The Box

Prescott, slick as a parrot

JOHN PRESCOTT'S G8 summit conference on the environment was looking like a public-relations disaster in Leeds this weekend. At the Press Association they were sending out stories about the event that flopped belly-up on news desks across the country. Then the "green" ministers trooped off to Downe House. Somebody warned John Prescott not to let that parrot near his finger; it had a reputation as a fierce pecker. What did Prescott do? He flashed his finger at the bird, the cameras caught the action and suddenly the news editors were loving the story, stretching it out from Sunday to Monday, complete with double-page spreads of the Deputy Prime Minister's all-time great clowning photos. With such natural publicity instincts, no wonder Prescott is one political animal who rarely needs to visit the spin-vet.

Targett practice

WHILE Coronation Street may be full of anguish recently, it is a cruise in the sunshine compared to the dramas supposedly taking place in London's Farringdon Road. Last week the media world was swirling with rumours about a media soap opera involving power struggles and savage feuds inside the Guardian and Observer offices. Some gossip hounds believe that major changes at the top of the Observer's masthead could be announced as soon as today. Will Jocelyn Targett, deputy editor (features), join Will Hutton (pictured) as editor, with Hutton continuing to guide the paper's leader and comment pages while Targett oversees the hiring, firing and editorial strategy in all other sections? Or will there be even more dramatic changes? In an attempt to get to the bottom of all this, Pandora rang Peter Preston, Observer columnist and former Guardian editor. "I've heard all these rumours in recent weeks but I've heard nothing that bears any resemblance to the truth of what is actually taking place here," he said. As a trustee of the Scott Trust, he made it clear that he was in no position to speak further about such matters. So the suspense continues.

Farringdon follies

Meanwhile, there is more drama up "the Road" as a furious row has erupted between Leonard Doyle, foreign editor of the Observer and one of his own US correspondents, Ed Vuillamy. This involves a piece that Vuillamy wrote for the Guardian two weeks ago. Doyle took exception to Vuillamy's accusation that an article about Bosnia - which Doyle wrote when he was reporting for the Independent in New York in 1992 - was based on MI6 propaganda. In fact, Doyle was not named in Vuillamy's piece. But so outraged is Doyle that he has threatened to sue Vuillamy - and presumably the Guardian - for libel. Compared to the power struggles at the Observer, the act of a journalist suing his colleague -perhaps even his own sister-paper - would make for avant-garde drama of the most outlandish kind.

Thanks to all the exceptionally erudite people who wrote, called and e-mailed Pandora to assure her that the maths puzzle wasn't very amazing after all. Here's another puzzle: if you are all such geniuses, why waste your time writing to a maths dullard like Pandora when you could be calculating the origins of the Universe? Or offering to help with my tax returns next year?