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)".