Ms Anderson delivers a Pamifesto to Obama

Work on the Obama transition ground to a halt yesterday when Pamela Anderson issued her policy demands to the President-elect.

The pneumatic former Baywatch star turned vegetarian activist began with a weighty “recommended reading list” for the incoming leader: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein and Crimes against Nature by Robert Kennedy Jr.

“Dear Mr Obama,” she then writes on her website, “bring our troops home safely. Please shut down Guantanamo Bay – figure it out.” She may be on the same page as the next administration here but the Pamifesto soon diverges. “I think we should legalise marijuana. We should be able to farm hemp in America.” Then to an eclectic law-and-order agenda: “Why do we have illegal immigration? It should be made easier for people to work here. Government must castrate every molester – or potential molester – error [sic] on the safe side.” Could Pammy sweep past Hillary Clinton to the post of secretary of state?

Toby Young received a flattering approach to take part in I’m a Celebrity . . . The e-mail, he tells The Spectator, read: “The success of past series of the show has meant that we are now able more than ever to cast people who don’t ‘need’ to do the show, such as Janet Street-Porter and Johnny Rotten, and with this in mind I am approaching you.” Young got as far as an interview, where he asked: “Why so much Ant and Dec? If I were you, I’d cut them right down to the bone.” Well, he is the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

East Anglian MPs are bereft after rail beancounters axed the restaurant dining car on the Norwich-to-London line. The service, which operated for 40 years, was renowned for offering Hawaiian sunfish and Moroccan spiced duck on its ambitious menus. “I’ve had some of my greatest laughs and great fun meeting people in the restaurant car,” says Ian Gibson, Norwich North MP. The National Express decision must also come as a severe blow to his Norwich neighbour, Charles Clarke, whose appetite is legendary.

Debilitating claustrophobia has prevented Raef Bjayou, the former Apprentice contestant, using a lift for seven years. Derek Draper, the psychotherapist and Labour adviser (the two are not linked), worked with Raef to combat his fears for an ITV1 Tonight special, to be shown tomorrow. The big moment arrived, when the sliding doors at ITN’s HQ beckoned. So it didn’t really help when the newscaster Mark Austin breezed past Bjayou saying: “Those doors are always jamming – I got stuck in that lift the other day.”

Postscript

David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson’s Baywatch playmate, is proud of his impact on the world, so much so that he has commissioned a sculpture in homage to himself. The actor insists that the miniature globe, made up of pictures of his face and topped with the word “saviour” in gold, is “ironic”, but added less convincingly: “Yes, I played a role in the fall of the Berlin Wall. But not that big. Although it is interesting to see your influence on the world translating into a globe.”

Brad Pitt’s daughter, Shiloh, isn’t happy with her unusual name. “She only answers to John,” Pitt told Oprah Winfrey this week. “John or Peter. I think it’s a Peter Pan thing.”

Got a story to tell? people@thetimes.co.uk

Times recommends

• The Boxing Day tsunami: five years on
• What took place in 2010...
• Can you really cure a hangover?