It was a case of the fizz falling flat when the BBC's long-serving Hartlepool United commentator, Brian Arrundale, retired at the end of the football season. After 33 years' service, his BBC Tees colleague Paul Addison bought a £36.65 magnum of champagne to present to Arrundale after his valedictory show. The gesture went down as well as the bubbly – but the grapes turned rather sour when scrupulous BBC expenses officials refused to reimburse Addison for his generosity. "So I couldn't reward a valued contributor with a bottle of fizz that equated to approximately £1 for every year of his service to the BBC," Addison laments in a letter to the corporation's in-house news website, Ariel. "Can we not apply some common sense to the policy? I understand why we can't be seen to be spending vast amounts on champagne (although flowers appear to be fair game), but £36.65 doesn't seem too extreme." Hear, hear.
