MkNoom

By far the most rewarding thing about writing is in the cartharsis of doing it. Sometimes you just HAVE to do it to see your story in visual form. If it's published, that's nice. But not the be all and end all. My latest - 'Snow-Dodging for Umpteenagers' - the story of my twenty-year search for the perfect bolthole from winter, was written both for that very reason and to alert others on the same path to the pitfalls they can expect to encounter in their own search. It has been published and has attracted the odd complimentary review. But that wasn't the prime motivation. It was an unticked box that HAD to be ticked. And now it is, I'm happy.

Well said and welcome to the revolution. Which is your chosen party now?

Sorry but none of the above. Self-satisfied applies to all suggestions. And that's not all in AR's case. Smug, unintelligible and self-serving could equally apply. UC is not a simple panel show, as the level of questions clearly demonstrates. So it needs more, much more, than a simple panel show host/question master/mistress. Respect should be shown to the regular UC follower by replacing Paxman with a true academic (as Bamber Gascoine was) with personna. Someone with stature and gravitas. Not a joker. There's plenty to choose from, many already with TV experience from presenting BBC 4 programmes. Frankly, with UC being put in the hands of Rajan that'll be the end of my long term association with what is clearly destined to lose its 'programme' status and end up being just a BBC 'show'. A very sad day for UC.