Here is the news

I've been trying to work out why McDonald isn't the right man to relaunch the programme he was associated with in the good old days.

Part of it is that he has a precise pronounciation that is a little bit too precise in this modern world.

No-one speaks BBC English anymore, not even on the BBC, but this guy does,

You find yourself listening to the diction rather than the news story and, to my mind, that defeats the whole point of reading the news.

His style of delivery just isn't right in a fast-moving unpredictable world.

It might just be me but there is also his habit of putting gaps in the middle of.

Sentences for dramatic effect which, combined with the marble in his mouth, seems to put emphasis on the,

Wrong words. This means viewers get confused verbal.

Signals which demand their attention at inappropriate parts of the news item being read.

Even the exclusive interview with Princess Di's fancy man Hasnat Khan wasn't much to write home about.

The lighting was poor, showing Khan's face half in shadow and half in sunshine.

And the relevations were not exactly earth-shattering.

It was, more or less, Khan saying he thought Di liked him and his family. As a news story It was more "huh" than "wow".

And finally, it's not all bad news. If McDonald was disappointing, Etchingham was good, with clear diction and good delivery.

At least you were listening to her words rather than the method of pronounciating them.

+ You gotta love Denise Welch.

The Geordie actress was on ITV's Loose Women bemoaning the lot of smokers who now have to go outside the pub for a puff,

She revealed how she was challenged by bouncers who said she should not even be smoking in the vicinity of the pub's door,

And she said: "I'm not. I've come from the pub across the road."