Hutch

The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: No-brainer
Date: 26 November 2004

No-brainer

Sir – Aspiring cook Andrew Marr (Notebook, Nov 24) mentions a book called Seasonal Cooking, which recommends November as grey squirrel time - " 'eat the haunches only, grilled or stewed'. This makes Snuffles grumble about Rodent Rights."

He would grumble even more were he to read Burkhard Bilger's Moonshine, Monster Catfish and Other Southern Comforts, which tells of the popularity of squirrel brains among west Kentucky hillbillies, who are not even averse to road-kill.

In August 1997, two neurologists, Joseph Berger and Eric Weisman, wrote to the Lancet, noting that, in the previous four years, five patients in west Kentucky had been diagnosed with Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (CJD), of which mad-cow disease is a variant.

All had one trait in common: they ate squirrel brains. The writers concluded: "Caution might be exercised in the ingestion of this arboreal rodent."

To which the syndicated humorist Dave Barry replied: "This report raises some troubling questions:

1. Since when do squirrels have brains?

2. Have squirrels and cows been mating? How?

3. Doesn't a person who eats road-kill rodent organs pretty much deserve to die?"

A comment from Mr Snuffles on his newly created website is awaited with interest.

Kevin Heneghan, St Helens, Merseyside

The Daily Telegraph
Extract Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 24/11/2004)

Maybe it's the long nights, perhaps it is some genetic quirk, but I am becoming a dangerously obsessive cook. Time was, time off would be spent on the latest film, healthy walks, the odd art gallery. Now it passes in a whirl of pies, roasts, broiled this and baked that.

The house hangs thickly with reassuring fatty smells, and singeing rosemary or thyme. Once there was poetry beside the bed, or political biography. Now it's Elizabeth David, as I sit late into the night, brooding on the science of the perfect omelette. Last weekend, I experienced some kind of spiritual epiphany after achieving a three-quarters decent bread sauce.

What's happening? I can't be changing into Jamie Oliver. I don't have the tufty cheeriness. Nor Gordon Ramsay's chin. I'm no Ruthie Rogers, either. Dressed up in leathers, with eye-liner and mascara, for the BBC's Children in Need dance routine, I did look different. (So much so that one senior manager asked why I was dressed like that. He was not much reassured when I said, well, it was nearly the weekend.) Still, I was hardly Nigella… the hair, you see.

No, I have an awful feeling that I'm slowly turning into Fanny Craddock. (Whose poor spouse, you may remember, famously opined after one of her baking sessions that "the secret of good cooking is to make your doughnuts like Fanny's".)

It is probably good news for those around me, even if they are beginning to waddle. Mr Snuffles, inevitably, is taking it badly. This could be something to do with a fine book I've mentioned before, Seasonal Cooking, which recommends November as grey squirrel time - "eat the haunches only, grilled or stewed". Snuffles grumbles about Rodent Rights.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And he has to be taken seriously. A family of admirers have started a Snuffles website, and sent him a parcel of rather fine T-shirts. He is of course inordinately proud of being dotcomed, and talks self-importantly of revenue streams, search engines and global web-based campaigning against the trade in guinea pigs for meat.

But prodding my inner Fanny Craddock, I'm a little torn. What would squirrel pie, perhaps cooked with its own nuts, actually taste like? Damn good, I suspect.



The Daily Telegraph
Extract Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 17/11/2004)

Well, I'll be hanged: my slinky White House spy reveals all

I never thought I'd say it, but thank the Lord for Mr Snuffles. As I predicted, the Blair-Bush summit in Washington last week was appallingly hard to report, for the simple reason that the two men spent so much time alone together, without even officials or notetakers present.

Well, nearly alone. Snuffs was bored and mutinous, so I took him along. It was somehow inevitable that he had rather more of the free champagne on the British Airways flight than a five-inch long guinea pig should.

