Letters

The BBC's last Deputy DG, Mark Byford, features twice in the letters page of the current issue of the staff newspaper Ariel.

One writer complains about senior managers occupying front row seats at tv shows. "Watching Later With Jools Holland and seeing Mark Byford sat in a highly prominent position during the interviews with Paul McCartney and Neil Diamond seemed a strange form of human product placement.  We're constantly told that we have to offer value for money to the people who pay our wages. How about offering those kind of seats to a member of the public who pays for our organisation and would love to have the opportunity that Mark undoubtedly enjoyed ?"

Through the columns and we come to a contribution about the BBC-subsidised hostel, Beaumont House, in Bayswater, set to close after providing short-term accommodation to staff for over 20 years. Services co-ordinator Tony Beaumont notes "We have even received a personal thank you from Mark Byford, a regular guest for as long as any of us care to remember".

Presumably for some of those "Later" nights when one's driver can't make Waterloo for the last train to Winchester.