Meanwhile in Downing Street, Tony Blair adds Andrew Gilligan to his Christmas card list.

Or does he?

The government has got pretty much everything it wants in the wake of the Hutton Enquiry: an apology from the BBC, being cleared of ‘sexing up’ the report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, validation of its reasons for going to war and, perhaps the biggest prize of all – a stick with which to beat the BBC.

Tessa Jowell, overseeing the review of the BBC’s Charter says the outcome of the Hutton Enquiry will impact on the renewal of the BBC’s charter.

That, surely, is good news for every MP.

And a potential disaster for the British media.

It is no secret successive governments have wanted to exert control over the BBC, although they have had little way of doing so because of the way it is run. At a guess, though, I’d think the most likely outcome this time around would be the disbanding of the Board of Governors, which regulates the Corporation’s output, and responsibility for overseeing what the BBC produces being given to Ofcom, the communications regulation body, which has control of everything from mobile phones to national TV and radio stations.

The government has been questioning the BBC’s right to have a web site with arguments that it is so successful it harms the viability of other sites in the UK, but then is that really a reason to can it?

If the BBC is regulated by the same body that oversees independent TV, what would there be to stop them taking the easy way out and forcing it to stick to a very rigid public service remit, closing down its more frivolous services such as BBC Three, and those that question the government of the day (including News 24) and instead fill the schedules with ‘worthy’ informative pieces.

Independent TV, meanwhile, would be forced down a completely opposite route so that they two do not clash with one another.

In both cases, it would be a disaster, and TV in general in the UK would suffer greatly. The same could be said for radio.

Some say it should lose the income it receives from the License fee on account of the fact that they don’t see why they should pay for the License if they themselves don’t watch the BBC’s channels. If they think this is a good reason for the BBC to be regulated by a central body then they clearly don’t understand the damage that would be done to the independent services if they were forced to compete with the BBC for advertising revenues. With the available revenue stream split in two neither would be able to survive on their current scale. The pool of available ad revenue in the UK is barely enough to support the independent channels on their own.

It all comes down to one thing: if the BBC was not so good, so trusted and so successful it would not find itself in the crisis it is weathering just now. Likewise, if it was a private company rather than a public body, there would have been no Hutton Report, and if there was, it would have been unable to do the damage that might be done to the BBC.

No wonder campaigns are already springing up on the web to save an institution of which we should all be proud.

I spent last night on Emilie Ems’ fold-out settee, which made getting up this morning a far more pleasant experience than it might otherwise have been. Time enough to shower, drink a mug of tea, flop around reading a book for 45 minutes and still be in work on time after a detour to Boots to buy deodorant, toothpaste and a toothbrush (it had been an unplanned stopover) and breakfast in Gregs.

We’d been out with Leo to celebrate his engagement, with Mark and Kathryn and a bundle of PCW faithfuls, starting out in the White Horse where it was so cold we kept on our coats and scarves almost all night. When a warmer table away from the door came free, we shuffled across, but that left us on the edge of the stair to the toilets. They had no guard rail and as Dave stood up to demonstrate how you can stick a stamp to a pub ceiling no matter how high it is (unfortunately in full view of the glass catcher) the chair tipped backwards and tumbled down the stairs, racing towards the toilets like it was going to wet itself.

That was followed shortly by Gareth arriving and smacking a painting with the chair of a leg as he carried it across the room, and Leo leaning back on his, only to tumble backwards into the next room.

Clearly it was not a good night for the furniture.

Actually, the stamp trick was quite clever. What you do is take a pound coin, place it in the middle of a handkerchief and then twist around the rest of the hanky until it looks like a jellyfish, with the coin being its small, concealed head. You then balance the stamp on the top of it (sticky side up) and throw the wrapped coin at the ceiling, with the twisted materian acting as a kind of wake to keep it upright.

You can throw it a long way like that, and the stamp doesn’t seem to drop off. When it hits the ceiling, though, it sticks, and there’s apparently been one on the far higher, unreachable ceiling of the S&G for ten months now.

