BBC World [soon to be BBC World News]

Dharshini is a great presenter. I remember she started presenting on Business Today on N24 after Nils Blythe, and she really has improved a lot since then.

However, Maryam is another kettle of fish! She has to be one of the most boring presenters on TV. She looks ticked off all the time, makes lots of mistakes and never really interacts with her co-presenters. I tuned in to BBC World for the 19.00 BST bulletin today, presented by Nik Gowing with Maryam on business. What a dull bulletin. Nik has gone off the boil recently, as James has commented before. He used to be fairly good, but he's boring now as well. Both of them lacked charisma - I switched over to CNN!

Darshini is the new NY presenter for WBR, tanya is returning to London shortly.

Really? It's good to hear that. Tanya deserved something a bit better than NY IMO.

Short of being a news anchor, she was already in a fairly high-profile position. Tanya was presenting the flagship edition of WBR which goes out several times a day on BBC World, BBC News 24 and even BBC1 overnight!

Jonathan Charles and Lyse Doucet co-anchoring from the Middle East. Great stuff. Although Charles has just muttered a few things on air not realising that he was still live.

Glad to hear that Tanya Beckett is coming back to London.

Sounds like the witching melody of things that were... Could history be repeating itself? Could this be heralding the return of the legendary Martinne Dennis/Tanya Beckett duo on TWT?That certainly takes me back, though I'd not be really rejoyced if this change materialized. I am a firm believer that Sally Bundock is the only business presenter whose style of delivery is perfectly appropriate to the early morning editions of the WBR.

I think she would be good in Martine Croxall's current slot, even thought it is overnight.

Philippe Douste-Blabla was on HardTalk today. That was state-of-the-art professional dodging in action. The guy clearly had a message to get through from the beginning and kept on ignoring questions while interjecting his own thoughts.

I've noticed that whenever they have a high ranking incumbent french official like a president or a cabinet minister, the latter is never interviewed by the main, regular host (Stephen Sackur or Tim Sebastian formerly). They always dispatch either Gavin Esler (who talked to J. Chirac in november 2004) or Allan Little or other irregulars to the program. Perhaps that's because the star of the program doesn't want to see his reputation as a rethoric-breaker and spin-spoiler besmirched or sullied by a failure to successfully (fruitfully that is) putting his guest under pressure.

In truth - and I don't mean to be confrontational here - whenever a frenchman is on HardTalk, the program is sort of discredited. It makes Stephen Sackur's words in the HardTalk promo "getting to the point with politicians, asking questions, getting you the answer. That's my job" as well as "you'd better come up with a good answer very qickly" sound utterly laughable!

Sackur comes across as wet and rather lame.

Speaking of Hardtalk, I saw how they use N6 and it is absolutely stunning. Any caps?

You are right. It really IS stunning. I love it. Looks even better than Nationals and even Breakfast, coming from the same place.


Just watching Mike Embley in his regular slot tonight - isn't he very good indeed? Consistent.

Kirsty Lang back on The World again tonight. Zeinab Badawi has a lot of time off.

Lucy Hockings trailing HYS again. Perhaps she is doing it again this week.

Daljit Dhaliwal and Mike Embley again tonight. Good pairing IMO. Daljit is immensely popular Stateside. She was an icon in her days with ITN World News, hence CNN's decision to poach her. Don't know why she left CNN though.

Oh, and a 57 second countdown tonight too!! What more can one ask for?

The back wall (to the anchors right) in the Washington studio looks only like the English flag! The red stripes are totally centralised like the St George's cross.