Pandora: Grace gets Bradshaw in the festival groove

Ben Bradshaw has always struck
Pandora as a bit of a smooth mover. No surprise, then, to hear news of the Culture Secretary at last weekend's Latitude Festival in Suffolk ("the thinking man's Glastonbury," according to our man in wellies) doing what could be described as a "Bez" at the corner of the main stage – shaking his hips and shedding layers of clothes to the rhythmic pounding of Grace Jones' performance. Can it be true?

"He loved it!" enthused Melvin Benn, the festival's organiser. "To my knowledge he's the first culture secretary we've ever had. He can come back anytime – I don't think it would be Gordon's cup of tea but he could bring the Milibands. They need to let their hair down. They would love a festival. They should come with George Bush masks on and pretend they're not there."

Tragically, it seems Bradshaw (or the Minister of Sound as he shall hereafter be known), managed to escape Ms Jones' attention (her spokesman was unaware of the incident). At least the news is causing amusement in Bradshaw's office. "Oh yes, we've heard about that one!" giggled one source.

BBC's false alarm at Scotland Yard

Quite A kerfuffle at Scotland Yard yesterday morning, with everyone in the building being evacuated following a fire alarm - nothing to worry about, though, 'twas just a drill. If only the assembled TV crews had been told.

Minutes after the bell began ringing, the BBC broadcast a suitably alarming live report. Whoops! The bobbys were forced to issue a clarification: "New Scotland Yard has NOT been evacuated. The story on the BBC is incorrect."

"That's the problem with 24-hour news, isn't it?" admitted one of the Yard. "I suppose it was a bit haphazard."

The war of good causes

Whatever happened to goodwill? The famed philanthropist John Bird, co-founder of the homeless magazine The Big Issue, appears to be finding the charity bay a little crowded. "Bono and Geldof are poverty tourists," he grumbles. "Make Poverty History sounds like a Michael Jackson song, not a solution to world hunger. I want to hold an event that deals with real issues, not one-week wonders."

Bigmouth strikes again (and again)

Morrissey's media war rages on. His latest target? The Times. The singer, who began an impressive marathon of a feud with NME in 2007, was less than pleased with their four-out-of-five star review, raging to the audience the next night that it described him as "offensive". "This song is dedicated to them," he bellowed, before belting out The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores. The hack in question finds himself in esteemed company: the previous weekend Michael Jackson was chosen for that particular honour.

pandora@independent.co.uk