By BBC News Online's political correspondent Nick Assinder.

Commons watchers were dismayed the other day when they were deprived of the much-anticipated clash between John Prescott and his new shadow, former supermarket boss Archie Norman.

Just days before, they had watched Chancellor Gordon Brown and Michael Portillo going at it hammer and tongs - and everyone was looking forward to something similar.

But when the occasion came during environment questions, there was no clash.

The two men never faced each other directly. Mr Prescott sat on the front bench looking, as usual, like a malevolent sack of potatoes tied around the middle, but did not rise to answer any of Mr Norman's questions.

His would-be tormentor was left glowering at him, hands clenched to his face like a preying mantis.

But the only prey he was offered was junior minister Hilary Armstrong. So he spent all his ammunition laying into her instead - a hugely-unsatisfactory spectacle.

Any number of theories later emerged to explain this bizarre event - but only now can the truth be told.

Apparently it was all down to Labour bosses who were determined to avoid a clash between the two men.

They broke with custom and refused to tip Mr Norman off about which of his questions Mr Prescott was likely to answer, so he was working in the dark and failed to guess the right one.

But that does not answer the puzzling question of why Labour adopted this tactic.

Were they trying to deny Mr Norman an opportunity to score a few cheap political points against Mr Prescott?

Or, as some have suggested, were they so afraid Mr Prescott would lose his rag and fluff the occasion that they were desperate to keep him away from Mr Norman?

Either way, Mr Prescott appears to have been the loser.

Sticky problems

Environment questions may have failed to produce the goods as far as Norman and Prescott were concerned, but backbenchers did their best to make up for it.

Burnley's Peter Pike demanded action against chewing gum - and got the astonishing response from minister Michael Meacher that he was in discussion with one of the major manufacturers to come up with a biodegradable gum.

Then Lincoln's Gillian Merron got her 15 minutes - or seconds, as it is in Westminster - by plugging her local council's highly-commendable attempt to combat offensive and racist graffiti with a "graffiti hotline."

One exasperated Tory backbencher, clearly at the end of his tether, was overheard to mutter: "Wouldn't a telephone hotline be more efficient."

Tourist trap

Security at the Palace of Westminster has to be particularly tight and anyone who works there is issued with a plastic card with a magnetic strip that allows them entry to the premises.

It looks like any ordinary credit card and is pushed into a card reader at the security gates near Westminster underground station.

But the opening of the spanking new tube station and the siting of the millennium wheel just the other side of the river has sparked an unforeseen security problem.

That particular entrance to the Commons is now firmly on the tourist route and scores of visitors leaving the station pass it on their way to other sights like the wheel.

One of the policeman who regularly mans the entrance was astonished to see a Japanese tourist attempting to gain entry to the Commons through the gate.

She was pushing her one day travel card in an out of the gate and becoming increasingly frustrated when it refused to give her entry to the top tourist attraction in the capital.

What's the Buzz

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has been called all sorts of things in his time - but this must be the best.

Ever since Disney has been pushing its new computer animated film Toy Story 2, people have been noticing the striking resemblance between Mr Prescott and the film's hero Buzz Lightyear.

In case this goes to the deputy prime minister's head, it must be pointed out that Buzz is a space ranger!

Short contract

The Labour Party is currently gearing up for the looming general election by advertising widely for trainee press officers at £15,000 a year.

The ads state: "This is a rare opportunity to gain expert experience in a busy high pressure press environment from an undisputed leader in the field. We want the brightest and the best to join our team."

What the ads fail to point out - and what came as a bit of a surprise to many in the press office after the last election - is that, once the election is over, they are out on their ears.

Looking for a new Dome

One mischievous backbench MP thinks he has come up with a scam that could help the government kill two birds with one stone.

As Home Secretary Jack Straw was lamenting the fact that some asylum seekers now believed the best way to gain entry to Britain was to hijack an aircraft and head for Stansted, he declared: "Why not send them to the Dome and double the visitor numbers."

Praise indeed

The Commons' house journal, the House magazine, in conjunction with an independent TV station (ok, it was Channel Four) recently granted its annual political awards.

One of the contenders for MP of the year was the Tories famously aggressive John Bercow.

At the event he was described thus by noted Times sketch writer Matthew Parris: "the Commons is full of out and out prats trying to pretend they are highly intelligent.

"Here is a really intelligent MP pretending to be an out and out prat."