So having all learnt a new skill, and feeling hungry and cold, we decamped to Porters, sat downstairs where it was deserted and ate unhealthy cheesy chips. I put my coat on to leave at half ten, but somehow got talked into staying, which is how I ended up on Ems’ settee.

We made utter fools of ourselves on the tube, and probably annoyed everyone around us, but got safely back to Brixton where the council still hadn’t got around to gritting the pavements. I slipped around, clinging on to every available lamp post and wall.

But who cares – it was late.

What a magical night. It’s 00h54. I’ve had a hellish journey home, but it’s been magical all the same. And for the last 40 minutes I have had a town full of crunchy snow to myself.

The day started pretty well, actually. Despite the half inch of snow the trains were running on time and zizzed into London at untold speeds. That didn’t stop them being half empty as everyone who could used the chilly dusting as an excuse for being ‘stranded at home’, and a woman in the seat in front of me called ahead to warn someone that she would be late for her half-nine interview because the trains were ‘in such a mess’.

Tonight, though, was a different story.

I worked late and left the office at 20h00.

08h10, I got to Tottenham Court Road. Now I could detail all of my movements over the next four and a half hours, but that would be terminally dull, so suffice it to say that it involved heading west to Oxford Circus, north east to Kings Cross, standing in the cold for 25 minutes for a bus because five tube lines were closed, giving up and heading south west again on the tube and finding horendous delays on the Central line, walking for a bit, waiting for some more buses that didn’t come and eventually getting to Liverpool Street at 21h20.

I grabbed a pastie (the most sensible move of the whole night) and ran onto the 21h32, relieved that at least I’d be home in time to retrieve the car from the station.

Oh, I am so naive.

Five metres short of the end of the platform, we came to a halt. The doors opened, the driver made a grim announcement about some ‘incident’ where a guy went under a train and that until further notice the line was closed.

Apart from reversing back to the concourse, nothing happened for the next hour and a half when finally the doors beeped and closed and we started limping out of the station.

But…

Five metres short of the end of the platform, we came to a halt as someone lent on the emergency alarm and all the brakes slammed on.

We eventually arrived in Chelmsford at 23h50, and I felt strangely detached from the whole thing. You can’t really get cross when someone had just been killed by a train. There are so many other people involved in an incident like that who come off far worse – the driver, the family, the police who have to scrape up the bits – so it seems a bit selfish to moan about it if you’re delayed.

Besides, other people had had it worse than me. It wasn’t until we were rolling into Stratford station that they announced we wouldn’t be stopping there after all, despite the fact it had been advertised on the board. Something to do with an ‘emergency’.

Of course, after all that the train had been packed so the queue for taxis was about an hour long. So pulling on my gloves, I set out to walk, and that’s when I realised I had the whole town to myself.

Rather than take my normal route, I headed into the centre of town, through the pedestrian area, where the streets were caked in hard spikes of ice. It had clearly melted and then refrozen, and where it snapped until my feet it sounded like I was walking on those plastic bubbles you use to wrap precious items in the post.

Everything was so still and so calm and it wasn’t nearly as cold as I thought it might be. Every step was so slippery it felt like I was taking my life in my hands, but I felt very privileged to seemingly have the whole town to myself.

I took a big loop out to the flood plane and then back in over the lazy shallow bridge that crosses right over it, pausing at the central point, just above the river, and looked up at the sky. Above me was perfectly clear, but off to the east it was a dusty pink that seemed to get darker and lighter, almost as though it was on fire, or it was a dim light bulb and the electric was about to go out. This patch of light must have been several miles wide, as it was so far off.

Feeling the cold now, as the wind whipped across the flat ground, I pushed on, stepping into a deep cold puddle before crossing untouched snow on a wide patch of grass. My footprints were the first to disturb it.

It all helped me to forget about the nasty journey, and even seemed to make the trials of the travel seem worth it. In all honesty, although it was unpleasant at the time I’m quite glad I got so delayed now. If I hadn’t, the snow would have been nothing but an irritation, but at least now I feel I’ve got something nice out of it, even if I don’t have time to build a snowman before it all melts.

