Out of the Wood

BBC Twitterers alert me to the fact that the BBC is moving out, more or less, of Henry Wood House, the unlovely 1960s tower separated from Broadcasting House by All Souls church.

Auntie has 51 years left on its lease to sell, and developers Derwent London are believed to have picked it up, with interest from law firm Davenport Lyon. No word on the price paid, but Derwent estimate the value of the whole building at £50m to £75m. The BBC didn't use all the 15 floors - the upper part is the St George's Hotel. And it seems Auntie is holding onto the basement - largely as a major bicycle shed for the redeveloped Broadcasting House.

HWH (honour bound to use the acronym) has been the base for many a BBC project. In January and February 1993, we assembled the news and programme teams for the launch of Radio 5Live there, on the ground and fifth floors, as our proper offices in BH were under construction. The mourned reference library eeked out its last years there, before being converted to a Pizza Express. Many an HR pay and grading re-structuring team has been assembled and dismissed. And vast swathes of new media thinkers came and went. Always nicer to be in than to be looked at, it provided play space for a growing organisation - now in retreat.

Ta-ta, Salford

Aasmah Mir is the first 5Live presenter to give up on the Salford commute. Based in London (but with continuing loyalties to Glasgow) with husband, Piara Powar, she's assembled a growing clutch of alternative work, with summer features for The One Show, appearances as a paper reviewer on ITV's Lorraine, and setting up a "cookery channel" on Youtube. Her departure, in November, has been mourned by luminaries such as David Hepworth.

Stricken

I suspect the little old Islington Tribune will get pick-up over the weekend, for its interview with the departing boss of the Arts Council, England, Dame Liz Forgan.

She describes the moment of her sacking, by then Culture Secretary, the starey-eyed Jeremy Hunt. “I went to see him about something else and he said ‘Before I talk about anything I have to tell you something’. He looked so stricken, I thought he was going to say he had caught some fatal disease, but he said, ‘It is one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make, but I am not going to renew your contract’."

“I said, ‘Why not?’ And still to this day I didn’t get a straight answer out of him. I said, ‘Look Jeremy, I think this is wrong, it’s a mistake. People will think it’s political’. ‘Oh, no, no,’ he said. He was completely within his rights to do that. It is a ministerial appointment. It’s renewable and the expectation is that unless you’ve done something terrible you get your contract renewed."

“And I hadn’t done anything terrible. On the contrary, I had actually saved his bacon by getting the spending review sorted with the Arts Council team, having to make nigh on 30 per cent cuts to its budget of £600million..... I was pretty cross.  But, you know, that’s politics.”

Take that look off your face

It seems the BBC does have a sensitive side - and a photo library of executives in moods to match the moment. A letter to staff organ Ariel complains that BBC Studios CEO Anna Mallett is smiling in the mugshot that accompanies the announcement of.40 redundancies. And lo, the photo is duly changed. It's all here.

Brand values

What's in a name ? For nearly forty years, DEGW has been one of the top UK teams looking at modern office design. Founded in 1973 by Frank Duffy (aka Dr Francis Duffy), Peter Eley, Luigi Giffone and John Worthington, they eventually set up offices in King's Cross (way before regeneration) and argued that the way you laid out workspace could help collaboration and creativity.

I remember fondly a decent Italian lunch in Marylebone with the good Doctor when first trying to get my head away from radio news and around effective space planning and design options, in work that eventually came to nothing for John Birt.

Now, under the wing of US giant AECOM, they are to be rebranded Strategy Plus.

Vulpes vulpes

BBC medical correspondent Fergus Walsh turned urban wildlife cameraman last night, just after a live piece on the 6 O'Clock bulletin on BBC1. The fox was very nearly on the box....

 

No more fiefing

BBC DG George Entwistle has raised expectations of a real structural change in the organisation, with a talk to staff working in Future Media.

According to staff organ, Ariel, he said  'The territorial and fiefdom approach has come down from the top of the BBC. That's what I need to fix first.'

Apparently, at his first, newly-reduced management board meeting he said that he didn't want it to be a meeting where you 'don't own up about your cock ups' for fear that colleagues will gloat or go off and tell their teams.

But don't get over-excited - there isn't yet a plan 'We will learn how we want to be different organisationally in due course'. I suspect that means that the Deloitte guy has it pencilled in for Year Two.

• One organisational change already made still confuses me. In his first move, George apparently busted the Operations Division (which allows Caroline Thomson to get a redundancy package). Now it emerges that Dominic Coles is to be described as Operations Director. Clearly quite a different job..  I'm sure George will have run that one past HR. 

It doesn't add up

Staff at the BBC will be delighted to know that Lucy Adams isn't approaching a review of pay structures without professional support. An advert for a 12-month job as Reward Analyst, Pay and Grading Project closes at the end of this month - unhelpfully, with no mention of the pay a successful applicant might receive.

I clicked on the full job description, to see if that might have the information.  Of course, it might be my computer's fault, but below is the first page I got; either Reward Analysts conduct their business in a different language to the rest of us OR not many people have checked this opportunity out in detail.

Add caption

Dry run

Some puzzling messages in the RSS feed from the Media Guardian yesterday. The pages are gone, the links are broken, but fearless new media test pilot Roy Greenslade is clearly about to push the envelope. It's just at this stage, the envelope is empty...

