Well done

Congratulations to Paul Royall, elevated from deputy to overall editor of the BBC news bulletins at 6 O'Clock and 10 O'Clock, and described by colleagues as a very good thing. The appointment does not do much for diversity, but at least his university days were spent at Lancaster and Essex.

• Paul's promotion will leave a vacancy for an Executive Producer of The Editors - a monthly set of films hosted by World Affairs Editor, John Simpson.  Perhaps, here at least, a stronger hand is required.  I particularly winced at the June edition, where John turned his majestic brain to the question on the world's lips - why are the French so unhappy ? In search of an answer, he took a stroll from his Paris flat, near the Eiffel Tower, which he visits every six weeks or so, and talked over coffee and lunch to Christian Constant, a tv chef with three restaurants in the Rue St Dominique, and his old university pal, also largely based in Paris, Nicholas Snowman, chairman of jewellery dealers Wartski, and co-editor with John of The Best Of Granta. (Cafe Constant also makes occasional appearances in John's regular columns for BA Highlife - "what the world's most famous correspondent gets up to off duty"). The whole was constructed round a paper by a French sociologist, Claudia Senik, re-worked from November 2011.