✒ Anthony Julius, the late Princess Diana's lawyer no less, has penned a "letter before action" to the London Evening Standard on behalf of his new clients, Will Lewis and Simon Greenberg. Nothing but the best will do for our men on News Corp's Management and Standards Committee of course, who were seriously displeased with a reference to them in an article this month, which reported the fact that two Sun reporters had been arrested as part of the corrupt payments probe. The Standard claims its position is defensible, but as a precaution has removed mention of their names from the website version of the contentious piece. But that seems not to have satisfied the complaining duo, whose letter had given them a fortnight to respond. Let's see who blinks first.
✒Tom Pellereau, the winner of last year's Apprentice, piggybacked on the launch of the new series of the BBC1 business show to unveil his grand design, an S-shape nail file called the Stylfile. "Since the Apprentice final I've been working night and day to create the Stylfile Collection," proclaimed TP. "Working with Lord Sugar and benefitting from his experience … has been invaluable." It most certainly has, the Stylfile bearing a remarkable resemblance to an S-shape nail file unveiled in 2006 by … Tom Pellereau. Will he nail it this time?
✒ Was it a bit mean of Rowan Williams to wait until Friday morning before announcing that he was stepping down as Archbishop of Canterbury? The biggest church story for years – and it happens just too late for the weekly deadline of the Church Times, which is published first thing on a Friday. Did the Church Times editor manage not to swear when he heard the news?
✒The BBC's director general, Mark Thompson, widely expected to step down this year or the beginning of next, declined to talk timings at the Royal Television Society last week. But his speech to the assembled TV types had a strong valedictory flavour, the audience including his wife, the American-born academic Jane Blumberg (who usually keeps a safe distance from the BBC) and a sprinkling of former corporation bosses. On his successor, Thommo said "a background in broadcast news is a desirable thing" but was coy when it came to discussing his pay packet (total remuneration: £671,000). Asked whether he would have done his job for substantially less, Thompson replied: "It's very hard to go back in time … it's a hypothetical question" and one that he declined to answer.
✒Still with Thompson, what did he regard as his "ultimate low"? Crowngate? Sachsgate? Turns out it was the previously unheard of "Morgangate" at an RTS shindig in Cambridge. "There really aren't any words to describe what it feels like to be pinned to your chair in the hall at Kings for what seems like an eternity, being forced to listen to a lecture on media ethics from Piers Morgan." He then went on to list his greatest hits. "I was in New York [and] there there was a clear consensus among friends and acquaintances about the single programme which in their view best summed up everything they admire about my time at the BBC. You can guess it. Downton Abbey."
✒Trevor Beattie's business partner Bill Bungay has embarked on an unlikely wheeze. The co-founder of eponymous ad agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay is rounding up everyone he can find called Bungay to play in a football match at the home ground of – where else? – Bungay Town FC. Bungay and the Suffolk club came up with the idea after an exchange on Twitter, and hope to find to find enough Bungays – not exactly a common name – to fill the roles of referee, physio, and even the mascots. What chance the man of the match being Bungay?
✒Former Tory party chairman Lord Mawhinney is not entirely happy with the evidence offered up by assorted lawyers and hacks to his joint committee on the draft defamation bill. "I was impressed by how few people who talked to the committee talked about truth," he said, at a seminar in central London last week. "I'm a simple Belfast boy and it occurred to me if you are talking about defamation an emphasis on truth and honesty ought to be significant when shaping the bill." Mawhinney said all submissions that were obviously self-centred were ignored because he and the committee were "smarter than the average bear". Quite so.