Seasonal

It's hard to imagine what this week's tv and radio would have been like WITHOUT the Murdoch/BSkyB story. Summer holidays for production teams seem to be starting way before the state school break-up of 25/26 July these days.

So BBC One bulletins have been cluttered with formulaic "specials" following up the Arab Spring - live, unfortunately, so they can't be dropped for a big story. Elsewhere, Danny Cohen has regaled us with The One Show: The Best of British - there are apparently 15 of these compilations, which seem to use video treated to look like watery film archive from Nationwide; and The Great British Weather.  And Newsnight, which presumably is harvesting money on making decent films, has done two shows with Paxo and an audience - half the set looking like a school hall filled with people ready to audition for an amateur production of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest - while Jeremy squirms against a cafeteria background, barely feigning interest in their limited thoughts. On Today, they've tried leading with a fire in Lincolnshire - and finally found room for Evan Davis playing Nigel "Mr Excitement" Short at chess.

Gawd knows what August will bring....