The media tycoon Richard Desmond today starts a battle against investigative biographer, Tom Bower over allegations he made in his bio of Desmond, provisionally entitled Rough Trader.

Bower is a biographer who targets 'heavy hitters' and has written bios on Branson, Maxwell, Conrad Black, Al Fayed, Geoff Robinson and Gordon Brown.

Bower apparently has no plans to write a bio on Rupert Murdoch. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the last Bower bio was published by Harper Collins, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Mayor Boris Johnson denied today that, in a bid to save taxpayers 'bucket loads of cash', he is going to move the entire London Assembly to Anthony Gormley's fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.

Climbing on top of the selfsame plinth to make his denial, Mayor Johnson said, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears. I come here to bury cash, not to praise it."

Mr Johnson apparently discovered that there was little enough room for him on the plinth let alone other 'members' of the Assembly. However in another money saving exercise he is considering leasing out the London Assembly building to Anthony Gormley for one of his spectacular new installations called the 'Glass Bollock'.

Senior Labour and Conservative MPs have simultaneously been forced to retract their well considered cases against the much maligned 'quango'

In a televised debate the ministers and shadow ministers argued that quangos were outdated because to quote Labour, "it was a Latin word that nobody uses any more", whilst the Conservative claimed "its all well and good learning Greek at Eton, but the modern Brit has enough trouble with English, let alone the language of Fifth Century Athens." Spokesmen for both parties later claimed that their respective MPs were probably joking and that they all knew that the word clearly must be some form of old English.

The head of the quango that supervises quangos claimed today "Just because something's outdated, it does not mean that it's wrong. Whatever next? They'll try reforming Parliament."