Guido is bemused, the Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle is never one to miss an opportunity to mock the foibles of the likes of Boris Johnson. Yet perhaps he is very busy. How else can one explain the failure to cover a juicy bit of gossip like the latest saga of Boris and the delectable Ms Fazackerlay? In the past when Ephraim has been busy he has simply lifted stories from this blog without attribution (he was as a result a runner-up in the Press Plagiarist of the Year Award 2005).

Guido was therefore very pleased to hear recently that he had appointed an assistant to help him obtain original material / read the blogs for him. She is a journalist who has a lot of experience having herself often appeared in gossip columns, so would be absolutely perfect. A chance for the often tired and emotional Ephraim to share the burden of deadlines. But the total failure of the column to cover the latest Boris affair is very much amiss.

Guido wonders if the new assistant, Petronella Wyatt, is working out?