Pulped non-fiction: Wayne's world stays secret, for now

* The brawl over John Sweeney's unauthorised, slags'n'all biography of Wayne Rooney has ended in what appears to be a bloody victory for the England footballer's lawyers.

Last month, Random House announced it would publish Roo Unzipped on 20 August (hitting shops next Monday) and promised explosive revelations from Rooney's fledgling years. The juice, they said, included the "decidedly shadowy and unsavoury characters" attaching themselves to Rooney on his rise to the top of the sport, as well as an account of "excruciatingly embarrassing sex with a PVC-clad grandmother known to admirers as the Auld Slapper".

Rooney's agent, Paul Stretford, has spent hours with the silks about certain "interesting" passages and Roo's opulent solicitors at Schillings have successfully menaced the publisher.

I hear that production of the book has been stopped; its release indefinitely postponed. Good news for Wayne, then, after breaking his foot at the weekend.

Random House denies pulling publication for any "legal reason", insisting: "We just want to move it to a different slot in our schedule. We don't know when that will be yet but should do next week." Every mention of the book has been excised from the company's website.

Rooney declined to comment, while Sweeney would say only: "I am very sorry that Rooney has broken his foot. I am an England fan and I wish him well and I hope he wishes my book well." Say that to Wayne's face, John, and you might taste one of his crutches.

* "Mad as a hatter, sharp as a knife, a culinary genius and a big softie at heart" - that's the Michelin-starred television chef John Burton Race, who earlier this year left his wife and children (who he had previously moved to France for his series French Leave) to be with his mistress and the two-year-old son he had fathered with her.

The fallout from that must have left him with a taste almost as horrible as the sausage and banana pizza he had to eat for his new BBC2 show Kitchen Criminals, which began on Monday night. Gordon Ramsay's protégé Angela Hartnett co-presents.

Now there's further unpleasantness for the food world's Mr Nice: he is embroiled in a legal tussle down in Devon with a construction company which claims he owes them £6,000 in unpaid invoices. He has filed a counter claim against them. A court battle is set for next March.

* A patron of the King's Head theatre-pub in north London will, in a couple of weeks, look up from his pint and find himself sitting opposite Mick Jagger. The ferocious rocker plans to drop in one night to see the stage debut of his son James, spawned with Jerry Hall in 1985.

James Jagger joins Shane Richie (Eastenders' Alfie Moon) in performing a pair of one-act dark comedies about American GIs returning home from war.

"Sir Mick will come down," says a production source. "He's totally supportive of James in this." He adds: "James has not been cast for his name and its cachet." Who suggested that? "He was excellent at audition.

"We're not putting all this together for four weeks in a pub. The plan is to take it to the West End."

* The boys of Scottish public school Glenalmond College are quite the thespians - as manifest by their artfully shot "chav hunt" video of red-coated huntsmen chasing shell-suited yoofs. By happy coincidence, Glenalmond's sixth form will be in Edinburgh next week to stageA Single Numberless Death, described as "physical theatre with strong political themes". And so it may prove, if, as hinted, local chavs show a hitherto unknown interest in drama!

* Tony Blair is lampooned in Heat, which publishes a pic of the ex-PM in his holiday podge, for his "moobs" (man boobs). Proffers a reader: "A few years ago when I was deciding whether to opt for HRT patches or pills, my GP said 'You have to be careful with patches - you leave them lying around in the bathroom, your husband sits on one and before you know it he has sprouted boobs'." Well, it's one theory...

* Members of London's Frontline Club are hardy types, being, by definition, foreign correspondents accustomed to blood, bullets and plenty of booze. They were nevertheless alarmed, before Monday night's debate on the Sri Lankan civil war, to find members of two rival Tamil factions participating in an enthusiastic fist fight in the street outside.

The baying audience included "half of London's Sri Lankan community queuing around the corner to get in, Sri Lankan government people, Singhalese supremacists, Tamil Tigers and a pro-war monk," a witness explains. "It is an emotive issue. We separated them and sat between them in the hall in case the whole thing should escalate." Escalate? What next? Rocket-propelled grenade battles in central London?

pandora@independent.co.uk

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