He became abusive while Tom Kelly, the Number 10 press man, was doing his best to brief us, then started to make amorous remarks about the beard worn by the elegant Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of the Sun.

Less predictably, Snuffs then made his way to the first- class compartment and draped himself around the Prime Minister's neck in a drunken embrace. Tony Blair, who'd been dozing, naturally assumed the streak of silky black hair was one of the exotic neckties chosen by Carole Caplin for him last year, and wore it throughout the White House supper with President Bush.

Mr Snuffles claims they spent most of the time playing "hangman" on their napkins and planning the military liberation of Paris. But he is, as I have warned here before, a malicious witness.


The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Capital Fellow
Date: 11 November 2004

Sir - Critics of Mr Snuffles's lack of capitals (Notebook, Nov 10) seem unaware that he is following a noted literary genre created by Archy, a cockroach, in the late 1920s.

The Archy and Mahitabel letters were typed by the roach and follow his thoughts and life, and that of Mahitabel, a swinging New York feline. The lightweight Archy was unable to move the shift key on a mechanical typewriter - hence no capitals.

Victor King, Little Cheverell, Wiltshire


The Daily Telegraph
Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 10/11/2004)

The truth about Bush and Blair – we're winging it

Meanwhile, at the request of readers, I spent a good 10 minutes feeling rather foolish, on hands and feet, asking Mr Snuffles through the wire mesh of his cage why he will not use capital letters. His original explanation was that he couldn't reach the shift key; but as has been pointed out, he seems to be able to use punctuation keys that require equal agility.

He gives no satisfactory explanation, retreating to a lengthy and irrelevant stream of abuse about my own abilities as a columnist. He is probably merely lazy. I have warned before of his untrustworthiness and nasty sense of humour. Since reading in this newspaper, for instance, that a commuter plane crashed in North Carolina, killing 21 people because they were too fat to stay airborne, he has been sniggering helplessly.

The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Cavy Communion
Date: 6 November 2004


Sir – I imagine that mr snuffles does not use capital letters (Letters, Nov 4) because he was absent from school when they "did" capital letters, just as St Einway (the patron saint of piano makers) was away when they were doing the alphabet from H to Z.

Richard Pepys, Ripon, N Yorks


The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Cavy Communion
Date: 6 November 2004


Sir – Well of course mr snuffles does not use capital letters. He's a guinea pig for God's sake

S. C. Poynton-Baird, Penzance



The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Capital Question
Date: 4 November 2004

Sir - Why does Mr Snuffles (Notebook, Nov 3) insist on the affectation of not typing capital letters when he appears quite capable of inverted commas, exclamation marks and other punctuation that requires the shift key?

Neil Newman, London SW18


The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Cavy in the Gravy
Date: 29 October 2004


Sir - I am disappointed with your columnist Andrew Marr. In a week when your pages have announced the possibility of guinea pigs being imported to Britain for human consumption (Notebook, Oct 20), not a word from Mr Snuffles. I fear the worst. Perhaps, Mr Snuffles is already in the kitchen?

Michael Rose, Sheffield


The Daily Telegraph
Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 20/10/2004)

If you see my mother, please don't tell her

Back in London, meanwhile, it has been bleak living. The house was almost cut off by huge snowdrifts. For days, a thick blizzard has been blowing down the high street, leaving 4x4s and people-carriers abandoned like so many expired bison. Our guinea pig, the notorious Mr Snuffles, is demanding a fur coat from Harrods, to go over the one he already has. Birds fall frozen from the sky - which, because we have an infestation of cockatoos, is a spectacular sight. And the Thames is about to freeze over. How do I know all this?

Because this paper promised it would be so last week - a period of intense wintry cold beginning on Monday, our very own mini-Ice Age. I mock, obviously. But it's cheering to remember that the weather remains even less predictable than politics.


The Daily Telegraph
Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 01/09/2004)

Will Britain follow America right to the end?

