THE BBC has taken some stick of late, mainly over the colour of its news presenter's tie at the time of the Queen Mother's death, so Spectator is loathe to jump on any bandwagon.

But it does seem appropriate to question the news values operating at Broadcasting House in London in the light of the last foot-and-mouth scare at High Worsall.

Spectator heard the news of the suspected case at High Worsall on Classic FM on the car radio last Thursday at about 7pm.

When at home later, the whole of the Radio 4 midnight news was listened to and there wasn't a word.

The following morning, Radio 4's Today programme studiously ignored the story though Classic FM, and the BBC's local media, were still running it.

Is this a case of the BBC in London thinking that FMD is last year's story. Perhaps it needs reminding that for many outside the metropolis, the after-effects and fear of its recurrence is still an everyday reality.

Code cracker

IN a moment of madness (or community spirit, depending on your perspective) Spectator agreed to become secretary of a small group, and inherited - with indecent speed - the list of names and addresses of the 27 members.

The list being free of post codes and Spectator wanting to write to said members, a phone call was made to the office which supplies the codes. The office, it transpires, supplies only three codes per caller on the grounds that other callers may be waiting to get through.

The man on the other end of the phone offered a web address. Spectator contemplated making nine calls. In real life, time was running out, and that is the reason 27 non-post coded envelopes went into the post on Tuesday.

Not very book-ish

The mis-use of the apostrophe, or its complete absence, is fast becoming a fact of modern life.

But nevertheless it was galling to see a sign in a York bookshop of all places indicating the "childrens books" department