The feral beast: Sauce for Guardian, not BBC

'The Guardian' made a big hoo-ha about the BBC's plans, now shelved, to launch local video newscasts online, branding them a blow to struggling regional newspaper websites. So it's intriguing to learn 'The Guardian' is, er, launching a regional site. Staff have been invited to volunteer to be "launch editor, Guardian local", "responsible for a city-based local offering from guardian.co.uk." The post is only being advertised internally, so BBC staffers who lost out on the axed Beeb project need not apply.

Mellor refuses to let a good line lie

Opera buff and former MP David Mellor is a undeniably a cultured man. But readers of his article on the sacking of Big Phil Scolari from Chelsea, in Tuesday's 'Evening Standard' might have been struck by his use of the Robert Browning line ("never glad confident morning again") . Struck, that is, by its familiarity – a glance at Mellor's cuttings shows he's used the line 10 times in recent years. Comes up fresh as a daisy every time, what?

Life imitating art

Spooky. A novelist has written a thriller in which a Russian billionaire buys a London newspaper, but he wrote it more than a year ago. The hero of Andy Lloyd's 'Ezekiel One' is a journalist at the "Daily Standard" which is bought by oligarch Mr Provotkin. "I couldn't believe it when I read about Alexander Lebedev buying the 'Evening Standard'," Lloyd tells me, "My book is about government and media conspiracies and I wanted to have the powerful characters interconnected. Provotkin knows a lot more than you would think." As ex-KGB agents, perhaps, tend to.

Assistant eds at loggerheads

Poaching Benedict Brogan from the 'Daily Mail' is a triumph for 'Telegraph' editor Will Lewis, who has lost most of his best writers to the 'Mail'. It's also a snub to Simon Heffer, as Brogan has been made assistant editor, along with Heffer. Brogan and Heffer are not known to be members of each others' fan clubs. "It's a deliberately provocative move," whispers one insider.

Protégé tipped to rejoin Greig

So Catherine Ostler is to edit 'Tatler', but who will replace her at 'ES magazine'? Crest-fallen runners-up such as Williams Cash and Sitwell will have their eyes on the job, but I'm told the favourite is Camilla Long, the number two at 'The Sunday Times' News Review. Long was a favourite of Geordie Greig at 'Tatler', where she rose to features editor before joining the 'Sunday Times' Style mag. Can Geordie now lure her back?

Roberts reveals his nose for news

Guardian head of business Dan Roberts got impatient while blogging live on the Treasury select committee's inquisition of four senior bankers. "11.37am: They've now wasted best part of half an hour on an arcane row about a supposed whistleblower at HBOS. I wish we could get back to the meat." Whoops! That arcane row became next day's meat when Sir James Crosby resigned from the FSA over it.