"You feel that such modern practices as, say, web-surfing or nipple-piercing are not unfamiliar to [Evan] Davis," Observer writer Miranda Sawyer said in a paean to the BBC's economics editor when he did a brief stint presenting Radio 4's Today programe last summer. And now the Davis factor will blow a more permanent breeze of fresh youthfulness into the flagship morning news programme after the BBC confirmed that he will be a regular presenter on the show from next spring. Is his appointment a good idea?
Nipple piercing or not (does Miranda Sawyer know something we don't or has she been reading internet gossip?), Davis was for me a welcome presence during his two-week stint guest presenting Today in the summer, as my colleague Stephen Brook also pointed out at the time.
But whether or not a man who looks a bit like Kermit the Frog and was described as "knowledgeable, surprising, and brilliantly clear-sighted" by Today editor Ceri Thomas will stand up to all the gruelling early morning starts for a show that airs from 6am to 9am on weekdays and from 7am to 9am on Saturday remains to be seen.
He says today that "if you can mentally re-classify the early mornings as late nights, they really don't seem so bad" so he seems confident about that at least. On a recent BBC2 profile of the show to mark it's 50th anniversary, John Humphrys also offered some pretty sensible advice: "Go to bed early," he harrumphed.
But what about the pressures of a job where senior public figures are grilled - live - every day on the minutiae of policy in a programme which is listened to by most people belonging to the class known by the BBC as "opinion formers"? I personally see no reason why he won't be brilliant. And Robert Peston, the business editor of the Beeb with whom Davis was said to have had quite some rivalry, may well be pleased about Davis' elevation.
But is it a problem that Today will now have only one woman - Sarah Montague - on its roster once Quinn leaves the Today hot seat to concentrate on her other BBC projects (The Westminster Hour, PM etc)?
I didn't mind Quinn, even though she's no match for Sue MacGregor, and I think she sometimes gets a tougher time than her male colleagues perhaps would have done from some of her interviewees (I recall feeling for her during a particularly nasty confrontation with John Reid when she was positively quivering with fury at his rudeness).
And, finally, on a lighter note: would you be sad if Davis is forced to give up presenting BBC2's business programme Dragons' Den and who should replace him? And who should get the nod for the vacant economics editor job?
Thoughts please.
