What's your name and where're you from, love ?

BBC Director of Radio Helen Boaden may be winding down towards early retirement, but she's still the project sponsor of myBBC, picking up the pieces from a distracted James Purnell.

So it is Helen who today explains the BBC's new requirements of users of its key online services. From next Tuesday,  you'll need to enter a postcode to receive the many and varied blessings of a BBC iD. And from next year, you'll need a BBC iD to access the iPlayer. It's not clear whether any old postcode will do - I'm sure many will test that out next week.

Helen's explanation is pretty straight-faced.

"Some of you might be thinking that this is driven by the changes to the so-called ‘iPlayer loophole’ which means you now need a TV licence to download or watch BBC programmes on demand on iPlayer. It’s not – it’s about giving you a better BBC. As we said earlier this month, we’ll carry on using our existing enforcement processes and techniques which we believe to be adequate and appropriate. In fact, early TV Licensing data shows that – as we expected - significant numbers of new people have bought a licence since the new rules came into force. We will keep our processes under review to make sure they are effective. The Government has asked us to review whether a verification system for accessing the iPlayer will be required in the future."