Meanwhile Mr Snuffles, the unpredictable, violently Right-wing and cantankerous Marr family guinea pig, had been spending his holiday at the local vet's, despite savage complaints about the human rights Act, "liberal fascism" and Guantanamo Bay as I brought him in.

Later, when I paid the bill, surrounded by pet lovers, I jokingly noted that it would have cost a great deal less to kill him and buy a new one - or 10, frankly. Talk about jokes misfiring. Staff and clients stared at me with disgust as I hurriedly backtracked.


The Daily Telegraph
Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 07/04/2004)

Remember: you didn't hear it here first

The house is in a terrible state. It's entirely my fault. Ever since Mr Snuffles broke into the big time, we have agents battering the door down: would he do Parkinson; what about writing his memoirs; and then there's I'm a Small Domesticated Rodent … Get Me Out of Here!, Celebrity Pets Wives with Rolf Harris and a guest slot on Have I Got News for You.

There are two obvious problems, however. The first is that Mr Snuffles's celebrity status has gone to his small furry head. Most nights he's ringing on the doorbell at 2am, perched on the top of some woman he's picked up at the Groucho Club or Annabel's. He is drinking far too much. And he has a strange white powder scattered through his whiskers. Sherbet, I think.

A N Wilson has been commissioned to write a biography and the other day I came back to find Max Clifford on all fours in front of his cage, with an ominous-looking agreement and ink-pad for Mr Snuffles's paw. This is a guinea pig out of control. How can I let him on to the telly?

What really scares me is the violence of his opinions. Ratophobic, bitterly hostile to bunny rabbits and a staunch defender of sharia, particularly for children found guilty of minor offences, Mr Snuffles, it turns out, is not what you would call a mainstream liberal.

In the past, he has inveighed against, among other things, progressive taxation; the French; therapy of any kind; executive housing; euphemisms such as "special needs" or "the intelligence services"; the caring professions; speed limits; Abrahamic religions; "fairness for all"; and Princess Diana. His heroes include the Duke of Edinburgh, Christine Hamilton and Henry Kissinger. How can I possibly unleash this bijou ideological werewolf?

To cash in, therefore, I hit on the idea of marketing him as an Easter emblem for everyone tired of chocolate rabbits and eggs. He protested bitterly but he is, in the end, only a guinea pig.

One has to start with a Mr Snuffles mould, into which the chocolate would then be poured. But would he hang limply? Would he heck. And all his hair got stuck in the wax and came off. By then he'd bitten me, I'd spilt about a gallon of milk chocolate on the floor, and he'd scarpered.

If anyone sees a small, naked mammal ranting about the New Labour terror, it's only Mr Snuffs. Please pop him in a jiffy bag and send him back.


The Daily Telegraph
Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 10/03/2004)

Putin goes back to good old autocratic ways

I'm sorry, finally, about that turbulent scrap of black fur, Mr Snuffles, seizing control of the column last week. He was in Moscow, too, posing as an earflap on my hat, but we saw little of him. He spent the whole time with some podgy men in leather jackets and gold teeth talking money.


The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: No comment
Date: 27 February 2004

Sir - I was shocked to see that you had replaced the incomparable Mr Snuffles (Opinion, Feb 25) with that hack, Andrew Marr.

From:
Rupert Richardson, Bromley Kent


The Daily Telegraph
Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 04/02/2004)

Mr Snuffles is livid, but I'm saying nothing

My mother says: if you can't find something nice to say, don't say anything at all. So, on the aftermath of Hutton, recent resignations from the BBC and all that… er, that's it.

Mr Snuffles, on the other hand, is behaving abominably. He is, of course, stuffed with high-calorie guinea pig food sent as a Christmas present by Greg Dyke.

Even so. First, there was the clipping out of "Bring Back Greg" posters from the newspapers, now taped to his cage, as if he's some kind of imprisoned militant. Then there were the threats to mass a rebel force of insurgent rodents, plus attendant small girls, to march on the BBC governors.

