Summer in the city

Funny old summer at Newsnight. The show seems to have been cut from 50 to 35 minutes for most of August, yet interviews are still "running out of time". In a BBC system where funds follow time on air, this seems an odd move by Ian Katz; it can hardly be said that the world's big problems have disappeared simply because favoured contacts of the show are, for example, in Tuscany or Cape Cod.

With less airtime to fill, the producers and correspondents left in London have been spotted enjoying the varied lunch venues of W1, in groups oddly split by gender. A clutch of Generation Katz young turks in matching white shirts and dark chinos clutching post-prandial posh coffees coming up your pavement is an intimidating sight.