Shy

Nick Grimshaw has started his career as the Radio 1 Breakfast host - and eschewed the multi-media ambitions demonstrated by his predecessor, the much less telegenic Chris Moyles. As far as I can tell, there is no webcam offering to go with the programme. Perhaps they didn't want to show Nick's hand trembling over the faders....

And as for the "unsung" jingles, the new package, thought to have been put together by Wise Buddah of Great Titchfield Street, offers plenty of fanfare, and the double-tracked and echoed voice of a young lady with slightly-strangled vowels. A little in the style of Pod, from the tv show Snog, Marry, Avoid ?

Listen here, courtesy of Radio Today - the first mystery voice is at 54".  The second mystery voice is Nick Grimshaw, at 1.53.

The music for the jingle is big on brass and strings, or at least, their synthesised cousins. There is also a mystery "ping" at 39". Is it the studio microwave, announcing the warmed bacon rolls ? Or some limiter warning we should never have heard ?

Help with schedules

Maria Miller was tipped for Health and Wales before ending up at the DCMS.  Her first weeks saw some unpleasant tasks - issuing warning of redundancy notices to all her new staff (headed "Your Future") as the Department moves to closure on Jeremy Hunt's cuts plans. 80 civil servants need to volunteer to go by the end of the financial year, otherwise a process of selection-for-retention comes into play. Last year 67 chose an early exit, costing the redundancy pot £3.2m, with an average pay-off of £48,500.

Over three years, the DCMS will have reduced from 590 staff to around 330 (and some of those will be on short-term contracts). And from next year, those 330 move from their remaining three floors of Cockspur Street, away from the 158 Scottish malts in the Whisky Bar of The Albannach opposite, and the DCMS performance space of Trafalgar Square, to the duller surroundings of 100 Parliament Street, opposite the Mitchell Gate to Downing Street. No such cuts in Maria's other department, the Government Equalities Office, where staffing stays at 80 - but an irritating stroll for Maria to the glass factory of Victoria's Eland House, shared with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Eric Pickles' Communities and Local Government.

Still Maria can have some fun this week - with BBC Chairman Lord Patten and his batman George on parade for a first official meeting. She gave early notice that she expects more tv coverage, and fast, of women's sports.  Space has been created, on daytime BBC2.  Will Barbara Slater have provided the Good Lord with a list sufficient to avoid a talking-to ? And how will the diversity discussion go for George ?  

Fervour

Does one detect a firmer hand at the top of BBC Vision, steeling the resolve of Religion supremo Aaqil Ahmed ?

The new Songs of Praise line boasts Bill Turnbull (BBC Breakfast) joining old regulars Sally Magnusson, Pam Rhodes and Diane Louise Jordan, plus specials with David Grant, Russell Watson and new face Ann Widdecombe. Aled Jones (now hosting ITV Daybreak)"...is continuing to record a number of shows including two episodes of The Big Sing and is booked to appear on the programme throughout next year."

Missing from the new line-up is Eamonn Holmes, breakfast host at Sky News, and Friday presenter of This Morning (ITV).

Where are they now ?

BBC DG George Entwistle has trimmed the old, second tier, Direction Group in Auntie's organogram, and invented the leaner Management Board. Some of the losers in this process have appeared as direct reports to George, but the detail on others has not been made public.

Those losing their seats at the table include Creative Director Alan Yentob and Pat Younge, Chief Creative Officer, Vision. Roly Keating, heading Archive, has already left for The British Libray. Jessica Cecil, head of the DG's Office when Thommo was here, has new responsibilities for a faster-track complaints handling process. Sarah Jones looks after legal matters. Paul Mylrea runs Communications. John Tate runs strategy and chairs BBC Studios. Bal Samra also boasts two titles: Director, Vision Operations,and Director, Rights & Business Affairs BBC.

Another big cheese missing from the new Management Group is Chief Technical Officer John Linwood. Ralph Rivera sits on the Executive, as Director of Future Media, but the perception has always been that he leaves hardware and big systems to Mr Linwood. Is he still active ? Who speaks for technology at the top table now ?

We've banged on a bit about George's diversity problems, on and off screen. We'd like to remind him that, when Zarin Patel leaves in the next year, he'll have no UK ethnic minority representation on his two top boards, unless things change.

Sporty

As discussed, here come the live "minority" sports - ideally women's sports - on BBC2 daytime from December.   Can pressure groups please form an orderly queue to tweet at acting Controller of Vision, Roger Mosey ?

Hard bitten

The BBC's Allan Little now stands alongside George W Bush, Ben Stiller, Amy Tan and Daryl Hall. The Scotsman reports this morning that our intrepid correspondent is suffering from Lyme's Disease - from a tick bite, not in some foreign battlefield, but on holiday in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The ticks give you a dose of the bacteria Borrelia Burgdorferi Sensu Stricto, usually cleared by anti-biotics as long as you get to the so-and-so's fast enough. The disease gets its name from an outbreak in 1975, in Lyme, Connecticut, some 150 miles down the coast from the Cape.

Withering

DG George Entwistle on the Radio 4 Today programme succession: "I hope that when the moment comes for the next presenter to be chosen [that] it's a woman", as reported by Ian Burrell in The Independent.

