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A jovial Lord Patten ended a round of pre-DQF interviews last night, with a session with Peter Bazalgette in front of the Royal Television Society's annual tree-hugging convention in Cambridge.

"Don't panic" Patten had words of comfort for nearly everybody. Having talked hard on ToughTalk the previous day (I may have got that the wrong way round) about not paying the next DG as much as the current incumbent, he was a nice as pie about Thommo.  The Chairman said he and Mark were as "close as lips and teeth" - a Chinese saying most recently used about its relationship with North Korea.

On BBC4 - "I hope to continue to be able to watch BBC Four" On the size of BBC News - "I'm pretty relaxed about looking at the BBC's share of the news market" On BBC Worldwide's bid for more capital - he's looking forward to "constructively discussing with the board of Worldwide . . . over the coming months how [it] could march on to even greater success”.

The bath was not so warm for others: "We may have to close some foreign bureaux but we will still have more than almost any other news organisation"; "We won't be able to spend as much money on sport. I suspect we won't be able to spend as much money on entertainment".