There was a day when the politicians would be careful to brand themselves at all times. The Tories would only ever wear blue ties. Labour MPs would always wear red. So what’s going on here, with Tory leader Michael Howard on the left and Tony Blair on the right? Has the BBC been Photoshopping the ties of our party leaders this morning, or is this picture from a BBC photo gallery a more accurate representation of their beliefs than we might imagine?

They kept telling us to get in touch with our bodies. Mine isn’t all that communicative but I heard from it the other day after I said, ‘Body, how’d you like to do the nine o’clock class in vigorous toning?’ Clear as a bell my body said, ‘Listen, bitch… do it and you die.’

Whoever coined that – and I wish it was me – deserves an award. It perfectly sums up how I feel today. My suspicions have been confirmed. I definately did do too much at the gym. Now my ribs ache to buggery, particularly if I cough or sneeze, and even levering myself up out of bed this morning was a supremely sadistic sensation.

Anyhow, it was a good day, in spite of the cold, which is turning bitter and nasty. Talking about it in the office someone said it was too cold to snow, which in due course became an immediate point of dispute until we called someone at the BBC weather centre to find out if this was actually possible.

Seems it is (I was rather hoping it was an old wives’ tale) although it’s a bit of a rarity in the UK as it would need to get down to 20 below freezing. At that point there is apparently too little moisture in the air for snow crystals to form.

I don’t know what would happen if it rained, though. Hail, I guess.

I hope we don’t get any of that.

Still, at least if we do it could have come at a worse time. The issue went off to print this evening so the next few days will be filled with the meetings I didn’t have time to attend in the last few days of the production cycle, and I can do all of my emailing and writing from home if the promised cold snap arrives and I get snowed in. Knowing the state of the rails, though, it’ll only take half an inch to stop the trains from running, so the chances are fair to good, I’d say.

The only worry is if I get stranded at home I may end up getting fidgety with the clippers and cutting my hair. It’s getting far longer than I normally let it go and it looks a mess, but I’ll be having my picture done yet again in a couple of weeks (third time since starting in the job – they like to alternate your pics on the page) and I’d like it to look good so have pledged to have it done properly by someone else this time.

I’m already practicing the small talk, although having booked no holiday so far this year, there’ll be little to discuss. It could be a very brief trim indeed.

From this morning’s Metro:

Plans to almost triple the mileage allowance of MPs who cycle to the Commons from 7p to 20p ran into trouble yesterday. Tory Boris Johnson said he was in favour of encouraging cycling – but not at taxpayers’ expense. Conservative Ann Widdecombe said if 20p a mile was given to cyclists, what about MPs who arrived on roller skates. Sir Teddy Taylor, also a Tory, said he will charge for walking to work. MPs have yet to vote on the issue.

Celebrating Australia Day. What a nice idea. Having nothing in the office to celebrate with but some MP3s of Rolf Harris and Men At Work. Not such a nice idea at all.

So anyway, what’s happened since I last checked in? Well, I’ve received some marvellously complimentary spam:

I’ve been to the gym and run far too far. I did 50 minutes on the treadmill and dropped 700 calories, which after two weeks of feeling ill and avoiding the place was perhaps not the best idea. I’ve spent today creaking around the office as a result, and now hobble like a very old man.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve taken to sitting in bed last thing at night drinking tea and listening to radio shows for which I am plainly too young – namely Keith Skues. ‘Tonight’s youngest listener,’ he announced some time just gone half eleven, ‘is Pam in Suffolk.’

She was 57, which is about as close to twice my age as you can get.

Fortunately I’ve not sunk to the level of wearing slippers, but I have recently discovered quite how many different kinds of tea I own. 16. Surely nobody can have room for that many different varieties of tea (and seven different kinds of coffee) in their life.

Or their cupboards, apparently, looking at the cluttered state of my worktop.

Uploaded nine new pictures to the phonecam blog. Some of them hopelessly overdue.

Some of today was very successful. Some of it was very frustrating. Top prize on the frustrating front has to go to the Woolwich Open Plan online application for an offset mortgage which doesn’t make it clear until you get to the very last step that if you submit the form you’ll be charged a hefty

Well it’s a good job Mark was at Cirque du Soleil on Tuesday or my week would have been all upside down. Somehow I’d got tonight’s party marked down for last night, and last night’s dinner and drinks marked down for today.

