Pandora

HUNTER S THOMPSON tells GQ that his recent London jaunt was "one of the worst of experiences of my life". Thompson was here to file his impressions of the Windsors for The Observer. He blamed his bad trip on "the whole bunch of neurotic cultural elitists and spiritual Nazis who control not only The Observer, but the whole goddamn British press, and the whores and hoodlums and paid-off fascist sluts from Jaguar and Rolls- Royce and helpless BSA who worship and fear and wallow at the feet of your bogus, hare-brained Royal Family". Another absinthe, Dr Thompson?

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THE BLAIR WITCH Project. Should Blair Witch's alternative abbreviation be The Project?

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MICHAEL HUTCHENCE'S solo album should be out in October; probate wrangles delayed its release.

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CHRISTY TURLINGTON is working on a deal to be a partner in Sundari, a new range of skin care products reportedly based on a 5,000-year-old process from India. The Maybelline spokesmodel (pictured) has been telling friends she'll appear on all of Sundari's advertising when the stuff's available this autumn.

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DOMAIN NAME dealers will have seen that, at totality this week, solareclipse.co.uk remained unsold. One for your grandchildren?

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THE SOPRANOS, showing on C4 at 10pm tonight, is about the problems faced by a contemporary mobster: Mommy, marriage and disorganised crime. The show puts a fresh spin on "family" - and it's prompted enquiring minds to wonder what Mafia brats have to do to get into trouble with their parents. Borrow the good car, leaving Daddy the one that explodes? Use drugs supplied by another family? Forget to mow Dad's chest? Some suggestions for staying out of trouble in Casa Soprano: don't get caught surreptitiously taping conversations around the house; don't say "Forget about it," (it's "Fuggedabahdit") - and if you use the f-word three times in one night, that's not nearly enough.

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LACHLAN MURDOCH, last time our spy in the Wendy House checked on the newlyweds, was keeping his clothes in the shower.

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BROOKE SHIELDS can hear her biological Swatch tick; she says she's ready to take the Madonna route to single motherhood.

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EGGSHELLS, LAV seats and golf tees are just three locations used by ad agencies to flog us stuff. In a blinding attack of the crashingly obvious, new research suggests that what people trust is consumer information communicated by neighbours. In a survey of 200 households where the DiMassimo Brand Advertising agency recruited punters to tell fibs to their friends, and polled the pals a week later, 20 per cent of respondents believed that McDonald's was giving away action figures from the film Eyes Wide Shut.

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SKIPPY HORRORWITZ, Pandora's new best friend in La La Land, today names Saul Hudson - aka Slash from Guns'n'Roses - as "the latest prospect for Tinseltown's celebrity brawling club. LA County deputies picked up the bravura guitarist in a recording studio five days after he allegedly punched his girlfriend at a West Hollywood hotel. Slash's flack says `things will look a lot different' once his client's told his side of the story. The rocker's free on $50,000 bail while awaiting a court date". Welcome to the jungle...

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CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST (continues): "Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate clauses."

Contact Pandora by e-mail: pandora@ independent.co.uk