Pandora

GINGER BAKER, the polo-playing drummer who partnered Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce in Cream, plans to move house. He's leaving the US after a donnybrook with American Immigration authorities. Baker used to employ Liz Ledsham, a 23-year-old Londoner, as a groom. When a rival equestrian dropped the dime on Ledsham's questionable green card status, Baker went postal. "They were thugs," he said of the immigration officials who deported her. The result? A visit from the tax man. "According to Immigration I don't live in the US," said Baker, who has two pot convictions that interdict him from permanent residence, "but the tax department has decided that I do." Baker has decided that he doesn't - he's bailing to South Africa.

JIM DAVIDSON has been writing William Hague's "gags"? Nuff said.

ANTHONY OPPENHEIMER and Donatella Versace's Diamonds Are Forever party at Syon House this week featured a diamond-shaped catwalk made from glass. Versace (pictured) flew it in from Milan - a delicate move. As guests drank Krug and listened to Jon Bon Jovi do his rock'n'roll thang, a procession of supermodels including Kate, Naomi, Amber and Devon stopped at one apex of the diamond. The cleverly choreographed result? Short-skirted talent showing plenty of skin to the Prince of Wales. It's a tough job... but someone's got to do it.

DE BEERS' binge also finally solved the problem of what to call the artist formerly known as Prince. The phrase that pays when addressing the man who made "1999"? "Yo, baby."

PICK-UP lines - the really crap ones that the laydeez have been mailing - include: "Hi, my name's Dave. I'm telling you this now, so you'll know what to scream later." "That's a beautiful dress. It'd look even better in a crumpled heap on my bedroom floor..." "The voices in my head told me to come and talk to you." The one we can't print connects panties and fish in a predictable way. Pandora's fave? "You look just like my wife, but she's dead now."

OH AND thanks to the eagle-eyed reader who reminds Pandoraphiles that while American youth may use the word "puma" as shorthand for "comeback," over here it's an acronym (Panties Up My...) for traumatic underwear.

RODNEY JERKINS, the Spice Girls' new producer, whose credits include Whitney Houston and Will Smith, says their next record will be "not so Euro, but more American". In other words, like Geri Halliwell's new disc, it'll rhyme with pony - as in pony and trap.

A SNACK bar owner in Pontypridd was mortified when she realised she had overcharged No 1 Guy for a cup of tea during his swing through Wales earlier this month. So she sent him a cheque for 20p. This week Beryl Griffiths, proprietor of the Bizzie Bees snack bar, was delighted when Tony Flares arranged for a bouquet of red roses with her name on it. We pay -

he plays.

DAMON HILL should ditch his Jordan; anybody who's taken a ride down the M40 recently knows he'd have more chance of winning the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday if he replaced it with a white Transit van with a couple of fat blokes in it.

JOHN KENNEDY JR, the publisher of the American political mag George, broke his ankle while paragliding onto his lawn.

POSH SPICE on her putative husband's day job: "I don't understand the rules, and I'm not really that interested in learning them." FYI Victoria, a girl can bluff the offside trap, but if someone says Becks is "playing away" - listen up.

OVERHEARD AT a job interview this week.

Boss: "So, then, what would you say your faults are?"

Candidate: "Well, I have a short temper..."

Boss: (shouts): "Fault? That's a quality round here!"

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