One presumes George has squared this with Today Editor Ceri Thomas; up until recently, the next-presenter-in-waiting has been BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson, deemed to have been a good pairing with Evan Davis in a couple of summer canters-round-the-course.

And who will leave first ? John Humphrys is 69, James Naughtie is 61, Justin Webb is 51, Evan Davis is 50, and Sarah Montague is 46.  (One notes that yesterday Robin Lusting announced his retirement from The World Tonight at the age of 64).

John, Jim and Evan have other BBC incomes. John has rebuilt his interests in the Peloponnese in recent years; Jim is now a Willie (Work In London, Live In Edinburgh).

• I wonder if anyone else felt uncomfortable with John's pressuring of the new DG as to when we would see a grey haired woman presenting the tv news ? Isn't grey hair a rather-cliched symbol of age ? Would twin-set and pearls or perhaps a house-coat do ?  Does John himself groom away any of the signs of male age ?  Does the Humphrys household boast a Nose and Ear hair trimmer ?

Packaging

Radio rune readers have been pondering this aside, in Dan Sabbagh's Guardian piece yesterday about the roles BBC DG George Entwistle will have to fill......

a controller of radio job widely expected to become [vacant] when incumbent Tim Davie moves over to BBC Worldwide

Though riders, egged on from Great Portland Street, may be circling around CEO John Smith's wagons at BBC Worldwide, there's been no immediate sign of a white flag. John took home £898k last year, as well as putting aside £107k into a deferred bonus pot payable in March 2015. His estimated total deferred bonuses now stand at £483k. He waived earnings of £52k but also received £70k as a non-exec of Burberry. His contractual notice period is a year; his pension pot is estimated at £3.8m. Tim Davie might come a bit cheaper (current package £349k) but is the difference over the years enough to reach a settlement with John, which is likely to dwarf Caroline's Thomson's deal ?

Product placed

If you look at the BBC News website abroad, you get ads. Do you think the New York Times ad department is being cheeky, opportunist - or is under orders from Thommo...? (Hat-tip to my widening network of eagle-eyed correspondents).

Dogged

Never mind Alex Thomson doorstepping Kelvin McKenzie - here's my favourite bit of media fearlessness from yesterday. Richard Bacon, on 5Live, to Andrew Marr, on his night out in Soho, when he was caught on camera canoodling with his "series producer".  And the jeans question.

P-p-p-party

So the departing DG's do is over. No marks to the BBC spinner who said the big screen tribute to Mark Thompson was being paid for by Worldwide, so that it wasn't a burden on licence fee-payers. It's still money that could have been used to make real programmes. Unless there was some savage last minute sharpening, the film had "worthy" rather than "gag-fest" written in the weft; hosted by, yes, Alan Yentob, and featuring El Tel Wogan, Miranda Hart and vignettes from Hugh Bonneville and other cast members in their 2012 comedy personae.

Guests evidenced by Twitter included Raymond Blanc, Kirsty Wark, Stephen Moffatt, ex press chief Donald Steel, BBC correspondent Frank Gardner and some bloke from the Church and Media Network. Was that Jools Holland on the piano ?

Meanwhile, scrutineers of the new Entwistle organogram note that today's changes mean George has an odd new bunch of direct reports, including said Yentob, strategist John Tate and Worldwide money-spinner John Barry Smith. Is this some sort of Deloitte naughty step ? What do they have to do to get off it ?

Cherchez les femmes

So, in Level 1 of the Entwistle/Deloitte restructuring of the BBC, finance chief Zarin Patel gets control of Caroline Thomson's Operations Division - at least for a while.  George meanwhile re-elevates Warrior Princess Lucy Adams to the Executive - and with a firm eye on future gender balance, Dame Fiona Reynolds emerges as Senior Indepedent Director to fill the toga vacated by Marcus Agius.

The transmogrification of the Direction Group into a smaller Management Group is smoke and mirrors for the Mail and Telegraph - it's still group that gets told what's happening rather than deciding.

Level 2 is to merge tv radio and online production. Proper change, that will take some time.

Canapes

Gagmeister Lord Patten will be running through his material on the bus from Barnes today, ahead of the leaving party for ex-BBC DG Mark Thompson at Broadcasting House. BBC spinners have tried to tell us it's an "austerity do", lasting only two hours. Have you any idea how many deep-fried breaded mushrooms it takes to keep them quiet over that period ?

Meanwhile, the organisation moves on - and, if the Mail is to be believed, new boss George Entwistle has decided to break up the Operations Division (started in 2006, and doubled in size in November 2010 with the addition of BBC People, Property and Marketing). This may help with an exit deal for George's rival for the DG role, Caroline Thomson, COO - we told you she was on the move last Friday. And unless he's cute with the restructuring, Lucy Adams, Director of Business Operations, might be busted back to just HR.  However, I have every confidence George will be cute.

By the way, the Mail suggests George has specially hired someone from consultants Deloitte to help with this conundrum. No need for that - there's one round every corner.

Evening all

There'll be more than one cocked eyebrow at some established radio indies today. The pleasure of running the All England Local Radio Evening Show from January 7th has gone to a brand new company, Wire Free Productions, formed by Matthew Bannister and Husain Husaini (disclosure - I worked with both of them, and enjoyed it).

The tender invited bids, for a stonking £150k a year, from "all independent production companies who can clearly demonstrate relevant experience and expertise".

