The bleeding obvious

Duke "did not order Diana death" reads the headline on the BBC's superdooper new website. And in other hot news, Gordon Brown "did not think much of Tony Blair," Rupert Murdoch "makes exceedingly large amounts of money," and Pope Benedict XVI "is Catholic."

Barnett finally on the way out

There now seems to be fairly compelling evidence that the skids are finally under the Barnett Formula and unsurprisingly this forms the subject of my weekly column in the Newcastle Journal published today.

Donald Dewar and Ron Davies always said that devolution was a "process, not an event" and so it is proving. The growing demands for greater financial autonomy for Scotland are clearly incompatible with the continuance of a funding system which makes the country financially dependent on England and this has created an unexpected window of opportunity for the government to look again at the whole vexed issue.

Well done Beeb

Credit to the BBC for joining in with the rest of us and having a laugh about Charlotte Green's giggling fit on the Today Programme this morning. I have to say I was in stitches myself as I listened to this in my car while driving to work, but it was coupled with a terrible fear, happily unfounded, that poor Charlotte was at that very moment being told to clear her desk by po-faced BBC bosses.

Anyone who has not already heard it can do so HERE.

Top marks also for Ashes to Ashes which ended its run last night with the dramatic revelation of...well, I won't spoil it for the benefit of those who want to watch it on i-player.

Suffice to say that, for me, the best bits of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes have always been the dovetailing of the plot with musical references, and the use of Supertramp's 1979 classic Take the Long Way Home to emphasise that Keeley Hawes' Dr Alex Drake would not be getting back to 2008 in this series at least was inspired.

The egos have landed

Readers of this blog from way back will already be aware of my obsession with The Apprentice which returned to our screens last night.

First to be fired was toffee-nosed barrister Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, who appears to have changed his name from plain Nick Brown, although personally I think he was rather hard done-by.

More deserving candidates for the chop might have included hard-faced Irishwoman Jennifer Maguire, who informed us in complete seriousness that she was "probably the best saleswoman in Europe," baby-faced Kevin, who reckoned that fish have breasts, and whichever pillock it was who tried to cut up a fish-head with the knife the wrong way round.

It promises to be compulsive viewing as ever....