.)

"Also, one of the sponsors turned out to be The Sun [owner: R Murdoch]. That made him very hesitant. He felt, on balance, that he couldn't go through with it. He is disappointed because he was doing it for charity and has been training very seriously."

Sheridan tips the scales at 13 stone and describes his measurements thus: "Chest: sexy and 38 inches." He will no doubt take his fighting talk on the campaign trail, leading the charge for his Solidarity party in the 3 May elections for the Scottish Parliament.

Knight goes soul searching in Nashville

Twelve months ago, the soul singer Beverley Knight released her greatest hits. "She has a mind-blowing voice," one reviewer wrote, before adding unkindly that "as this career retrospective proves, she has never fulfilled her potential".

On Wednesday, Knight launches her new album, Music City Soul, at the Bloomsbury Ballroom. "I'm so happy with this one, much happier," she tells Pandora. "I didn't want a sterile, too-polished sound. So we went to Nashville for the roots of soul, where all the best soul guys have gone from Memphis, and we recorded it live. What you've got is us, in Nashville, on 28 October 2006."

Knight will tour in the autumn, after playing the music festivals this summer: "I can't wait for Glasto. I've only done it once before."

Bright stars on the wane

Billed by one scribe as "Jaws meets Gardeners' Question Time", the sci-fi spoof musical The Little Shop of Horrors is the latest West End show to lose a starring actor.

Mike McShane, known to audiences as the fleshthirsty, belching plant Audrey II ("Must be human, must be frrrresh!"), has taken a two-week break from theatre owing to a family bereavement. The Olivier Award winner Clive Rowe replaces him temporarily.

McShane's unavoidable absence follows illnesses for Connie Fisher (The Sound of Music), Richard Griffiths (Equus) and Billie Piper (Treats). The understudies have been busy and some producers have generously reimbursed those punters disappointed to have not seen "the name". There's talk now that theatre wallahs might consider another small surcharge to tickets: an insurance to refund should the star not tread the boards.

Boiling point

Things are getting ugly between Marco Pierre White and his protégé Gordon Ramsay, following Ramsay's admission that he faked the theft of the reservations book at Aubergine restaurant to blacken MPW's name.

Marco is consulting m'learned friends about suing Ramsay for malicious falsehood and libel. Ramsay has not yet received an expensive letter, but Caterer and Hotelkeeper newspaper has tracked down MPW, whose phone keeps ringing out when I call. Comments Marco: "All I can say is that this is in the hands of my lawyers and appropriate action will be taken." Whatever that means.

The chefs' friends have begun the war of attrition: Ramsay is a "playground bully" while Marco's "career is dying". Bring that pan to the boil, please!

Good news for Malaysians: Jeremy Clarkson spent last week holidaying in Barbados. It poured with rain.

A word in Tony's ear

Ear ear: with a change of prime minister imminent, the impressionist Rory Bremner has donated his prosthetic Tony Blair lobes to be auctioned, at Wednesday's opening of the art exhibition, Birds of War: Hawks, Doves and Illegal Eagles. Proceeds to the charity Medical Aid for Iraqi Children. The add-ons could be used to hide your real ears, when they burn because you're telling lies.

"We're going to ply people with plenty of wine before bidding starts," the artist Tanya Tier says. "It could be a fetishist's dream - if you're into wearing prosthetic ears, that is, while you do your vacuuming, dressed in PVC and high heels. Although I don't know anyone like that, I hasten to add. Maybe we should have a ceremonial burning of them." Perhaps they will be saved for the nation by a rich benefactor.