Andrew Robson, on attachment as Head of Local Radio Development, managed the bid process. He joined BBC Radio Newcastle from the commercial sector in 2007. His comment ? "With the combined local radio and network experience of Husain and Matthew, I'm really looking forward to building a new show in the evening that shares some of the most compelling stories from all 39 of our radio stations". Now we await Mr Robson (and David Holdsworth) revealing their chosen presenter - a task they've reserved for themselves.

The future is bright....

New BBC DG George Entwistle breaks away from the Corporate shackles of grey and blue, and goes for an orange banner on his new website, to match the hue that permeates the new bit of Broadcasting House. And the font ?  Not the dreaded Comic Sans, but surely a second cousin. Anyone got George's real signature ?

Tweet not

And, on day one of the real George Entwistle starting as BBC DG, you'll notice that the rather-near-the-knuckle Twitter Parody account, BBCDG, which used George's mugshot, is no more.

http://twitter.com/account/suspended 

Just a bit of fun

We love the lurches in the Media Guardian 100. And it's understandable; the panel of judges (apart from the Guardian hometeam of Sabbagh and Plunkett) is brand new. Last year we had Peter Barron (Google) Lorraine Heggesey (then "a consultant"), agent Anita Land, and venture capitalist Dharmash Mistry.

This year we have Sir Peter Bazalgette, (surely this sort of judging is too frivolous for a Chairman of The Arts Council ?) Carla Buzasi, UK editor of the Huffington Post, advertising exec Helen Calcraft, Jim Gray (until this year editor of C4 News) Simon Kelner, ex-editor of The Indie, and Mike Soutar, of Shortlist magazines.

And I love the bits where a boss is behind an employee. Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News, will be pleased about a rise from 34 in 2011, to 22, but puzzled as to why she's deemed less influential than Robert Peston, up from 39 to 21.

Danny Cohen, Controller of BBC1, and perhaps an applicant for Controller of Vision, will be delighted with a rise of one, to 13. Roger Mosey, acting Controller of BBC Vision, will be puzzled by a ranking of 98 - a new entry; at least he's ahead of James Murdoch.

Tim Davie, Director of Audio & Music, will be pleased as punch that, in a year when he failed to make the last four for DG, he's gone up from 61 to 39. (Ed Richards, who did make the final interviews, drops from 55 to 64).  In other radio news, Chris Evans is a new entry, at 75.  Ceri Thomas, Editor of Today, makes it at 70, not quite as high as Rod Liddle's 31 back in 2001.

Sir Peter Bazalgette was once in charge of the seminal BBC1 cooking programme Food and Drink, where he claims he invented "the celebrity chef".  Last year, Jamie Oliver stood at Number 48; this year 67.

And so it starts

And so George's tenure at the BBC begins. From midnight it's all his. (And Lord Patten's).

Those looking for signs and symbols will note that he's chosen to drop in on the 6Music Breakfast Show as one of his first appointments. That's the network Mark Thompson agreed was surplus to requirements - too small an audience to make it value for money, and if the audience got bigger, the commercial sector would be up in arms.

Will he also "pop in" on Chris Evans, also in Western House ?  No point a trip as far as Yalding, where Scott Mills is holding the fort for a week at breakfast as the Moyles' legacy is hosed down, clean for Team Grimmy.

The Today Programme is too far away, at TVC. What about Start The Week with Andrew Marr ? Why, that's been given over to Salman Rushdie, to publicise his new book (complete with publisher credit on the website). Is that likely to be a 55 minute live interview ?  I think not...

Ox

There are attempts in various Sunday papers to characterise DG George Entwistle's approach to his new job as different. He'll try to meet people, visit key departments, do question and answer sessions, take a real interest in programme-makers, work open-plan, travel on the tube, etc.

The reality is very different. By week two or three, he'll be fully sequestered by the system, trapped in a hamster-wheel of bureaucratic process, silently screaming for a chance to watch a programme or two. The BBC is run by committee. His executive board meets monthly, and takes, on average, 16 papers or reports requiring approval. His finance committee meets monthly; there, approvals come in bunches, and papers quite often take two or three goes to pass. His unwieldy Direction Group (a consolation prize for not being on the Executive Board) meets monthly. The Trust meets monthly - another dozen reports to be on top of. Then there are the "pre-meets" - big papers need squaring off, so they don't have the humiliation of rejection. Weeks can go by where the only discussion of output is over coffee - and contact with programme-makers takes place in strides between meetings. Apart from the regular "daily call" to be chaired, where Execs twitch and jabber over the latest kicking from the Telegraph, Mail or Times.  And meetings over programme complaints - from Editorial Standards, the Trust and Ofcom.

On top of the routine, George also has to find a new Director of Vision and a new COO.  There may be a need for new leadership at BBC Worldwide. This is the school term for annual announcements of detailed job losses under DQF. There are plans to restructure staff terms and conditions of employment, and changes needed in the way freelances are hired, as Select Committees hunt down one-man service companies. There are a number of technology projects still stumbling along.

So George will need the constitution of an ox, and will lose any summer tan within a month. The keeper of his diary will be an important shield and style-setter.  Would you fancy this week, from Mark Thompson's diary in 2009 ?

