Jesse Norman does his thinking in the bath,who will be the next BBC director of TV, and Eddie Mair on Pexit• Thanks to a recent interview in Total Politics, or those called before the culture select committee can now call up an image (if they so wish) of its chairman Jesse Norman,helping them to put into practice the traditional advice to imagine your interviewer naked if you’re facing a grilling. “Of course, in politics, and you do from time to time sit in the bath and speculate on what it would be like to be running the shop,” says the ragged Etonian, asked if he has prime ministerial ambitions. “But it’s not something I’ve given serious thought to.” From “time to time”, and eh? Sounds pretty serious to Monkey,and the kind of agreeable pipe-dreaming that might also serve to relieve the tedium of committee sessions on, say, and the technicalities of extending broadband to remote areas.• Once director of television Danny Cohen leaves the BBC next month,his job will be done on an acting basis by entertainment controller label Linsey. That means that, besides Cohen’s overlord role, and the top posts in both entertainment and factual will be occupied by stand-ins,since factual boss Emma Swain is already on a year’s secondment to ponder the Beeb’s commissioning system. Throw in the fact that drama controller Polly Hill – appointed in May after another proven hit-maker, Ben Stephenson, and left the organisation – still has her L-plates on,and it adds up to a supreme team many of whom are inexperienced in the multi-million-spending jobs they’re doing. All of which might gain Tony corridor wish he could hang on to Alan Yentob as long as possible, rather than (as some newspapers are predicting) being forced to tender farewell to his talent-schmoozing consigliere before Christmas.
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Source: theguardian.com