Pandora: Sherlock's a diamond geezer

(© Tim Sanders)

Not for the first time, the British film director Guy Ritchie looks set to get the traditionalists' blood boiling. According to yesterday's Hollywood trade press, he has been signed up to write and direct a new Sherlock Holmes movie.

Although he has not had a proper hit since his debut flick Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Ritchie has been tasked by Warner Brothers studios with giving the legendary London sleuth a makeover.

Rather than focusing on Holmes as the pipe-smoking intellectual, the film will apparently portray him as a man of action, highlighting his "skills as a boxer and swordsman". Sounds like the role that Ritchie favourite Vinnie Jones was born to play.

The night they finally got to the bottom of Gordon

Whenever critics accuse Gordon Brown of being dour old Scot, his allies always assure us there's a more light-hearted and jovial side to the Prime Minister behind closed doors.

So far, the evidence doesn't stretch much beyond his love of football team Raith Rovers and a brief but ill-fated allegiance to the Artic Monkeys. Now, upping the ante somewhat, news comes via one of Brown's inner circle that he once spent the evening being chased around Downing Street by a gaggle of giddy female admirers.

We owe this revelation to sexpot author Kathy Lette, who appears in Observer columnist Andrew Rawnsley's documentary Where Did It All Go Wrong?, to be screened on Channel 4 on Monday evening.

The incident apparently took place during a surprise "girls night out" held for Sarah Brown where Lette was among the guests, who also included Mariella Frostrup. "He (Gordon) said: 'I'll be your wine waiter for the evening,' because it was a girls' only gathering and he put his tea towel over his arm," says Lette.

"I said 'you know it's traditional we always pinch the behind of the wine waiter'. Now, any other red-blooded man would probably be a bit shaken at having 15 feisty females chasing you round the furniture.

"But he just quipped and poured champagne and was fantastically charming and dodged our advances quite brilliantly."

Such agility, which might come in handy should any of his colleagues plan to knife him in the back in the coming months.

Rosie puts Ronnie's boy back in his place

Pandora has been keeping a close eye on the budding relationship between Ronnie Wood's son Tyrone and his model squeeze, 21-year-old Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.

As I recently reported, Huntington-Whiteley has decamped to London after a brief spell in New York to be reunited with Wood.

I ran in to them after a touching minor tiff over a fur scarf she wore to a recent cocktail party.

"Ty's mum Jo gave it me as a present. I really like it, but when we got into the car to come here this evening, he said he didn't want me to wear as it was cruel," she complained. "Mind you, he won't be complaining when I take it off in his bedroom later."

Career-wise, Rosie is on the up and up. According to reports, she's uprooted supermodel de nos jours Agyness Deyn to be next season's "face" of the British label Burberry. "I can't speak about that," she added somewhat mysteriously.

Rio rolls up uninvited

Rio Ferdinand was a surprise gatecrasher at Glamour magazine's women of the year awards on Tuesday night.

Organisers were caught off guard when the Manchester United footballer rocked up "NFI" at the swanky Mayfair bash with his new-found chum, the Gavin And Stacey actor James Corden.

"They'd been drinking together round the corner in Berkeley Square and James suggested he came along for the knees-up," says a VIP guest. "They were like bosom buddies. Rio informed us he just called James up out of the blue and told him he loved his show and wanted to meet up."

Fittingly, for a man who is widely expected to be the next England captain, Ferdinand was promptly plonked at a table opposite the Prime Minister's wife, Sarah Brown.

Piers is back

Now that Piers Morgan is a bona fide television star, he can happily call on a number of chums from the world of showbiz.

So his dramatic return to the Mirror in the coming week should be a lively affair.

Morgan, who was sacked by the newspaper in 2004 after printing fake photographs of a British soldier abusing an Iraqi, will guest edit the Mirror for one day after he recently bid £12,000 for the pleasure at a charity auction.

"Simon Cowell has said he will do the TV reviews and Alan Sugar has agreed to do a column," he tells me. "I'm hoping Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen will do something for sport.

"I've already got the front page worked out. It's just going to read, 'I'm not sorry'."

pandora@independent.co.uk