Let the (minority) games continue

New Culture Secretary Maria Miller has got off on the front foot in the new term with a letter to BBC Chairman Lord Patten caling for more coverage of women's sports.

“The British media has done a simply fantastic job championing the achievements of our female athletes at London 2012. But outside the Olympics and Paralympics, women’s sport has been woefully under-represented on television. In particular, sports where women compete – such as cricket, football, rugby, netball - end up buried pretty deep within the TV schedules, if shown at all. I am writing to urge you to continue to embrace the enthusiasm and inspiration of London 2012 and continue to give space to women’s sport.”

The Trust are already onside for this, having littered their recent re-writes of purpose remits with more prominent references to minority sports. And so is Roger Mosey (BBC Olympics now Vision minder) who's been canvassing, once again, the idea of a dedicated BBC Sports channel. The alternative is to give up space on daytime, if events work that way, and early evening on BBC2. Before the London Olympics, this would have been counter-intuitive - now the mood amongst the scheduling gurus might be that "We can sell this".

Jobs done

One Billy Blofeld has been tracking recruitment advertising spend at the BBC over the years, through FOI inquiries.

Combined figures for the last two calendar years come to £371,925.  In 2006 it was running at some £270k per year, with The Guardian taking 86% of that. In 2007, The Guardian's take of the licence-fee for BBC job ads peaked at £333k.

The top twenty chart for the last two years still has The Guardian at the top but with a mere sliver of its former income. Spookily, no ads were placed in The Daily Mail.

Party at Pete's

Days left to go at the BBC for DG Thommo, and we learn he plans a series of three major lectures in November. They're under the banner "The Cloud of Unknowing".  This may or may not refer to an anonymous 14th century Middle English book on the power of contemplative prayer, advising a young student seeking God "to pierce that darkness above you; and beat on that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love, and do not give up, whatever happens".

Or it maybe Thommo picked up the phrase from Leonard Cohen, who refers to it in the 1979 song, "The Window". (Mark joined the BBC as a production trainee in 1979). Or maybe Todd Rundgren in the 1989 offering, "The Waiting Game" from Nearly Human (when Mark was editor of the 9 O'Clock News). More recently Plastic Beach, the 2010 album by Gorillaz, includes a track entitled "Cloud of Unknowing" with vocals from Bobby Womack. Perhaps that's on Mark's iPod as he writes.

Meanwhile lecture week looks like party time at St Peter's College for our connected hero...click if you can't make it all out.

Whodunnit ?

Who are these people bringing France the shining truth of SPF50 and Royal Flesh ?  A closer look at the key staff of French magazine, Closer - if I find anything naughtier, I'll get back to you.

Elodie Mandel, "People and Fashion editor" of Closer, and author of the words with the pictures. She studied philosophy, before, in her own words, "going over to the dark side". Loves gossip and Louboutins.

Laurence Pieau, Editor in Chief of Closer. A journalist for Figaro Magazine from 1988 to 1995. She went on to work for Voici, France Dimanche and in 2003 launched Public magazine. Her French Wikipedia entry has been tampered with this morning... 

Ernest Mauri, President of Mondadori Magazines, the Franco-Italian publishers of Closer. Seen here at the French Grazia Ball for Paris Fashion Week in 2011 - theme "Eyes Wide Shut" - with Marina Berlusconi,  Chairman of Fininvest, Chairman of the Italian wing of Mondadori, and daughter of the former Italian Prime Minister. Yes, Fininvest is one of  Silvio's main investment vehicles.....

How others see us

I love Google Translate. The spirit of Professor Stanley Unwin is alive in the machine. Take this translation from the website of the French magazine, Closer.

A little over a year after their marriage, the royal couple was offered a romantic getaway, far from the protocol, etiquette in a very garden of Eden. Almost alone in the world ... For Closer was there ! Discover a preview of the pictures the world in 24h comment.  

After the holidays olé-olé Prince Harry in Vegas, discover the very sensual shots of Kate Middleton and her husband Prince William. Discover the incredible pictures of the future Queen of England as you've never seen ... and as you never see her again ! Find out tomorrow exclusively Closer photos that the world did not expect: the Duchess of Cambridge topless on the terrace of a guest house in the Luberon! OMG!   

Tomorrow Closer 

It is good to meet face-to-face with her husband, finally free of the daily worries, bows, media pressure. For their second honeymoon, William and Kate chose Provence for a romantic desire. Only the world. Their motto: holiday I forget everything, the greyness of London, and even the swimsuit in the suitcase remained of the height ... At Castle Autet, Kate perfect tan and smeared his body naiad a sunscreen spf 50 while William strums on his shelf. And to avoid tan lines, Kate thought of everything ... and remove the jersey.  

In pictures: A couple like many others who enjoy the sun between two hugs ... except that the future queen Kate and William is called to ascend the throne. Kate inventiveness and redouble sensuality to tickle his favorite driver. A splash in the pool and hop a swimsuit to dry! 

Do not miss this special edition of Closer exceptionally sale tomorrow.

Elodie Mandel

Citizen space fillers

Dear licence-fee payer,

Do you lie awake at night worrying that the BBC's purpose remits may no longer be fit for purpose ? If you don't, somebody at the BBC Trust does, and has escaped the supervision of Lord Patten long enough to make the Trust's work more bureaucratic. So they have re-drafted the Remits that respond to the Purposes that allow the Measurement of the BBC's Output for the Trust to Adequately Assess that the Purposes are being Met. Or something.

