Secret surfers

Plans by Peter Mandelson to reveal "Surfball: The New 21st Century Sport" appear to be floundering. Asked by culture committee MPs probing the Dome project for details about this extraordinary new game, Jennie Page, the brilliant chief executive of the New Millennium Experience Company, suddenly became coy.

This was "commercially confidential information which the company proposes to keep to itself for some time yet", the wise one said, rather mysteriously. Baffled MPs found it "difficult to understand how a game could be commercially confidential".