But it was the nasty gleam in his eye as he began an email campaign to get Alastair Campbell appointed as chairman of the BBC that was particularly worrying. Mark my words, Mr Snuffles means nothing good by this.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere at BBC Westminster has been grim. We jealously guard our reputation among the rest of the corporation as unclubbable political snobs.

But even here, people have been behaving like the rest of the luvvies, weathergirls, petrolhead presenters, tweed-G-string-wearing organic farmers and other dangerous eccentrics who are our colleagues. There have been tears, wall-kicking and outbreaks of impolite language. None of it, we are proud to say, made it to air.

And another thing. If the BBC really is entirely staffed by macrobiotic Hizbollah-supporting anarcho-syndicalist lesbian America-haters, as Barbara Amiel so confidently asserts, could someone explain to me why the advert in support of Brother Dyke appeared in The Daily Telegraph?

The Tate Gallery, or Tate Britain as it's officially known, is about to open a blockbuster show of Pre-Raphaelite landscapes, crammed with unexpected delights by Dyce and Inchbold, along with the more familiar numbers by Millais, Madox Brown and the rest.

But why did the Pre-Raphaelites never quite make it to the level of celebrity enjoyed by French Impressionism? After all, their out-doors painting, using the newly invented metal tubes of paint and industrial colours to produce spectacular effects, was just as radical, came earlier, and shocked the British art establishment as much as Monet shocked Paris 20 years later.

Various explanations are given, such as the fact that the Americans who bought the Impressionists only really came into the international art market in the 1880s, by which time the best of the British painters had been snapped up for domestic collections.

Then there's speed of output. The jewelled, enamelled detail of Pre-Raphaelite painting meant that, for every Burne-Jones or Millais, there must have been - what? 10? 20? - Monets or Pissarros.

Yet I fear the real reason is that the Pre-Raphaelites turned away into luxurious Classical fantasies and dreamy Arthurian nonsense. I blame Dante Gabriel Rossetti for leading the charge into this dead end. British 19th-century painting never had a Cézanne to connect it to the following century. I suppose if it was Rossetti to blame, then as the son of an immigrant Italian, he at least ensured that Raphael had the last laugh.

I was delighted to see A N Wilson arguing the case for courses to introduce more people to Proust. I've read In Remembrance… a couple of times in English, and, were I to be fired tomorrow, high on the list would be a third go.

It has an almost chemical effect on the brain; while immersed in Proust, you find you live in a kind of super-charged reverie. If David Blunkett knew, he'd allow it only on prescription.


The Daily Telegraph
Notebook (Extract)
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 14/01/2004)

He would never mention it himself, but Mr Snuffles the guinea-pig is a terrible wuss, a fluffy-slippered bachelor of pathetic timidity. He was squeaking and wurbling the other night, apparently in great distress. We tracked down the cause: there were mice rampaging round the room. Mice, you might think, are pretty easy to deal with: old cheddar; old-fashioned spring-loaded mousetrap; "clong" in the night; dead mouse; repeat as often as necessary. But the modern child is against the mouse slaughter, at least in her bedroom.

To my amazement you now get non-lethal traps which catch the mice in a plastic box, so you can release them later. The instructions said mice didn't really go for cheese any more. The modern rodent won't get out of bed for less than sausage, bacon and chocolate. And the instructions proved accurate. First one angry mouse, trapped alive, then another. I set off, padding down the road in the small hours with the little box, wondering which close friend and neighbour to infest. (It's all right, neighbours, only joking, honest. I went round to the park.)

But there was the strange sensation of being watched. Sure enough, despite the plastic box, there were two large cats already following me, with nasty smiles on their faces. An old-fashioned execution, I think, would have been kinder... but, tsk, I'm starting to sound like Peter Hitchens.


The Daily Telegraph
Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 07/01/2004)

This column has so far survived the BBC's review. If so, it owes something to its apolitical nature and much to the corporation's good humour when assaulted by Mr Snuffles's demented illogic.