So, with that all sorted out I mooched towards Soho with Mark last night to meet Kathryn and Ems in the Pitcher and Piano, on account of the fact it’s doing half price bottles of wine for the whole of January (guaranteed to have me flat on the floor far faster than any other drink). Mark, it seems, was coming down with my cold, while the sheer quantity of champagne I’d drunk on Tuesday evening had flushed away all my bugs and I woke up the following morning, Wednesday, feeling as clean as a bell.

If that’s the phrase…

Anyhow, the wine did it’s usual trick as quick as might be expected so I was fairly relieved that the place was so packed and we were relegated to standing around a pillar guarding our bags, the upshot being that after the first bottle was empty we headed off in search of food.

We ended up on a small table in Soho Thai beside a guy and his girlfriend who were practicallly having some sex over an appropriately named vegetarian chilli dish called something-or-other prick. Two people pressed up against the glass of the window were up to much the same thing, so I guess it was the night for it.

Or perhaps they’re all desperately trying to get themselves lined up with dates for Valentines.

Emilie Ems was still feeling grotty after seven days in bed with the flu so zizzed off sharpish some time after nine, leaving the three of us to neck what was left of the wine and return to the Pitcher and Piano, where we slumped on deep leather settees, practically falling asleep.

After all that, then, I didn’t go to tonight’s party at all in the end. I got out of my last meeting tonight at something-to-seven and couldn’t bear the thought of another late night, so fiddled with my spreadsheets for a while and trundled home.

Stupidly, I’d caught the bus to the station this morning thinking I’d be out, so it was a long walk home at the other end, but it was certainly the right decision. Word from those who went was that as soon as you walked in the door you got ‘attached’ to a product person who would sit you down and talk shop to you all night, which is not really what I’d class as party behaviour.

After three days of walking or bussing to the station, though, I’m almost looking forward to fighting my way through the traffic and the swearing drivers tomorrow morning.

Almost.

But not quite.

It’s surprising how much fun an evening you can have watching Canadians throw themselves around on strings.

Cirque du Soleil is back in town at the Royal Albert Hall and so naturally when the offer of tickets came up I jumped at it. Seems I’m not the only one as there were two whole boxes of us, replete with food and drink and excellent views.

So anyway, four of us from MacUser, plus Mark, Luke, Ja and Jay (for the sake of confusing conversations), and a whole load of people we didn’t know were there. Unfortunately Mark and I got shunted into the box of people we didn’t know, so we defected around the corner and sat with everyone else, much to the consternation of a ticket stickler who was enraged that we’d sat in her seats.

Apparently.

I didn’t notice that, though, as I was too busy with the drinks. In fact, I spent most of the evening very busy with the drinks altogether after leaving the cough sweets in the other box. Coughing is, after all, the ideal excuse for quaffing – particularly as an inopportune guttural outburst could send an acrobat tumbling nose first to their death at any moment. However, it did rather make my head dizzy – I’m not so sure it goes well with the Veno’s – and it wasn’t always entirely clear whether it was me or the acrobats that were doing the spinning.

It was an excellent show, spoilt only slightly by the fact that Saltimbanco, the last time I went to see it, was even better. I spent the whole night looking forward to the women on the bungie wires but alas they were somewhere else, touring no doubt.

Perhaps they’re doing the winter season in Cleethorpes.

The upshot of it all is that I want to run away to the circus so I can spend all day spinning around on colourful drapes with a body like a smoothly chiselled rock face.

Coming out into the rain was a rather harsh way of coming back down to earth, then – particularly when the long, long subway back to the tube was closed, forcing us to walk in the wet, only to find the tube closed when we got there.

Made it, eventually, back to Chelmsford where I had the fortune to ride the fastest taxi in the northern hemisphere. It seems you can use whichever side of the road you prefer when it’s raining – all the way home – and jump as many red lights as you want.

I guess it kept the fare down if nothing else, but it did make me wonder whether life-threatening excitement is really my thing. Perhaps the circus is not for me after all.