<i>ON THE STREET</i>

Andy Hamilton, one of the writers of Drop the Dead Donkey, made fun of the Americans when his new drama Trevor's World of Sport, starring Neil Pearson as a sports agent, was unveiled last week. "I don't want anyone to know I've written it," he said, "because we're trying to sell it to America, and we've told them it's by Jane Austen."

If further proof were needed of Americans' gullibility when it comes to TV, their appreciation of Last of the Summer Wine may be the clincher. American fans have been so moved by the death of Compo (pictured) – filmed after the death of the actor who played him, Bill Owen, and shown in Britain three years ago – that they are planning a one-minute silence in his honour when they gather for their first Summer Wine convention in Little Rock, Arkansas, on 11 April.

Hackles have been raised at the White House by the CBS network and the BBC, which showed unauthorised live footage of President Bush having his hair done in the Oval Office and practising on the teleprompter shortly before his war address to the nation last Wednesday. CBS insists one of its technicians flicked a switch by accident. Technical reasons prevented the BBC from dropping the feed. But the White House is not to be placated. Its staff have commandeered the switches that make pool feeds available to broadcasters.

The ever-acerbic Anne Robinson was asked by the Radio Times whether she would be taking style advice from Trinny and Susannah on what not to wear to present this year's Baftas. "I think they're very sweet, but they haven't got anything to teach me," she said. "I don't want to look like a Surrey housewife."

Earlier this year, Press Gazette, the trade bible of newspapers and magazines, announced the journalists' first agony uncle: Dr Deadline. You would have thought journalists had a few things to worry about at present. But Dr Deadline has been strangely silent.