At last after many long months in terrible conditions wading through unfathomable tomes with no end in sight, the Booker judges have been rescued from their ordeal into the arms of weeping literary agents who dropped to their knees and prayed. Some will even be securing large sums to write about their time buried under the deadly hardbacks.

I have only one thing in common with Howard Jacobson, and that’s Manchester. His novel Coming From Behind is an hilarious jibe about a failing polytechnic. Pretty good stuff from someone who went to a very successful university in Cambridge. Now that the Lib Dems have lit the Tory’s keg on fees, he’ll have a lot more fodder for his novels about life beyond the campuses of our leading universities. But then he’s alright, Jack.

As I write, News 24 seem to have cut away from the live ordeal of the Booker judges to bring us something about miners in Chile. Will the Beeb stick with them to the last man, or will they be tempted away by some other juicy mishap?