Self effacing

There will be those much amused by the idea that William Woodard Self (51, PPE, Exeter College, Oxford) is the person to inject "fireworks" into the Radio 4 schedule, perhaps as a sort of writer-in-residence. He joined the rather vanilla team of contributors to A Point Of View (successor to Alistair Cooke's Letter from America) in September 2011.  Since then he's graced the airwaves 18 times with his insights - and there have been no signs of sparklers waved from barricades in Stockwell, or elsewhere in the UK as a result. There was equally little whiff of cordite when Will succeeded Mark Lamarr on Shooting Stars in 2002, where he sat gurning until 2008.

Maybe it's not fireworks that are really wanted by Controller Radio 4, Gwyneth Williams (61, PPE, St Hugh's Oxford), who may have had a hand in bringing Self to A Point Of View, a year after her appointment to the network. But Rod Liddle, former Editor, Today, has a warning for Gwyneth, in his Spectator blog.  He reminds her that when he hired Self to do think pieces for Today, he felt he had to be "balanced" by parallel essays from Frederick Forsyth.

It may be just the elixir of youth Gwyneth seeks for her schedules - after all, there is plenty of the gravitas of age elsewhere in the schedule. Laurie Taylor is 75, Lord Bragg is 73, as is Vincent Duggleby. John Humphrys is 69, and Jonathan Dimbleby is 68.

Personally, I think the writer-in-residence idea has some legs, and would enjoy hearing a full edition of You and Yours, scripted by Mr Self, at least once a week, and more if we could afford him.