I came back to work this week to find a pleasantly agricultural smell in my office, and a vast, sagging bag of guinea-pig food on my desk - a Christmas present with a handwritten note expressing concern about Mr Snuffles's future. It was from Greg Dyke.

As for that Savonarola among guinea pigs, he's gone quiet: I just hiss "musk" as I pass his cage.


The Daily Telegraph
Leader
BBC, heal thyself
(Filed: 17/12/2003)


It's a blessing that the new BBC vetting rules on the freelance activities of broadcasters mean that Andrew Marr can go on writing his excellent column for this paper. It's also a reprieve for Mr Snuffles, who writes on the facing page and was threatened with starvation if Marr got the sack.

After reports that the corporation would impose a blanket ban and pay its journalists not to write, the new rules are a relief. They are, all the same, Draconian. It appears that Marr and other BBC employees can say they dislike an opera, but they won't be allowed to say that, for argument's sake, the Royal Opera House is badly run. Not to be able to complain about the roads, hospitals or anything else subsidised by the Government is a severe drain on a columnist's ammunition.

The compensation issue might survive in a different guise, anyway: when salary review time comes around for those who might have to give up their column, as it has for John Humphrys, who writes on politics for the Sunday Times, they might end up with a juicy Christmas bonus to ease the pain.

In any case, the BBC's real problem is not with its employees moving from microphone to typewriter. The political views that got the corporation into hot water - notably Rod Liddle's Guardian attack on the countryside marchers, and Andrew Gilligan's Mail on Sunday piece on the war - happened to appear in papers. But those views are also pumped over the BBC's airwaves, as Janet Daley writes opposite. If the BBC really wants to clean up its act, it should start inside the doors of Broadcasting House before taking on the printed word.



The Daily Telegraph
BBC pulls the plug on star columnists
(Filed: 17/12/2003)


Senior staff are told they must give up lucrative deals with newspapers, writes Tom Leonard


BBC journalists have been banned from writing newspaper and magazine articles on current affairs and other "contentious" issues, the corporation said yesterday.

The ban could affect some of the biggest names in BBC journalism; John Humphrys, John Simpson, Andrew Marr and Jeff Randall all write lucrative newspaper columns that often tackle controversial subjects.

The new rule, which the BBC says is aimed at preserving the corporation's impartiality, has been demanded by some governors after the Hutton Inquiry into the death of the weapons inspector David Kelly.

The inquiry heard that the row with Downing Street over a Today programme story about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been inflamed by a newspaper article written by the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan.

The article took Gilligan's reported claims that the Government had "sexed up" an Iraqi dossier a significant step forward, particularly in accusing Alastair Campbell by name. The piece was never properly vetted by Gilligan's superiors.

Columnists will be able to see out their current contracts, which will mean that some can continue writing until the spring.

Although the BBC rejected reports that it had set up a £2 million fund to compensate those who will lose out, insiders insisted that several journalists had received salary increases of up to six figures after agreeing to give up their writing.

Humphrys is believed to earn £140,000 a year from The Sunday Times. BBC insiders said they understood that the column - which has frequently tackled contentious subjects such as the European Union, political correctness and organic farming - will not continue.

The BBC will allow its staff to write on "non-contentious issues" such as food, film and music reviews. Marr, the BBC's political editor, will continue to write for The Daily Telegraph on "cultural issues".

The corporation will also allow specialist BBC journalists, such as its arts correspondent Rosie Millard and media reporter Torin Douglas, to continue to write about their own fields.

However, all columns or articles will in future be vetted by BBC executives, whatever the subject matter.

A spokesman explained that while a journalist would be allowed, for instance, to say what he thought of an opera he had seen, he would not be allowed to suggest that it had suffered as the result of under-funding by the Arts Council.

Richard Sambrook, the BBC director of news, said: "Impartiality is an essential element to the BBC's reputation and to our journalism.

