OK Corral

If the arcane world of Freedom of Information struggles leaves you cold, look away now.

In those heady days when BBC HR thought it was employed to "do something", wayback when HR boss Lucy Adams, channelling a young Doris Day, slapped her cowboy chaps and hollered "I'm gunna sort out them ornery poorly-performing teams", she shared the information that 30 departments had done badly in the 2012 Staff Survey.

On the basis that there must be a list on a piece of paper, a Freedom of Information inquiry followed. It was lodged by one Spencer Count, a nom-de-plume now acknowledged by its owner as, rather unsurprisingly, made up. Spencer has made 55 enquiries of the BBC. Now he's come up against a new oppo in this particular Wild West feud.

Douglas Marshall, a lawyer who previously worked for the Football Association, is the BBC's chosen hired gun, employed via Lawyers On Demand, set to deal with pesky Spencer. In Auntie's latest refusal to say who the 30 bad boys were, Douglas claims "Spencer" is, in fact, a BBC employee, and, worse "a motivated intruder" (a quasi-judicial term) whose familiarity with BBC systems will lead to identification of poorly-performing individuals once he has the team details - and that's an ICO no-no.

Will Spencer rise from this kick in the teeth ? Are there more punches to be thrown as the combatants wrassle in the corral ? Or is Spencer effectively on his horse and out of town...?