Dome Watch

A spanking new Millennium Dome information centre opens at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich this week at a cost of pounds 400,000. No one there, however, will be able to answer the most pressing question of all about the Dome. What is going underneath it? Peter Mandelson, the minister for the Dome, knows. "I have seen what will go in the exhibition. I can't tell you, but it works," he says. Since he will not say, the Independent on Sunday will tell what it knows. A weekly series on What's underneath the Dome? begins here...

For the cow who has everything - including sore feet - the Millennium Dome brings you bovine slippers.

Called, inevitably, Cowslips, these plastic slip-ons are made by Giltspur Scientific of Ballyclare, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland to alleviate the pain felt by dairy cows who must stand around in fields all day (unless, of course, it is going to rain, when they can lie down). Worn for six to eight weeks, the cow shoes were developed to help increase milk yield.