Pandora: Older and wiser?

(© Tim Sanders)

Middle age appears to have a mellowing affect on the manager of Leeds United, Dennis Wise, whose name became synonymous with vicious ankle biting long before Scouse bad boy Joey Barton ever learnt how to smoke a cigar (then poke it in a team-mate's eye).

Wise, who ruddy Sir Alex Ferguson said could "start a fight in an empty house", maintained consistent standards of foul and abusive behaviour during his playing career: he picked up 12 red cards, assaulted a taxi driver, tried to bite a Spanish opponent and more recently punched and broke a colleague's nose and jaw.

Yesterday, Wise was confronted on a train from Leeds to London by a portly, bald businessman, whose seat he had taken. The businessman was angry.

"He confronted Wise. It looked like a suicide mission," says a passenger. "We thought it was going to kick off as Wisey looked him up and down. But then Wisey just got up and skulked off to another carriage without a word." An unlikely convert to Buddhism?

Kerching! Lord Cashpoint signs book deal to 'spill all'

Gordon Brown, Peter Hain and co will be elated. With characteristic timing, Lord Levy has signed with Simon & Schuster to publish his memoirs.

To be released by October at the latest – it depends when the peer finishes the juiciest recent chapters – the autobiography will span Levy's East End upbringing, his dealings in the shadowy world of pop music, his accommodating manner as Labour's chief fundraiser, and his subsequent arrests and spotlit interrogation by Inspector Knacker.

The key government figures of the past decade may feel emotionally racked while they await publication, given Levy's knowledge of No 10's political body dumpings, and the grudges he is said to have grown against certain individuals.

Tony Blair's spokesman said last night that the former PM would not ask for an advance copy of the cash-for-peerages chapters. He declined to elaborate: "I'm not going to get into this."

For the first time, Levy will reveal how he took his teethy grin – honed promoting Alvin Stardust – to the Middle East, where he attempted to pacify the region as Blair's man with the dove feather. All in all, an acrobatic personal transformation that has not, yet, been explained or understood.

Simon & Schuster won the rights in an auction by the literary agent Eddie Bell, of Bell Lomax Moreton.

"It will reveal his intimate dealings with the key characters of the Blair years," the publisher said. "It will provide the first insider's account of political funding and the controversy over cash for peerages."

Morgan and Jack's big night is a knockout

Life imitated art for Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman at Wednesday night's Leicester Square premiere of their new movie, The Bucket List.

While introducing the film, which is about two terminally ill cancer patients on a road trip to complete their wish lists, the two actors larked about the auditorium: Freeman pretended to collapse on the floor and pass out, with Nicholson jokily administering mouth-to-mouth.

Alas, it was all too much for one audience member near the front, who, mid-screening, did, in fact, collapse in his seat and plunge forward like the proverbial spud sack.

Cups of water were obtained, to splash the gentleman. Several neighbours, concerned he could be halfway to rigor mortis by the closing credits, frantically fanned him. No sign of Jack's trusted CPR.

The fellow lived.

Grim Reaper gag

A tribute – although not a particularly touching one – to Heath Ledger, from the cover band of Arctic Monkeys singer Alex Turner.

The Pun Lovin' Criminals were playing in Madame JoJo's, famed for its transvestite cabaret, when they heard of the Australian actor's demise.

Launching into "Get Free" by Aussie band The Vines, Turner's frontman Fred Les (famous for frolicking with Bob Geldof's spawn, Peaches) declared: "This one's for Heath Ledger. Apparently his last words were 'Remember The Vines'." Ho ho.

Sarko cosy

Back-slaps and kisses in the French President's camp last night, as Nicolas Sarkozy celebrated the arrival of his diminutive elder brother, Guillaume, as chairman of Le Monde Prévoyance – stakeholder in the posh newspaper Le Monde.

Sarko is snug with the French media. His friend Serge Dassault owns Le Figaro, which slurps at "dynamic and courageous" Nic's derrière. Paris Match, run by chum Arnaud Lagardere, doctored a topless photo of Nic to remove his "love handles". And the President's plan to ban advertising on state media fired up the share price of the channel TF1, owned by pal Martin Bouygues.

Does Nic recline on a chaise longue in the Élysée Palace, dictating coverage while copine Carla Bruni performs naked somersaults on the waterbed? It makes one choke on one's croissant.

pandora@independent.co.uk