None of the changes are shorter. Indeed, there is a move from "plain English" to aping the language of legislation in a style favoured by failed lawyers. And some funny things have appeared. 

For example, here's the old wording that puts some scoping round "Stimulating Creativity and Cultural Excellence":

You can expect the BBC to offer the best examples of creative work that engage and delight audiences, break new ground and encourage interest in cultural, creative and sporting activities.

The new paragraph offered by the Trust for your views reads...

The Trust should ensure that the BBC ‘enriches the cultural life of the UK through creative excellence in distinctive and original content’ and to ‘foster creativity and nurture talent’. The BBC should also ‘promote interest, engagement and participation in cultural activity among new audiences’. In doing so it should ‘have regard to the need for the BBC to have a film strategy, and for appropriate coverage of sport, including sport of minority interest’. 

Do we expect the BBC to have a film strategy ? Did we ask for one ? Are we sure we, even in this post-Olympic euphoria, we want more coverage of minority sport ? Or is that being wished on the BBC by its rivals ? And who is in charge of quotation marks at the Trust ? In all this, it remains possible I am being obtuse. Let me know.

Churn-orama

As the BBC girds its loins for The Mark Thompson Festival of Leaving Events, hints that his most recent No 2 might have sorted her exit are in the air.

COO Caroline Thomson made it to the last four in the 2012 DG Stakes but George Entwistle got the selection panel's nod "nem con" on July 4.

Has George worked out a replacement - or, at least, a replacement strategy ?

Hold your plums

...was the title of a quiz on BBC Radio Merseyside, in which Billy Butler would have hours of shameless fun with listeners and an one-armed bandit with fruit symbols - on first pull of the lever, he would read out the line, and asked the contestant "Do you want to hold your plums ?"

This blog is becoming increasingly interactive, and I now point you to "Comment Number 2" appended to the post "New Dawn" for another fruit-based tale, this time from BBC Monitoring.

Local delivery

The Hunt legacy - Ofcom has awarded the first of the new local tv licences, to Latest TV, in Brighton, and Lincolnshire Living, in Grimsby. Here's a showreel from Latest and a full programme from the Living team. Available online - will they get more viewers through transmitters ?


     

New Dawn ?

First the BBC saved and stuttered with Siemens running their computers. Now it's Atos. Soon, it seems, there may be someone else.. 

The Aurora Project's purpose is to redefine the BBC’s technology landscape and the supplier engagement model that supports it. This will include reviewing and re-procuring the services currently provided under the existing contract with Atos and will engage with all BBC divisions to ensure that the outcome will deliver the optimum service and value for money.

The Aurora Project is also the name of a Scottish prog rock ensemble, who released one lp in 1996 - The Balance of Risk. Spooky, huh ?

Thin wedge

The BBC Trust is winding up for its biennial review of the WoCC (which is not something you fwo at a wabbit). It is the Window of Creative Competition, a competition which the BBC is "losing". 50% of BBC tv output (outside of news)  is guaranteed to BBC production teams; 25% must go to independent production companies, and both sides battle for the remaining 25%.  If you'll bear with me, latest figures show the indies taking 83% of that battle ground.

By now, waistcoated Assistant Heads of Governance have ferried Terms of Engagement on the Marmaduke Hussey Crusted Cushion of Inquiry to a Chosen Accountancy firm, and The Data of Percentages is being assembled - by asking the BBC and typing down the answers.

A useful list has also appeared, in response to a Freedom of Information Inquiry - a list of BBC trading companies.  So, as the indies circle George Entwistle's BBC and in-house production, we can be reminded that one wing of the BBC is essentially, for the time being, an indie.

BBC Worldwide owns 25% of Nira Park and Kenton Allen's Big Talk Productions (latest commission - a Mitchell and Webb series for BBC2 starting in 2013).  BBC Worldwide owns 12% (down from 25% in August) of Left Bank Pictures, which made the Branagh take on Wallander, and the Italian cop series Zen. BBC Worldwide, through a holding company called Mini Milk, owns a 25% slice of Plain Vanilla, Dominic Minghella's drama production company, which brought you Robin Hood and now brings Doc Martin to ITV. Complicated, huh ?

Size matters - or does it ?

In the twitchy, look-over-your-shoulder world of BBC tv production, there'll be some rigorous textual analysis of this tweet, from Chief Creative Officer of BBC Vision, Pat Younge, apparently euphoric over  wins in the vital TV Choice awards (in association with Daz)........

It's the qualityoverquantity hashtag that will have them guessing. Does Pat, leader of "the largest team of content creators in the world", mean to signal that size no longer matters ?

Few other people are currently using the hashtag. Apart from the Tavern on Mill in Tempe, Arizona, offering today "$2.50 All tacos, $3 Mexican Beers $4 Espolon Margaritas #tacotuesday #qualityoverquantity" and the intriguing slogan "Saturday School at The Tavern on Mill. Where day drinking becomes a hobby, and making it all night is a talent".

Up and down week

For many, CNN is still the "go to" network when something is happening. At 9pm on Thursday last week, it lead the league of cable news channels, with 1,507,000 viewers aged 25 to 54 - a part of the healthy 33 million who tuned in for President Obama's speech.

