ANYONE ever had the misfortune to watch the BBC Two show Miranda? If you haven t then I wouldn t bother, because it s rubbish. I don t think there s ever been a sitcom with less com in it, and it s a sad indictment of the state of British television that

ANYONE ever had the misfortune to watch the BBC Two show Miranda?

If you haven't then I wouldn't bother, because it's rubbish. I don't think there's ever been a sitcom with less com in it, and it's a sad indictment of the state of British television that last month it was nominated for two Royal Television Society awards.

But unfortunately Miranda is just one example of many programmes being churned out by the corporation at the moment which are, in my opinion, not of the highest quality.

So with that in mind, I was quite pleased to see that the BBC plans to divert �600million into programme-making.

However, I think it is totally unacceptable that this will come at the expense of some of the corporations other services.

Digital radio station Radio 6 Music has been chosen for the chop, along with another radio station, the Asian Network.

As a regular listener to 6 Music, I was gutted to hear this news. It is the only radio station where you can consistently hear good quality new music, and gives air time to hundreds of aspiring artists each year. And with excellent DJ's such as Steve Lamacq and Lauren Laverne, you don't have to put with the inane waffle which spoils a lot of other radio stations.

If the BBC is looking to cut costs, maybe it should look at the sums of money it pays to star names such as Chris Moyles and Graham Norton, who in my view do very little of note to earn the thousands of pounds they take home every year. There's something wrong with the world when Moyles is allowed to continue peddling his banal twaddle on Radio One every day, yet we are set to lose the outstanding programming provided by 6 Music.

An active online campaign has already started to save the station, and I for one hope it succeeds.

After all the wrangling over the compulsory purchase of land needed for the Coombes Hole underpass in Royston, it was probably inevitable that there would be a public inquiry.

You often get the feeling that such procedures are akin to just going through the motions, with little chance of affecting what happens. So I hope this inquiry will give the residents of Green Street, Hardy Drive, and the rest a chance to air their views constructively, and that an objective decision will be made on the basis of the facts which are presented.

It may be that the compulsory purchase is deemed necessary, but if it goes ahead then in my view it must done with minimum disruption to the lives of the people living in the area.