I was about to file my column when suspicions of murder most foul just down the road halted me in my tracks. More of that later.

My gaze had first been held by the director general of the BBC, Greg Dyke, with his thunderous declaration that his organisation was white. I earn my living largely as a broadcaster, sometimes for the BBC, so this was more than a passing statement by an alien.

Had the Commission for Racial Equality made that statement, or even the Runnymede Trust, the heavens would have fallen. This was the boss himself, and he was determined to set it right. Dyke is no johnny-come-lately on race. He once worked in the community relations industry in south London. A member of the Race Today Collective, which produced the magazine I edited, worked with him. If I remember the office correctly, it was on the better side of ramshackle. Punters would come in off the street, from the mentally deranged to the lost teenager who had just realised that the local police could be unfair and oppressive. Those were dark days, and only a sense of mission could keep those employed in community relations in situ for more than a week. The DG has a serious CV in this department.

At London Weekend Television, he and others founded the first black and Asian unit in British broadcasting. I was loosely connected with it, as were Trevor Phillips and Samir Shah; even now, LWT has a reasonably well ordered black presence. A dear friend sits atop the pile as head of production. Given the general historical moment, I invite Greg Dyke to take a bow.

It troubled me to read George Alagiah's criticism in, of all places, the Mail on Sunday. I would have thought it a matter of principle that the BBC's major anchorman would have sent his boss a memo and opened an internal discourse. Alagiah has no public record of being in the heart of the fight against racial disadvantage. I was invited to comment to a news service about Dyke's powerful statement.

More blacks, more Asians? Dyke has placed the issue on a moral plane, and I support him unreservedly. There is more, much more, at stake than numbers and percentages. More blacks and more Asians will bring improved quality only if a new intake brings to our screens the innovative cultural stirrings in the black and Asian communities. First, the BBC must recruit them.

Now to move away from that topic altogether. I was on my way home after a short walkabout in Brixton. I hadn't been out much over the festive season, rather undermined by the loss of a family member and an extremely close friend. There is one route home that Mrs Howe and I and our daughter Zoe always take. We are alert to the danger, believe me. A couple of months ago, a young mugger, easing off his saddle, snatched Zoe's mobile phone. Let us just say that she retrieved it without recourse to the police and left a rather sore and whimpering thief on the floor.

I was walking briskly up Railton Road when I saw blue police tape cordoning off a small area. This always brings with it a hint of dread. As I turned into Leeson Road, or tried to, I was told that the area, including the front of my house, was part of a murder investigation. The police were decent and well mannered, and teased me about my television programme. A man had burned to death in his flat. After fishing around, I was given a fairly good description. He was a Faginesque character, living on the margins of crime. Violence and robberies plagued his "constituency".

So many Fagins lie in wait, attracting young kids whose wants far outreach their parents ability to pay. I am slightly shaken, the death being so close to home. And no one deserves to be burned. I don't know that more police officers would have prevented this taking place. Nor did the police appear demoralised. We continue, the majority of us, to uplift our community quietly and without political rhetoric.

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