Brum brum

For £8 you can get a tour of the BBC's facilities at the Mailbox in Birmingham. You can see the studio where the Archers is recorded (but you can't see in when they are actually recording, 'cos the actors wanted more money, and so a curtain is pulled across the studio window). You can see a Dalek and a Tardis - though the show has no connection with Birmingham. And you can see the space where producers used to sit making programmes for network tv and radio. They've been dispersed to Bristol, Salford and London.

The BBC has fallen in and out of love with Birmingham. Lords Patten and Hall visit the Mailbox tomorrow, and have promised campaigners that they're doing their best to think of something to fill the empty desks. Peter Salmon has been charged with finding a solution - so far, his action has been to move Tommy Nagra in as Head of Business Development. Tommy leaves an unhappy Religion and Ethics Department in Salford in the New Year.

A reasonably sharp cluster of local MPs have been gnawing away at this one; Lord Hall has Birmingham in his cv, from Little Green Lane County Primary, Small Heath through King Edward's, Birmingham. There'll be an announcement or two tomorrow, I'll wager.