On Friday, it was business as usual. At 9pm, Piers Morgan had 151,000 viewers - behind Hannity on Fox, with 489,000 and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC with 439,000. Piers' main feature was a pre-recorded interview with musician Rob Thomas and the hosts of "Pawn Stars".

This week Piers is on hols - and ex advertising exec Donny Deutsch is filling in.

Keep on moving

A range of announcements today, from the BBC Asian Network, includes one that is unstated. There are to be editors responsible for output based in London and Birmingham, and the news team will be moved to London. No mention of anyone in Leicester, where in a puff of publicity, the Asian Network established its headquarters in a new building in June 2005.

History in the making

There's some interest still today in the production team behind Andrew Marr's new series, A History of The World. Nearly two years in the making, the first of eight parts is on BBC1 on Sunday 23 September at 9pm - more traditionally a drama slot in recent years. There is also a book to accompany the series, though this had been entitled "A New History of The World", and is already marked down on Amazon, from £25 to £13.75.

Here are some of the people involved in the show's conception and delivery.

Identity parade

A physical copy of the Sunday Times reveals an opportunity for those who can't tell the difference between Alan Yentob and Salman Rushdie to nail it once and for all. Alan is to front an Imagine special, handily scheduled on BBC1 on 19th September, on Salman, the day after publication of his book about life under a fatwa.

Simon Amstell's fictional grandmother, in Grandma's House, was confused about the two. His fictional mother, played by Rebecca Front, was prepared to sleep with Yentob, to help her son's career.

Alan will be the one asking the questions of Salman. I think...

Fare thee well

Andrew Marr, whose scooter skirts Soho via Piccadilly Circus in the opening titles of his eponymous BBC1 show, left the Sunday Mirror out of his summary of Sunday paper headlines.  His paper reviewers, Rebecca Front and Margot James, left it untouched.

The Sunday Mirror has pictures of Andrew, in his own words, in Soho for "an innocent goodbye to my series producer". They may be NSFW - at least at The Guardian and the BBC.  It's up to you.

Hip action

Will the full list of Strictly Come Dancing Celebrities hold till official launch on Monday ?  One interested group is "Breakfast TV Presenters", who've often provided willing victims - and, indeed, the first winner. By my reckoning, it was the BBC's turn this year - but has the move to Salford made that harder for them to fit in with the schedules ?  Susannah Reid, by my guess, would leap at it. But the slot seems to have been taken by Richard Arnold, showbiz chatterer, brought back into the Daybreak fold by David Kermode. (Kermode was running BBC Breakfast when Natasha K was entered in the first series). We may yet be surprised - in the SCD matrix, Richard Arnold is likely to fill more of the notional Russell Grant hole, and there may yet be room for a set of twinkly toes from the BBC News stable.

NB: Nick Owen was an ITV newsreader in October 2006, when he was announced as a SCD contestant, and in November 2006, he was signed by the BBC.

Plated

The Celtic fringe of the BBC has been indulging itself. A Freedom of Information request has identified two "personalised" numberplates in the BBC's vehicle fleet.

402 BBC is on a Mercedes Sprinter Van, used by BBC Wales. "As this number plate was purchased around 15 years ago, detailed records relating to the transaction no longer exist, but it is understood that the cost was £300. The plate was purchased by BBC Wales (Resources) Ltd, a commercial operation which ceased to exist in 2001."

CU1792 - bear with me - is attached to a Mercedes Vito Traveliner Diesel 8 Seater in Northern Ireland. "To the best of our knowledge, this registration plate was assigned to a BBCNI vehicle at least 20 years ago. We do not hold any information about the purchase or transfer of this registration number".

This is where I need help - what am I meant to read into CU1792 ? 1792 was the first Belfast Harp Festival, and the year in which Catholics were allowed to practise as lawyers, and marry Protestants. I can't find a radio frequency which matches. Does it read as something in Gaelic ? Please tell me it's not staring me in the face....

In praise of...

Ah, the left and right hands of the BBC.  Mark Thompson (and the BBC News Channel) spend two years on finding roles and programmes for older women. Julia Somerville, Fiona Armstrong and Carole Walker get odd shifts; Julia replaces Jenny Bond on Rip-off Britain; Danny Cohen tries to help with a series called "When I'm 65".

Meanwhile, at Broadcasting House, a "call for volunteers" means Harriet Cass, 60 and Charlotte Green, 56 get a redundancy deal, as Radio 4 cuts its pool of continuity announcers and newsreaders from 12 to 10; and, at Radio 2, pooling its newsreaders with 6Music, Fran Godfrey, 59, and Fenella Fudge (ageless) are among those on the way out.

Meanwhile, Caroline Thomson, Director General Manque, is back, with new bins and a light tan, and speaking pointedly about the role of women on boards in an Evening Standard debate. She notes that, from previous balance checks, the BBC's executive is now down to "42%" female; and that men are running BBC Audio & Music, BBC Vision, BBC1 and Radio 2. And, a tad hurriedly, she says they got their jobs on merit.

• The concept of a pool of continuity announcers and newsreaders at Radio 4 is interesting to many seasoned observers. Within that pool, there are some who never make it to key bulletins on Today and at 6 O'Clock. In the past, some possible combinations of newsreaders and presenters just never seemed to happen, as if, heaven forfend, some sort of ban was in place...

