Party

It may not be like this again for Sarah Sands. She marked her departure from the London Evening Standard this week with a party on the roof of The Ned, a sprauncy new venue hewn from the old Midland Bank headquarters, just up Poultry from The Bank of England.

Hard to be accurate on balance without the full guest list, but snappers captured the delivery of a valedictory from Sadiq Khan, Labour, whilst also catching four members of The Johnson family, (3 Conservative, 1 Libdem). A midweek late one is usually out of the question for a Today programme editor - the Londoner's Diary suggests there was dancing til dawn, fuelled by tequila cocktails.

Sarah will find that BBC leaving parties are furtive affairs, tricky to get through on expenses, and paps are not welcome. As for dancing til dawn, most Today Editors check in with their night teams after the 10pm News - imparting vague guidance and suggesting impossible changes. Then there is morning "interference", where the Big Editor, usually on deck from 7am, fiddles with the running order, shakes hands with Big Guests, and then glides off to tell the Director of News what a triumph it all was. A very different lifestyle, Sarah.