One mention of the Venerable Bede on the BBC in a week is strange, but this week there have been two.  He must have a very good agent. The Cliff-top Candyman, aka Dr Neil Oliver (steady girls) was raving about the Venerable B. in a recent episode of Coast, referring to him as a “genius”. This comes only moments after Windy Backdrop Hair in Mouth specialist Dr Alice Roberts was slagging him off as a Christian propagandist who wrote an ecclesiastical work which was biased, a bit like saying the bible was biblical. I expect the Bede to crop up on Adam’s Farm on Countryfile having written a little known ecclesiastical work on organic chutney or TB.

The outbreak of cliff top presenters cunningly positioned to keep us on our toes has coincided with numerous reconstructed rescues of presenters by the RNLI. Matt Baker, Neil Oliver have all been in the drink this summer in their dry suits to name but two.  Maybe the Beeb are missing a trick. Why not keep these presenters a little closer to the cliff edge and have an RNLI chopper on standby to capture the urgency of the situation?

But I think the BBC are playing with fire. Awareness of word association is important in writing. For example, mention a ‘river’ and people think ‘flood’. Mention ‘cliff’ and people think ‘fall’. I don’t know. What could the Beeb be up to?