Where is the George Cross for Christopher Biggins?

There were only really two satisfying parts of the parliamentary grilling of the Murdochs - the celebrated shaving cream incident, and James Murdoch's rising tide of panic as Tom Watson very politely refused to allow him to rescue his father from the only truly forensic line of questioning of the day. Other than that, the session made for a frustrating spectacle. Murdoch junior, who must be a contender for the most irritating man on the planet, repeatedly left open goals that the questioners failed to exploit. Just to give one example, he told Tory MP Philip Davies that he was as surprised and shocked as anyone to learn that payments had been made to the convicted phone hacker Clive Goodman. But when he was then asked who had authorised those payments, he (for about the three billionth time in the session) disinterestedly claimed he had absolutely no idea. Now, surely the obvious follow-up question at that point is - don't those two responses look rather odd when taken together? What Chief Executive worth his salt (or even a lousy one for that matter) discovers something has been going on that "shocks" him, but then shows not even the slightest interest in discovering who was responsible? But no, that absurdly went unasked.

I also dearly wish the chairman had had a stern word with James Murdoch about his breathtakingly arrogant habit of embracing the very few questions he didn't find objectionable with the words "that's a great question and I'm very happy to answer it". It may have escaped his notice, but he was actually summoned to answer questions, not to rate them out of ten.

To be fair, Louise Mensch (née Bagshawe of chick-lit fame) was one of the better inquisitors, but she ruined it all at the end by obsequiously commending Murdoch senior for his "extraordinary courage" in returning to give evidence after suffering a "common assault". Dear God. If regaining your composure a full ten minutes after having your face splattered in foam constitutes extraordinary courage, Christopher Biggins and the Krankies are surely long overdue for the George Cross.

Will the last Murdoch apologist to leave the building please turn out the lights

On the morning of the 1992 general election, The Sun ran one of the most infamous headlines in British history -

"If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights"

Curiously, however, we learned from a Murdoch apologist on Newsnight last night that this was in no sense an attempt to tell people "not to vote for Kinnock".

Crikey. It does rather beg the question - what on earth would a proper anti-Kinnock headline have looked like?

A critic of the Murdoch empire? Get out of your parents' basement and GROW UP.

When a UK news story makes headlines across the Atlantic, it's always entertaining to read right-wing reaction on the online comments threads. Over at the CNN website, there seems to be a pro-Murdoch/Fox News rebuttal squad in operation, although trying to work out the exact relationship of the 'rebuttal' to the comment being 'rebutted' is something of a challenge. A few choice examples...

BinaryTruth : Fox News Channel is the greatest domestic terrorist threat in America today.

jerrycc : I just read about America's lost generation of boys in their 20's languishing away in their parents basements playing video games, surfing the web and refusing to work or grow up. I guess you do exist.

A nerve was hit, I think we can conclude.

Monkeynuts : Hugh Grant should get a knighthood for some of the interviews he's given in the last few days. The man's a genius.

GDINY2 : Here in the US, a knight is a piece on a chessboard and not some effete, callow schmuck who has to be called "sir" to establish his masculinity. Try moving out of the middle ages, limey.

Chess? Masculinity? What? But no, absolutely, let's move out of the middle ages and become an egalitarian country like...er, America.

cummings01 : What has happened to the Britain I knew and loved?

jerrycc : Socialism destroyed Britain a long time ago.

Quite right. If you want to know how the media in Britain came to be completely dominated by a single right-wing Australian billionaire, look no further than "socialism".

The best things in life are free

Political Betting's Mike Smithson poses the question 'are you going to pay to keep reading the Times online?', and makes this prediction - "If this succeeds then one thing’s for sure - the other newspaper websites will follow." Just as well it's not going to succeed, then - or at least (lest those words come back to haunt me), I'm struggling to see how it can as things stand. Other online editions of newspapers are now going to gain a competitive advantage, and may well start to see revenues gradually increase. After all, who in their right mind is going to fork out substantial sums for a service that is available in equivalent form elsewhere? Even if every newspaper removed free online access to their content, there would still be the BBC news website to turn to - so no great mystery as to why the BBC is the Murdochs' favourite bogey-man at present.

In spite of its political agenda, it is a little bit of a pity to see The Times retreat behind a paywall, as certain sections of the newspaper (Life and Style for instance) are probably superior in quality to other UK newspapers. But with the whole Wild West of new media to fill the breach, that's scarcely going to be sufficient motivation for most people to pay a whopping entrance fee to Uncle Rupert.