"When our journalists write in papers, it is seen as an extension of their work for the BBC. Yet columns and newspaper articles on controversial issues depend on expressing opinions to an extent that is often incompatible with the BBC's impartiality.

"The audience's trust in the independence of the BBC's journalism on all subjects is something we cannot afford to compromise."

There have been predictions that such a ban might tempt those left out of pocket to leave the corporation. But a BBC source said: "Nobody has indicated they'll walk. People have accepted it with quiet resignation.

"No one is happy if you cut off a chunk of their income but they've seen this coming since the Hutton Inquiry and we've been talking to them for a while about it."

The ban will not apply to non-journalists such as the motoring presenter Jeremy Clarkson or to freelance journalists "whose main profile and income is not through the BBC".

The latter stipulation will exempt Andrew Neil, who presents the BBC's Westminster programme Daily Politics but is also the publisher of The Scotsman and The Business.

"It's absurd. Neil is as much a BBC face as anyone and he has been let off," said a BBC colleague.

Some BBC journalists said the problem stemmed from the corporation's unwillingness to rein in Humphrys's columns for The Sunday Times, which often reveal views on politically sensitive topics in a way that he would not do on the Today programme.

The ban also drew complaints from newspapers. Dominic Lawson, editor of The Sunday Telegraph, said it was an "irrelevant and political" attempt to deflect criticism from the Hutton Inquiry.

He warned that the BBC would have to compensate the paper if John Simpson was forced to breach a "pretty long-term" contract with the title.

The BBC countered that it was planning to charge the paper if it published any articles by Simpson after the spring.



The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Guinea jig
Date: 12 December 2003

Sir - I congratulate you on securing the contribution of nhis'nya'fnfssa,/nh (alias Mr Snuffles) for your Notebook column (Opinion, Dec 10). His incisive commentary and keyboard dancing totally eclipsed Moonbonce - who, I suggest, should be immediately relocated to Palace Green Wind Farm.

There he should be permanently installed and connected to the National Grid to supply renewable energy for London.


From:
Stan Hope, Ardington, Oxon



The Daily Telegraph
Media diary
By the Minx
(Filed: 11/12/2003)


Heart-warming news from BBC News: Mr Snuffles is safe. Or so they say. Andrew Marr's daughter's pet guinea pig, whose welfare has been pushed - some would say cynically - centre-stage in the BBC political editor's negotiations with management over his Telegraph column, will not be allowed to starve if the column gets the chop.

"If need be, Richard Sambrook [director of BBC News] will adopt him," says a BBC spokesman. Oh, really - and is this Mr Sambrook good with pets? "Yes". Cruelty to animals is one of the few charges that nobody has yet managed to pin on a BBC executive - but this offer has sinister echoes of the Government's plan to take the children of asylum seekers into care.



The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Call Marr's bluff
Date: 8 December 2003

Sir – this is a direct appeal to Mr Snuffles taken in dictation by my dad George Parry.

Call Andrew Marr's bluff and pack your bags. I've got a lovely little home here, just right for the two of us. And my dad wouldn't dream of cutting back on our rations. For one thing, he's sweet and generous (unlike someone we could mention) and, for another, I wouldn't let him.

No wonder you looked a bit undernourished in that picture (Comment, Dec 3), Mr Snuffles. But I like the cut of your jib and I just know that we could move mountains of carrots together. And here's a promise - I'll make sure the TV's switched to ITN from now on… definitely no BBC politics to give you the collywobbles.

From:
Miss Daisy, Brown and black, aged four, and fat, Chester, Cheshire



The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Snuffles with truffles
Date: 6 December 2003

Sir - Is Andrew Marr aware (Comment, Dec 3) that in Ecuador they roast guinea pigs on little spits and eat tham? Snuffles with truffles could be quite a delicacy.