• Fenella Fudge has a racehorse named after her. She's also available for voice-overs, with the following calling card: "Mid-range to deep natural RP. Extremely versatile: from warm and authoritative to sexy to cartoon voices and dog impressions (vocal only) - vast range of accents. Takes direction well (although "GET OUT" is liable to offend)".

Familiar

New Culture Secretary Maria Miller will be on familiar territory should she engage with Lord Patten at his BBC base. During her second spell with Grey London, the advertising agency, she was based in Argosy House, at the top of Great Portland Street, a mere Kenneth Williams' mince from the BBC Trust's suite, adjacent to Nando's.

She's probably more familiar with Villandry than Nando's, though may have celebrated the odd deal in The Albany, directly opposite Argosy House. Maria left Grey before Garry Lace arrived, to install a fully licenced bar in reception, operating from 6pm to 9pm, for more private celebration of success.  In 2007, Grey moved to Hatton Garden, and the bar area has become a Pizza Express. Another brand probably unfamiliar to Lord Patten..

Grey's current roster includes News International and Cathedral City.

Risk taker

"Mark Thompson - The BBC Glory Years" (working title) is the tribute video that will premiere at the DG's leaving-do in less than two weeks' time. The tricky task of selecting those who will and will not take part in this tear-jerker has fallen to one Amanda Gabbitas, now running internal communications at BBC Vision. Her previous track record - largely in children's tv - will have prepared her for the stress and tantrums that may be involved. If you can produce Going Live, with Trev and Simon swinging their pants, and Run the Risk, with Peter Simon, then you can find humour in most situations...  

Tap dancing

The BBC staff organ, Ariel, reports a management move to help staff facing the exit as a result of Delivering Quality First cuts.

"A new commitment comes into effect this week that will oblige BBC hiring managers to consider those under threat of losing their jobs for vacancies they are suitably qualified for ahead of other internal or external candidates."

This is clearly part of some choreography before the announcement of detailed job closures to be achieved by March 31st 2013. Old union hands will be puzzled but pleased - if the concession genuinely means managers must prove that they've consulted the list of staff available for redeployment before going to the market. (One suspects it won't necessarily come into play ahead of big jobs like Director BBC Vision).

For HR to offer this sop unpressed, this year's cuts must be really unpleasant for most divisions; there's already unhappiness in Scotland, who traditionally "go early". Other divisions will announce their plans over the next two months. How will George spin it, from September 17th ?

Marred

More of you have time on your hands than I thought. One has noticed a "man bag" continuity issue in the new Andrew Marr opening titles; another notes the appearance of a graphic representation of the Greenwich Time Signal in the interior decoration of New Broadcasting House. We are all now off to get a life...

Play school

Ah, the narrow world of tv set design  - Daybreak's relaunch is the work of Simon Jago, now working for BDA Creative. He's been involved with ITV mornings for some time, producing the Lorraine set. The Chiles/Bleakley Daybreak look was the work of Jonathan Paul Green. Now Jago, he of strong lines, red, blue and neon, is trying to prove he can do cuddly...

Wrong direction

We told you to expect new titles from The Andrew Marr Show, to accommodate the move to Broadcasting House, and the first of many new sets for BBC news programmes. The Great Scot now travels on a Vespa, but the route is even odder than the original bizarre cross-London zig-zag. This time, the vt editors have him heading away from Broadcasting House just 9 seconds into the titles - east along Langham Street.

Ever closer

The Twitter parody BBCDG is in danger of further triangulation of his/her identity; he's currently promoting this clip from BBC Radio Northampton's Bernie Keith, cheeking one of his regular targets, BBC News boss Helen Boaden.

listen to ‘Bernie Keith on Helen Boaden BBC Northampton / BBC Local Radio’ on Audioboo

Holy molars

If this promo is anything to go by, we're only hours away from one of the biggest outbreaks of gleaming gnashers British tv has ever seen. You may need to adjust your colour saturation...

 

Hal David

Although I didn't know it until news of his death, it's perhaps not surprising that lyricist Hal David trained in journalism. Born in Brooklyn, he worked on the school newspaper at Thomas Jefferson High School and went on to study journalism at New York University. Then, on army service in World War II in the South Pacific, he was posted to an entertainment unit, and turned to lyric writing - a trade also adopted by his brother Mack after the war.

Hal had a brief post-war spell as an advertising copywriter at the New York Post, but kept up with the lyric writing sufficiently to catch the attention of "swing and sway" bandleader Sammy Kaye in 1947. The door was opened and other hits came - "Four Winds and the Seven Seas," with co-writer, Don Rodney, a vocalist for the Guy Lombardo Orchestra. Then followed with "Broken-Hearted Melody," Sarah Vaughan's biggest single hit ever, and "Johnny Get Angry," a success for Joanie Sommers.

In 1957 he met Burt Bacharach, and others have chronicled that partnership in much more detail. Before I knew what a lyricist was or does, I was listening to "Magic Moments" and "The Story of My Life" (in the version by Michael Holliday).

Hal's other collaborators, in a catalogue of published songs close to 500, included Albert Hammond, Henry Mancini, Arthur Altman, John Barry, Johnny Mandel, Paul Anka, Barry Manilow, Sherman Edwards, Michel Legrand, and David Rose.