BBC's Mark Thompson takes his Jeremy Paxman punishment
Was there a hint of personal animus in Jeremy Paxman's Newsnight interview with the BBC's Director General, Mark Thompson?
(Paxman, sarcastically: 'When a Radio 1 disc jockey, Tim Westwood, said on the 9th of February, "I've been broadcasting to absolutely nobody for the past three hours", is that an argument there's a convincing audience?' Thompson, patronisingly: 'It might have been a joke, Jeremy.')
It's worth remembering that the damaging story about Thompson once sinking his teeth into the arm of a Nine O'Clock News colleague, Anthony Massey, emerged after Massey confided it to Paxman in an email.
Jeremy Paxman gave Mark Thompson a grilling on Newsnight over the BBC's cutbacks
President Jacob Zuma of South Africa's ministerial hangers-on took over China Tang, the expensive Dorchester Hotel restaurant where the 'birds nest' soup starter costs £60.
Enjoying themselves in the convivial throng; Paul Boateng, the former Labour minister who until last year was HM's High Commissioner in South Africa, and his wife Janet.
'Living well is the best revenge,' advised Scott Fitzgerald.
More from Ephraim Hardcastle for the Daily Mail...
- EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Should Murray make the final on Sunday, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will likely be there 10/07/15
- EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: No royal reception for the Dalai Lama 09/07/15
- EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Will it be Earl Michael and Countess Carole Middleton? 07/07/15
- EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Prince George set to attend same Notting Hill school as William and Harry 06/07/15
- EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: An unfortunate accident at the Queen's annual garden party 03/07/15
- EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Queen 'can't be everywhere' to attend 7/7 tenth anniversary commemoration... instead will be represented by the Duke of York 02/07/15
- EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: How will the Queen handle First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with whom she is due to have tea? 01/07/15
- EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Kanye West was out-performed by Lionel Richie at Glastonbury 30/06/15
- EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Prince William guarded his privacy from an early age 26/06/15
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Whither Sarah Miles, 68, the scatty, Oscar-nominated star of Blow-Up, Ryan's Daughter and White Mischief?
'Enjoying relations with a much younger man, said to be of Eastern European origin, who has moved into her beautiful home near Petworth, West Sussex,' says my local source.
'She's telling anyone who'll listen it's the best sex she's had in 20 years.'
Ms Miles was married twice to the playwright Robert Bolt, 17 years her senior, who died in 1995.
Highly strung Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw twitters: 'Why isn't every news programme empty-chairing Cameron and Hague until they come on to answer the Ashcroft questions?'
(Empty chairing!?! Is he trying to remind us he worked at the BBC and knows the lingo?)
How broadcasters report the Conservative Party shouldn't be Bradshaw's business.
Media chief Simon Kelner - managing director of The Independent - has found a novel means of relaxation while negotiating his paper's sale to Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev.
He tells me he is learning to play the ukulele, boasting: 'I'm very keen, and, being born in Lancashire - home of banjo ukulele maestro George Formby - I am, of course, a natural.'
Bearing in mind his current negotiations, he adds: 'It might be better to learn the balalaika!'
We only have to look across the sea to Ireland to see the dangers of a hung Parliament.
Because the ruling Fianna F·il administration relies on the Greens to stay in power, its toad-like prime minister, Brian Cowan, had to agree to their demand that all frogs in Ireland are counted and catalogued by Queen's University Belfast.
Is Cowan angry? 'He's hopping,' says my source.
