Pandora

BATTERIES NOT required. When employees join 3Com, the palm-computer firm, they're given an unusual personal organiser - a Filofax. The silicon- flavoured manufacturer doesn't even have the excuse that it's cheaper than the firm's Palm Pilot III. "It's not," a 3Com source says.

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LONG SHADOWS (as in "The eclipse casts..."): given that we're a nation of animal-lovers, enquiring minds wonder what'll happen to any wildlife that stares at the sun on 11 August? We've had mad cows, so shall we raise that to blind cows? And can we expect some "mid-air exchanges" among our flying friends? Air traffic controllers term what happens after a "mid- air exchange" as "aluminium rain". Subtract the aluminium, just add feathers to the visualisation, and you'll see how millennial events can supply insight into the reality behind many revered religious texts. PS: Better get your puppy some shades.

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THE OBSERVER ran a story on July 25: "Meltdown in the Arctic puts the heat on us all". One sensitive Bristol reader was so shocked by the report of global warming's effect on polar bears that she suggested her family stop using their car. But closer scrutiny reveals some interesting (non) disclosure. The reporter files from a vessel called Arctic Sunrise. It is not identified as belonging to Greenpeace. The report quotes Melanie Duchin, who is validated as "an environmental researcher". As well she might be since she's also a Greenpeace mouthpiece. Also, the reporter described seeing a polar bear begging for food, quoting Melanie Duchin as saying, "I've never heard of a bear swimming close to a ship before." Maybe they should have watched last year's C4 documentary which filmed a polar bear approaching the same boat in the same way and begging, because it could smell breakfast being cooked in the galley. FYI: Polar bears sometimes go without eating for eight months; they're often slimmer during our summer. Even scientists tracking the data are apparently reluctant to put this down to global warming. Pandora's the last to criticise a good tale - but please can we can the hysteria in the interests of global cooling?

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KATE MOSS (pictured) stars alongside Rowan Atkinson in a Blackadder short called Back and Forth. Moss portrays Maid Marian. Expect to see it in January. Despite her reunion with Johnny Depp (Pandora, 23 July), Croydon's poster-girl is still trysting with Antony Langdon, the vocalist with the grungy Britband Space Hog.

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DVLA - ROMANTIC? No, it's the money, honey. ROM30S and JUL13T will go under the hammer at Leeds Town Hall on 3 and 4 September. Although they are offered individually, Pandora sees them being bought together, north of pounds 10,000. Star Wars fans with too much money, and insufficient taste or intelligence to know what to do with it, (did someone say "lottery winner"?) may like to bid on D4RTH and VAD3R. Guide price? pounds 2,500 each. Details: 0800 60 30 90.

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HAMMERTIME CONTINUES with Bonhams Entertainment offering the brass dressing- room key Clark Gable used during the making of Gone With the Wind. Gone is being feted because of its 60th anniversary this year. The fob bears both Gable's name and MGM's contemporary insignia; provenance is from the studio. It's expected to make about pounds 400, on 18 August.

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SHAKESPEARE ON Management is Paul Corrigan's new book, published this week. The cover sub-title says "Leadership Lessons for Today's Managers". Pandora's guest friend summarised it as "Henry V, Henry V and Henry V. Not Richard II. That's it."

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