Tony Blair's imminent exit is worrying Rory Bremner. The impressionist and former NS columnist is concerned about the blandness of the pretenders to the political throne - particularly David Cameron. "My Cameron is still a work in progress - rather like the original," Rory tells me. "I won't perfect it until he does."
Still, Bremner, Bird and Fortune, which returns to Channel 4 this month, will continue to interest and annoy the powerful. Alastair Campbell once collared Rory to call Andrew Dunn (the actor who played him) a "fat bastard", telling the impressionist to "take note" of his weight losses and producing his exercise routine as proof.
Have we heard the last of Ned Sherrin on Radio 4's arts and entertainment show Loose Ends? A friend of his says the great presenter's vocal cords are so badly damaged that he confided in her: "My radio days are over." Let's hope not.
Bruised by all that race row palaver, the Big Brother production company Endemol is looking to sail into safer waters. On the cards is a celebrity lookalike show for next year. "The housemates should be less knowing and less egotistical," I'm told. And less racist, too, perhaps?
Following The Hungry Years, his brilliant book about his (and the world's) struggles with weight, William Leith is writing a new book about . . . death.
Steve Coogan's pissed-up, student-hating Mancunian character Paul Calf (below) is soon to return to the small screen, I am reliably informed - with a video diary chronicling his new life as a Lottery winner.
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