Pandora

DAWN AIREY, Melvyn Bragg and Alan Yentob may well emerge as winners in Greg Dyke's new regime at the BBC next spring. Airey, currently C5 programming director, is tipped to be BBC1's new controller; Yentob looks good for the number two deputy DG role because it's "better to have him inside the tent pissing out than vice versa"; Bragg is apparently to be named to fill a customised corporate arts bossyboots-at-large role. It seems that despite any personal misgivings about Airey, Dyke's professional instincts have triumphed: from chump to champ in six days. Go, girl!

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IRONY'S OVER. Official. Gay Dad, the ranking popsters surfing the spumes from their debut album Leisure Noise, hit chat mode with Mojo. Sample this from the band's Cliff Jones (pictured): "We didn't want to be ironic or post-modern in any way. The Nineties and Eighties will be looked back on as the era of irony in culture, and really, life's too short for irony, because it's one stage removed from what you want to say." On point.

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THE NEW Harpers & Queen says it's "the drink of the summer". It's also a sports car: TVR - tequila, vodka, Red Bull.

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GET ME REWRITE: "This Labour Government has abolished crude and universal crapping." - John Prescott to delegates at this week's Local Government Conference in Harrogate. New Labour needs to control our movements more closely than we previously suspected.

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SOUTH PARK, the movie, may prove to be this summer's sleeper box-office break-out. But it's been causing consternation among entertainment industry prissypants. For openers, there's the film's title - South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. The sleek bespoke suits running Paramount just don't get the reference (hint: most American males are circumcised). Insiders are enjoying a good laugh, too, about the consternation South Park BL&U's gross plot points (The Independent, 7 July, "Oh my God! They filmed Kenny!") are creating among censors. A code paper leaked from the Motion Picture Association of America ponderously wonders about the OK-ness of referring to God as "a bitch". Meanwhile, across town Trey Parker, South Park's creator, seems to be becoming increasingly estranged from his marbles. "Kenny takes his hood off," he says of South Park BL&U, "and I swear I started crying when I saw that for the first time." Kenny is funny, Kenny is a pop cultural item - but Trey... Kenny is a drawing.

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LINDA EVANGELISTA is reportedly honeymooning on St Martin with her little serving of peaches and cream, Fabien Barthez. Barthez was the French goalie in Les Bleus' winning World Cup team. The couple haven't got round to tying the knot yet, but it seems Barthez can perform between two posts and four.

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LAST WORD on that Chicks for Charity bash at Teatro this week. Pippa Sterne, the stained-glass artist, was asked the location of her best work. A cathedral? A restaurant, then? No. "Astral lap-dancing club on Brewer Street." Those seeking to polish their knowledge of this under-appreciated art form are reminded that Sterne's mistresspiece is streetside - outside the club.

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DEFINING CLINTON - this may reveal something specific about men and women generally, or something general about this man and woman specifically. It takes Hillary Rodham Clinton 64 lines to define herself in the new edition of Who's Who in America. Her husband does the job in 15.

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WHARF SNAPSHOT: London Transport is promoting "Family Fundays" by flashing this across the LEDs into Docklands: "Coming soon to Canary Wharf, Thomas the Tank Engine". All the boys and girls in Happyland sigh and say: "We wish..."

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