Do do

In the week the Information Commissioner was in London bigging up the process, the BBC seems to have engaged in increasingly-typical reverse-ferret activity.

In 2009, in response to an FoI request, it revealed that £11,309 was spent on a leaving 'do' for Dame Jenny Abramsky.

Today, a request for information about costs of a 'do' for Barney Jones has been refused because the data is held for the purposes of "journalism, art or literature". The rejection doesn't say which of the three is being claimed.

The response describes the event as "a joint celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Breakfast with Frost, the Andrew Marr Show and staff leaving parties".  Three rooms in One Great George Street were hired - if you took the three cheapest, that's over £600 for a kick off. House wine starts at £18.75. There may have been an anniversary involved, but most of the tweeting guests made their own minds up about what sort of party it was.