THE PASSION PLAY-OFF

THE TORY PARTY was reeling last night after its brightest young "progressive" MP defected to Labour. Senior figures warned that the Conservatives were committing electoral suicide.

CRYSTAL PALACE'S administrator has extended the deadline for bidders for the financially-troubled First Division club until the end of this week. The move will allow the directors' consortium, which includes the acting chairman, Peter Morley, and the former director, Simon Hume-Kendall, three more days to finalise the details of its takeover plan.

TWO RIVAL consortiums that have been bidding to take control of Crystal Palace are now working on a combined plan to save the club and bring back the former owner, Ron Noades.

A COLOMBIAN drug runner imprisoned in Britain has won the right to sue Customs and Excise for the loss of a stone which, he claims, was a pounds 10,000 emerald handed down to him by his grandmother.

Isleworth may not have the cachet of pricey Chiswick or Twickenham, but it's got the same waterfront charm

The acid-jazz sound that has taken the London club scene by storm in recent years owes no small debt to vibraphonist Roy Ayers (above). With a career stretching back to the early Sixties, Ayers, who appears at Ronnie Scott's, Frith Street from Monday, has been a prime mover in the development of the soul/ jazz and R&B/funk styles that are proving so popular.

THE ENGLISH canal system was a prodigious symbol of the Industrial Revolution, but it never succeeded in meeting the competition of its younger rival, the railways. It lacked co-ordinated capital investment, but provided a brilliantly conceived, boldly executed, though haphazardly planned, network of inland waterways for commercial freight.

Brentford 4 Swansea 1

NATIONWIDE ROUND-UP

THE RUMOUR in Nottingham is that Forest supporters might have to stomach a Derby man at the helm now that Ron Atkinson has announced his retirement. But Roy McFarland, tipped along with Brian Little and Stuart Pearce as possible successors to Big Ron, has a job to complete at Cambridge United before he can switch his thoughts elsewhere.

Wrong again

STEVE COPPELL, the Crystal Palace caretaker manager, has blamed the club's former owner, Ron Noades, for the Eagles' desperate financial problems.

It's not every comedy act that promises you a free make-over or hairdo if you arrive early for the show. But that's just what Mel and Sue are offering. It is typical of their quirkily different approach. Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, who met at Cambridge a decade ago, have made a name with their off-beat and irreverent Channel 4 chat shows, Light Lunch and Late Lunch. Now, after a gap of several years, they are returning to live comedy with a sketch show entitled "Back to Our Roots". Health and beauty regimes apparently feature heavily.