They work hard, play hard and everything else one might expect. That's Newsnight
• Amid the stresses of working in the BBC hothouse that is Newsnight, there are compensations. Some obvious, some not so. This is an opportunity presented to his colleagues by the programme's "Ethical Man" reporter, Justin Rowlatt. "Here's an offer you don't get every day. There is a large box of the world's first rainforest-friendly condoms. Please take as many as you need, I think there are enough there to meet even Newsnight's demanding requirements." All, he said, would be "reassured (and perhaps a little excited)" to know that the condoms were specifically sourced by the corporation. "I drew the latex for these bad boys at 3am one morning from wild rubber trees growing in the virgin Amazon forest." Are they any good? In nine months, we'll know.
• And it came to pass that after 10 days of inexplicable coyness and refusing to answer our straightforward inquiries, Eric Pickles did indeed appear as the star turn at the weekend camp staged by the rightwing funsters in the Young Britons' Foundation. Dark-suited and staring from above the lectern, like a bouncer reading a requiem, the cabinet heavyweight was all they could have hoped for and more. "I'm sure friends of @YBFOnline the @guardian will be glad to hear that Eric Pickles is on fine form," tweeted young disciple Thomas Barlow excitedly, as the secretary of state for communities and local government did what he does. We even got a sort of namecheck. "I understand that a man that I've never met, who writes for a paper I've never read, is fascinated to know whether I would attend this conference. Well, I'm delighted to attend," said Eric. We are glad he enjoyed it. We are also glad that he does, in fact, buy the Guardian, as we discovered from a freedom of information request to his department back in July. It may be his guilty pleasure. But if he buys it and doesn't read it, more fool him.
• He won't answer our questions. So perhaps MPs will do better in prising from the great belt-tightener an explanation as to how Capita was paid £580,000 for 16 months' work by an official supplied to his department to serve as interim finance chief. According to the Local Government Chronicle, MPs on the communities and local government select committee professed themselves "speechless" at the interim's pay-out, which amounted to "more than three prime ministers'-worth of salary". Less than George Osborne's chalet bill perhaps, but then that isn't the proper yardstick. Still, there's no disputing, that money-man got the best of the deal.
• We mentioned Tory activist Thomas Barlow earlier. He has been busy. Lauding Eric on Twitter one minute, signing up as a supporter of the Trade Union Reform Campaign, the next. A "fantastic campaign", he says. So what is TURC? Well it looks like a vehicle from the Tory right specifically created to bash the unions. And who's in it? Well the chairman is Aidan Burley MP; the MP so recently engulfed in scandal for attending a stag do inspired by the Nazis. Yes, if anyone can make a moral argument to Bob Crow, it's him.
• Who else do we know from this campaign? Well the chief exec is Mark Clarke, whose attempt to wrest Tooting from Labour hit a snag when his acolytes were caught tampering with an opponent's website so that visitors to her page were diverted to his own. Again, a fine one to lecture unions on principles.
• And look, there's Andre Walker, the press officer. We know Andre. He's not the worst kind of guy. But he is the one who was caught loudly plotting on a train against a party colleague ("She is on the way out … She's dead. No one likes her, total liability). The whole thing so aggrieved a fellow commuter that the episode was taped and posted on YouTube. All in all, as you see, a crack team.
• Finally, a cunning linguist is in touch: "Were you aware that the name 'Cameron' means 'bent nose' in Scottish Gaelic, just as 'Campbell' translates as 'bent' or 'twisted' mouth," he writes. "One attaches no significance." Still, worth noting.