Latest News About England: Media Monkey: BBC2 controller, James Harding and Baz Bamigboye

✒ At last week's Royal Television Society television journalism awards ("when grown journalists behave like drunken children" – Krishnan Guru-Murthy), the BBC picked up enough lower-profile gongs to escape utter humiliation, including three for regional output, but will have been concerned by the number of bigger awards where it wasn't even in contention: daily news programme (won again by Channel 4 News), national news presenter (Mark Austin), home news coverage (ITV's Woolwich attack reporting) and the independent award (Blakeway's Plebgate film for C4's Dispatches) had no BBC shortlistee, and all but the last were all-ITN shortlists. If an Egyptian hadn't taken a potshot at Jeremy Bowen – who won news journalist of the year, with the incident prominent in the citation – the Beeb's regular network programmes and army of celebrity reporters and presenters might well have gone home empty-handed.

✒ The job ad for the post of BBC2 and BBC4 controller has appeared, disclosing that Janice Hadlow's successor will need to "create a compelling narrative", possess a "relentless focus on outcomes", have "a proven track record of shaping and directing strategic objectives in a complex environment" (likely translation: picking good programmes) and probably be more literate – since these are the Beeb's brainiest networks – than whoever wrote the job description, which says it involves "shaping both channel's [sic] strategy, priorities and brands". As always, the BBC Careers site lists the kind of jobs "people who applied for this job also applied for", compellingly revealing that a would-be "assistive technology test specialist" and a "server and storage engineer" applicant were among the figures who also put themselves forward as long-shot contenders to run two TV channels.

✒ Adam Barker looks the one to beat, as Danny Cohen has made him acting controller of BBC2 and BBC4, presumably anticipating a lengthy selection process. But this could be no more enviable than having got the penultimate stone on the button in curling. Cohen and Tony Hall won't be keen to replace a woman with a man, and a number of female execs are seen as potential Eve Muirheads – Alison Kirkham, Emma Swain and Emma Willis (not the Celebrity Big Brother one) among them. Disappointingly, though, bookies have so far refused to accept bets on "someone called Emma".

✒ The game of musical chairs at the BBC's crowded London HQ has started again. News supremo James Harding, his No 2 Fran Unsworth and rookie newsgathering chief Jonathan Munro are moving from their second floor offices to be closer to the troops. Not to the actual newsroom pit visible on-screen, oh no, just the ground floor of New Broadcasting House – which will entail further building activity (readers with good memories may recall they only moved into their existing offices after work had been done) and relocating staff currently occupying that area. Meanwhile Lord Hall, and possibly his right-hand-woman Anne Bulford, are said to be thinking of moving to nearby Old Broadcasting House, which doesn't sound like a vote of confidence in shiny NBH. Let's hope PAC empress Margaret Hodge hasn't noticed these manoeuvrings and rethinks, as they scarcely suggest the Beeb's project planning has been masterly.

✒ Thanks to a tweet from the BBC's "Professor" Nick Higham, Monkey has seen the cover of an exciting book by Julian Holland called Railway Day Trips ("150 classic train journeys round Britain"), out in a fortnight's time. A pity, then, that the trip pictured on the jacket – and so implicitly the author's favourite – is, oh dear yes, along the seaside Dawlish line in Devon that earlier this month was dramatically put out of action by flooding.

✒ In what may be a bizarre sign that New Statesman editor Jason Cowley's strategy (sometimes called "de-Pilgerising") of making the venerable red weekly less lefty is paying off, an advertiser in the current issue sees it as the ideal place to offer "extremely rare Margaret Thatcher-signed prints" of a painting of Big Ben for "just" £850 (while this may seem steep, there is "enormous investment potential"). Other Staggers advertising now seems similarly more suited to the world of NS associate editor Jemima Khan than the kind of typical readers interviewed in its Subscriber of the Week slot, with ads for royal hatters Lock & Co (panama hats: £225), golfing and skiing holidays, £4,000 a head safaris in Kenya, and Aberdeen Asset Management. Asking John Pilger what he thinks of all this probably wouldn't be advisable.

✒ Baz Bamigboye, the Daily Mail's veteran showbusiness columnist, nearly made a tragic exit at last week's post-Baftas dinner at Grosvenor House. Concluding his round-up of A-list hobnobbing in his It's Friday! column, Baz wrote: "On a personal note, I wish to thank Gemma Ebelis, an executive at the British Fashion Council, for saving my life when I choked on my supper. She went into Heimlich manoeuvre mode and saved the day." Editor Paul Dacre may have sent the muscular fashionista flowers too, as he can't afford to lose another of the star names of his reign so soon after Melanie Phillips stopping ranting, Liz Jones seemingly being suspended for appearing in Celebrity Big Brother and Richard Kay stepping down as diary columnist.

✒ Mail Online has been hunting for fresh hacks for its showbiz desk, so any journalistic innocents tempted to apply may find Monkey's gloss on the requirements listed in the job ad helpful. "Able to deliver copy to very tight deadlines" - they're not kidding: online within three minutes of appearing on Twitter, according to Lord Rothermere. "Keen eye for photographs" - can you find the next trend after sideboob, under-boob, rear cleavage? Which famous-for-nothing, unheard-of-in-Britain US celebrities haven't we already shown in skimpy outfits? "Ability to generate own showbusiness stories" – ability to schmooze one PR so well that they feed you with their treats first. "Flexibility regarding shift patterns" - when does MO editor Martin "Jurassic" Clarke get into work? What time does Hollywood go to bed? You may need to be around for both.