Let it snow, let it snow etc

So the hair-shirted BBC, bent on value-for-money back-office reforms NOW, has once again decided it has got its timing wrong. In the face of a union ballot that was inevitably going to produce strike action over the festive period, Operations boss Lucy Adams, once of Eversheds and SERCO, now says there's more time to negotiate a new employment package at the BBC - as reported by The Guardian.

Lucy, unfairly christened Grizzly by Private Eye, had sent her myriad HR team to the far-flung corners of the BBC to get feedback on proposed reforms to terms and conditions of employment  - and they got, unsurprisingly, a stiff, unhelpful response. Probably a good idea to reconvene once ski-ing's out of the way...

• One of the arcane pay supplements at the BBC is called UPA (not quite an acronym, as it stands for Un-Predictability Allowance). The NUJ in particular are ring-savvy on this front, having seen off at least four attempts to phase it out. They have brought back a range of old-timers with knowledge of the Deep Magic to deal with Adams.