A time of great moment and change for the BBC, with the annual report due out today. The leaders must lead. Others will follow. And those they would lead to the all-new citadel of fun and truth in Salford, away from their traditional habitats in Manchester and London, have many questions. The other day, Peter Salmon, head of BBC North, did his best to answer them. "Where will the Blue Peter garden go?" asked one anxious transferee. On the roof apparently. "And will there be a Greggs bakery nearby," inquired another, speaking for the Mancunians present. Everything else may change in their lives, but their favourite meat pies must stay the same.
Leaders must lead, and as the prime minister moves us inexorably towards the low-carbon future, as outlined in the latest Observer, expect to hear more this week about the plan to make all new homes zero-carbon by 2016. We can do this, he will say, and the indications are encouraging. Why since October 2007, 21 homes have been built that qualify for the much trumpeted zero-carbon homes relief. If that's not a good start, then what is?
So long since we last heard from our friends at the Caspian Information Centre; too long in fact, so it is a delight that they have been in touch to tell us about Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan, a new and mighty biography by that renowned and repentant teller of tales, Jonathan Aitken. Tory types have a thing about Nazarbayev, the no-nonsense president of Kazakhstan since 1991. Just last March, Baroness Thatcher wrote the foreword to the president's own book, The Kazakhstan Way. Amnesty International, as we pointed out then, sees problems with freedom of assembly, harassment of the media and ill-treatment of minorities as part and parcel of the Kazakhstan way, but now we're quibbling. As a rule of thumb, any friend of Jonathan is a friend of ours.
What's this? Cats to return to the West End, says a front-page exclusive in the Stage. Furry ones. There's a rat problem below the boards of our prestigious theatres, apparently. Actors up in arms, Equity demanding action. And where's the Pied Piper when you need him? Banned from intervening. Health and safety. It's Tiddles or nothing.
Did the fact that India possesses all sort of French military hardware ( helicopters, missile-equipped Scorpene submarines, Mirage fighter aircraft) and could buy – for civil purposes – French nuclear reactors, in any way affect President Sarkozy's decision to have India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, take pride of place at today's annual display of French military strength along the Champs-Elysées? Members of the Indian armed forces have the plum job of leading off the great morning parade for Bastille Day. Only after units and bands from India's navy and air force have followed the Maratha Light Infantry will the parade be entirely given over to the impressive different sections of France's armed services. Some say the motive is commerce, but others say the arrangements owe more to Sarkozy's love of colour and theatre. Either way it's a win-win. India is an emerging superpower, but in many ways it has already arrived.
We end with thoughts on heroes and villains, both extremes embodied by our favourite broadcaster, Sir Trevor McDonald. A hero to many of the smaller West Indian islands, whose virtues he extolled in his recent ITV documentary, The Secret Caribbean. A villain to Jamaica, which says it was portrayed as a crime-despoiled, drug-addled basket case. And Jamaica has problems, it is true, but there is widespread fury that Britain's most prominent black broadcaster should further damage its image. Websites fizz with anti-Trevor propaganda. The ambassador is furious. Phone-in lines ring hot. None of which will bother Sir Trevor too much – for he has been a war-zone man and he doesn't scare easily – but should his next flight to the Caribbean be diverted to Montego Bay or perhaps to Kingston, he might consider how best to negotiate a potentially hostile situation. Charm he has by the bucketload, but a false nose might help perhaps. Dark glasses? Maybe a Rasta wig?