From:
M. A. Burton
Tewkesbury, Glos



The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Let him live
Date: 5 December 2003

Sir - I don't know who Mr Sambrook is but he must let Mr Snuffles live. I love seeing him when I go to Emily Marr's house. If Mr Snuffles dies, I'll never watch the BBC News again.

From:
Maddy Austin (aged 9)



The Daily Telegraph
Letters to the Editor

Re: Faithful Mr Snuffles
Date: 5 December 2003

Sir - As an animal lover, I am appalled by the plight of the Marr family's faithful Mr Snuffles (Opinion, Dec 3). I propose to withhold my licence fee in protest until the BBC lifts all restrictions on Andrew Marr writing his column for this newspaper.

From:
B G Harfield, Salisbury, Wilts



The Daily Telegraph
Leader

Death Row's cuddly inmate
(Filed: 04/12/2003)


Memo to Richard Sambrook, Director of BBC News:

Before you meet Andrew Marr today to discuss whether he can go on writing his column for this newspaper, take a long look at Mr Snuffles, the guinea pig belonging to Emily Marr, his daughter.

See how Mr Snuffles wrinkles his itsy-bitsy little nose; imagine running your hand through that soft-as-silk luxuriant fur; admire that adorable, plump bundle of magic. He won't be plump for long, though, Mr Sambrook, if you impose new restrictions on your journalists writing for newspapers.

If Mr Marr loses his column, he will be forced to make savings, and the first thing to go will be Mr Snuffles's carrots. And, without his carrots, Mr Snuffles is headed for one place and one place only – the pet cemetery near the Marr home in south-west London.

In an outrageous use of licence-fee payers' money, it's proposed that you will compensate the journalists and pay them for not writing. Even if you do this, Mr Marr will withdraw the carrots, as a protest against this imposition on his even-handed column.

That column never presents any political opinion that clashes with the supposed BBC obligations of objectivity, unlike Andrew Gilligan's article in the Mail on Sunday accusing Alastair Campbell of sexing up the Government's Iraq dossier - the article that ended up leading to the Hutton Inquiry and these preposterous rules.

You've got to ask yourself one question, Mr Sambrook. Do you really want front page headlines saying, "Richard Sambrook killed my guinea pig"? Well, do ya?



The Daily Telegraph
Extract from Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 03/12/2003)


Mr Snuffles, the Marr guinea pig threatened by my loss of earnings consequent on being banned from writing columns by the BBC, is only looking worried. No weight loss has yet occurred. I decided it would be wrong to cut back his rations until the situation was clearer. But it seems that the ban is coming. His eye is rolling wildly. He knows what's coming. I will keep you in touch... right to the end.



The Daily Telegraph
Extract from Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 26/11/2003)

The BBC governors are, apparently, deciding whether to ban the writing of columns such as this one, on the grounds that wittering on about Chopin and Attlee brings the corporation into disrepute.

All I will say is that the Marr finances are evenly balanced: the first proclamation of austerity will mean the food supply for our blameless, respectable and somewhat nervous guinea-pig, Mr Snuffles, being instantly stopped. If they could only see the expression in his trusting eye… But, enough. On their heads be it.



The Daily Telegraph
Extract from Notebook
By Andrew Marr
(Filed: 05/03/2003)


The nurse opened the door and briskly surveyed the almost-empty waiting room. "Mr Snuffles!" she commanded. I stood up, braced myself and walked in. Ahead lay some intimate examinations, no fewer than three injections, a lot of undignified screaming and squirming, and then a bill for £87.

In case this sounds a little kinky, Mr Snuffles is a guinea-pig. A mangy guinea-pig. The daughter responsible for him had discovered horrible bleeding patches on his back: I was deputed to deal with them, and we now have a course of antibiotics, shampooing and further injections to come.

It's a matter of simple arithmetic that we could have about a dozen new guinea-pigs for the same price if Mr Snuffles were simply put out of his misery. Somehow I felt too queasy even to raise the subject. It's not as if I'm Swiss or Dutch, after all.