Meanwhile, on News 24

MEANWHILE, ON NEWS 24: To celebrate - presumably - Brits Day, News24 yesterday evening gave the Hard Talk slot (normally home to thirty minutes of close cross-examination with the deputy procurement officer from Georgia, or the former Dutch Ambassador to Guayana) over to an interview with Tom 'Bloody' Jones.

This was bizarre on several levels - first up, the intellectual pairing of foreign correspondent Tim Sebastian and Las Vegas floorshow Jones was odd in itself. That, leaving aside that the Tom on News24 was (i) more orange (ii) less bald and (iii) totally unbearded compared to the Tom that had just been on ITV suggested the piece had been taped some time ago, would have been enough.

But, for some reason, they'd decided to do the interview sat underneath a spinning glitterball, which meant that while Tom rambled through his responses to the not-exactly-hard questions, your attention kept being distracted by the little flecks of light bouncing off Sebastian's pate. Curious.