Pandora: Cor blimey! A proper cockney wake

The forthcoming funeral to recently departed tailor to the stars Dougie Hayward should be a lively affair. A service for Hayward, who counted the likes of Michael Caine and Roger Moore as clients, is being held at Mayfair's Church of the Immaculate Conception on May 15. His daughter Polly says she's planning a traditional send-off.

"I'd like to have a proper old East End knees-up after the service," she says. "You know, with pork pies and jellied eels, the whole lot."

What with all the stellar names likely to attend, fashion photographer (and chum of Hayward) Terry O'Neill isn't so sure about the idea.

"I don't think so," he says. "I mean, I can't imagine Ralph Lauren doing 'Roll out the Barrel', can you?"

As Boris canters to power, not everyone is celebrating

Boris Johnson rarely misses an opportunity to get down with the kids, but there's one group of young scallywags he may want to give a wide berth.

The newly elected Mayor of London was on the receiving end of a particularly aggressive tongue lashing yesterday from edgy British punk outfit the Foals.

The band, who are often compared to the Artic Monkeys, posted an attack on Johnson on networking website MySpace, which appeared to have been penned by keyboard player Edwin Congreave.

"We're flying back to London from New York," he wrote. "The jet lag is one thing, but the fear that we'll be flying into a city that isn't so much a newly fascist city-state than one big gilded joke of a newspaper column made rotten flesh [is another].

"Boris "Picaninny" Johnson, we salute you – sort of like we'd salute any smug, self-satisfied old Etonian holding a statute-book to our heads. At least when California elected a clown as governor they elected one who'd made his name as a muscle-man. Boris appears to have been elected simply because he has blond hair."

No one from Boris's new team at City Hall was around to reach for their zeitgeist tapes and return fire last night.

It's worth noting, however, that despite trashing the Mayor for being "old Etonian", Congreave failed to also berate him for attending the similarly prestigious University of Oxford. That could well be because he went there too.

Stretton lets her husband come along for the ride

Amanda Stretton will be making a touching bit of history at this year's Le Mans.

The comely television presenter, left, will be entering as one half of the first known husband and wife team in the 24-hour race in June, where she'll be partnering her hubby Bob Berridge.

It will also be the first time a British woman has competed in the LMP1 class, which is the glittering event's top category.

"I suspect there might be one or two arguments between us during the race, as neither one of us likes being told what to do," she tells me.

"But Bob's actually got much more experience than me, so I think I'm just going to have to bite my tongue."

Stretton was due to take part in the race back in 2004, but was forced to withdraw after accidentally becoming pregnant. To avoid a repeat occurrence this time, she ordered poor old Bob down the local clinic for a vasectomy.

Danny: Bloom's acting is dire

For years, Danny Dyer has been a favourite actor of Sir Harold Pinter. He's fast becoming one of Pandora's too. The cockney star, who has appeared in three of Pinter's recent productions, has decided to give squeaky heart-throb Orlando Bloom the verbal equivalent of a Chelsea smile.

"He's the opposite of me. He's got no edge to him, he's well media-trained and, basically, he's boring," says Dyer.

"Plus, he can't act. And to me, that's quite an important thing for an actor.

"I get a bit bitter, to be honest. I'm still living in the ghetto in East London and he's earning three million quid a film. He got lucky."

Dyer's got form for this sort of chat. A couple of months ago he (harshly) attributed the success of another young British star, James McAvoy, to his "floppy" hairdo.

Sleeping partner

Nearly all of the deposed media baron Conrad Black's newspapers are now under new ownership, but he does retain one jewel from his once-mighty empire.

Black still owns a stake in the Catholic Herald, alongside Italian smoothie Sir Rocco Forte.

"Funnily enough, I owned 75 per cent and he had 25 per cent and I gave him 25 per cent more because I thought he'd know more about running a newspaper than me," says Rocco. "Then everything happened and I've been stuck with it, but actually I've increased it in circulation."

Although his business partner is currently serving time in a Florida clink, Forte claims he's happy with the unusual set-up.

"No, I'm not thinking of buying him out," he adds. "Though I haven't exactly had the chance to discuss it with him."