According to the advertisements for his latest book, The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr is "Britain's favourite broadcaster". Marr may indeed be the favourite broadcaster of Britain's media and middle classes, though messrs Paxman, Dimbleby or Davies – Evan, not Alan – might have something to say about it. Surely, however, the BBC's former political editor can't lay serious claim to the title of most popular man on the box when the two big programmes he presents go out at 9am on a Sunday (The Andrew Marr Show, BBC1), when nobody but the cabinet minister being interviewed and a couple of their aides is even awake; and 9am on a Monday (Start the Week, Radio 4), when most of us are out of earshot on a tube somewhere, glazedly wondering where the weekend went.

Impressionist to take kick at life in the football world

BBC's 'One Show' reporter agrees to take leave after female colleague complains

Prisoners have a statutory right to a library, but schoolchildren do not

Tales of tears and self-loathing

The Couch Surfer: The Apprentice isn't setting my world alight this year

They love him in Los Angeles and Milan but Auckland, New Zealand, is less keen on the venerable David Beckham after an LA Galaxy match billed around him lost the Auckland Regional Council NZ$1.7 million (£630,000). The game was played there last December, shortly before Becks began his loan period with Milan, and the hoo-ha about who is to blame for the huge loss is now at full throttle. The local city council say they highlighted the financial risk and decided against underwriting the match, but the regional council recommended going ahead and have now admitted it was "a disaster", with revenue reaching less than half the break-even price after players such as Edgar Davids were hired for exorbitant fees to play for the "Oceania All Stars".

First it was Greg Dyke. Then Peter Fincham. Now another top BBC executive has been forced to walk after a media frenzy. So why is the corporation so accident-prone? Ian Burrell investigates

'You have a split second to get tone, questions and all the rest of it right. You can't redo live performances'

Not long after Jonathan Aitken emerged from prison, looking considerably humbled and a few pounds lighter, he decided to return to his studies.

'A flock of geese on my granny's farm decided to sample me for lunch'

The BBC divides its football anchormen and pundits into an elite squad and the dirt-trackers. With a few add-ons, it's essentially Lineker, Hansen and Shearer – the Permatan Three – versus Chiles, Dixon and Peacock, the Men in the Street. The former get the plum jobs, the latter the leftovers. They've got it the wrong way round.

As he is a popular and highly paid BBC Television presenter, not least of 'Match of the Day 2', you could argue that Adrian Chiles seems to know exactly what he's doing. Add in the fact that his team, West Bromwich Albion, have just returned to the Premiership and you might wonder whether this chronicle of the 2005-06 season, which saw them go down, is somewhat past its sell-by date. Yet his hopeless passion for an unfashionable side is timeless, and he tells his tale of woe with self-mocking humour.

The most popular Brummie on British television is currently presenting three hit BBC shows and being aggressively courted by its commercial rival. He tells Ian Burrell how his nightly magazine programme, 'The One Show', made him a bankable star