Good to know that in these trying times for BBC staff, gallows humour still prevails. Monkey hears that a spoof story from satire website NewsBiscuit on the internal strife stirred up by the recriminations over Newsnight's abandoned Jimmy Savile story – "BBC2 declares War on BBC1" – is proving a viral email hit around the beseiged corporation. Alongside a mocked-up picture of BBC correspondent Orla Guerin, in full warzone attire of helmet and kevlar vest in front of the corporation's Broadcasting House engulfed in flames, the spoof begins: "Warring news-tribes, angered by the Panorama investigation, opened fire on studios where radical BBC1 journalists are known to be in occupation. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting at BBC Television Centre escalated into a mortar battle in the early hours, as BBC1 responded with heavy rounds of rocket fire, killing four Newsnight producers and prompting an application for voluntary redundancy from a fifth." It would be even funnier if the essence of the report was not so perilously close to the truth.
