No Rock And Roll Fun

BRITISH ACADEMY, JOHN AGREE NOT TO MENTION THE CANDLE EVER: While we're delighted that Elton John has been made a fellow of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, we're sure Bernie Taupin must be sucking a thoughtful tooth and feeling ever so slightly slighted. "Must I still be punished for 'Marconi plays the mamba', after all these years?" he wails, but nobody hears him.

John's award - which he probably celebrated by buying some flowers, a statue of a little boy holding a mushroom, a gilded picture frame and some geese - is one of five fellowships being dished out by the Academy to mark fifty years of the Ivor Novello awards, the prizes awarded annually to Robbie Williams and Dido for being splendid.