Pandora: McCall is flying high with move to airline
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Your support makes all the difference.News that the head of Guardian Media Group is jumping ship to board the budget airline easyJet has proved one of the more surprising high-profile appointments of late.
While it would be fair to say that GMG headquarters wasn't awash with black armbands following confirmation of Carolyn McCall's impending departure, easyJet were busy predictably talking up their new chief executive's "strong" credentials.
McCall, for her part, was briefly at pains to stress her longstanding loyalty to the easyJet brand, describing herself as a "customer" in the accompanying press release – a remark, it would be fair to say, that met with a certain degree of suspicion elsewhere. Keen as ever to help, Pandora felt further clarification was required. So, just how often had she taken to the skies resplendent in bright easy orange?
Initially I feared she could prove less than forthcoming. "I don't think they go into details," her spokesman helpfully acknowledged. Just as I wondered whether Carolyn was, frankly, taking us for fools, further details emerged at the eleventh hour. "Carolyn has flown a number of times with easyJet, most recently to Faro with her family at Christmas," her loyal manservant assured me.
Robinson boxes clever for Darling
Nick Robinson appeared in decidedly theatrical mood in the build-up to yesterday's Budget. During the BBC political editor's appearance on the Ten o'Clock News the previous evening, he even went to the trouble of holding up his very own pretend red Budget Box for viewers, just to drive home the point. The hilarity continued when he bumped into Alistair Darling outside Number 11, who, to be fair, briefly tried his best to enter into the spirit of things. "It looks like you've nicked it," he rather wearily joked. Madness!
Socialite gets personal on Twitter
For all the countless column inches dedicated to Jemima Khan over the years, precious little has been written to suggest there's a budding comedienne waiting to burst out. This, admittedly, was probably for the best.
That said, I see she isn't averse to regurgitating the odd gag told about her late father Jimmy Goldsmith, who, I'm widely assured, was renowned for his sense of humour. (Stop it!)
Referring on Twitter to the fateful day when Imran Khan formally asked her father for her "hand in marriage", Jemima has her old man firing back the laser-sharp quip: "Why? Has she been shoplifting?"
Keep'em coming, Jemima!
Barker gives dog a sporting chance
Should you be in any doubt over the ability of Pandora's newshounds to bring in the kind of showbiz exclusives which really matter, then I defiantly suggest a hefty portion of humble pie is in order. Only yesterday, the following email title lit up my inbox: "A 10-year-old rottweiler with a weak bladder has become the latest 'barker' in the home of BBC sports presenter Sue Barker." (See what they did there?) A "friend" later added: "Perhaps this incontinence is something they'll have to live with." More on this when we have it.
Dahl chews over goddess status
Having launched her culinary career on the small screen this week, Sophie Dahl insists she's "depressed" by the repeated comparisons with rival – (sorry, not rival!) – Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson.
"It's very disheartening that in this country we have a tendency to pit women against one another," she says. "When two men work in the same field, it's seen as blokey camaraderie." Those who will recall Gordon Ramsay describing Antony Worrall Thompson as a "squashed Bee Gee" might beg to differ.
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