Mary Beith, who died last weekend aged 73, was responsible for one of the most memorable newspaper front pages in the history of popular journalism.

She was the undercover reporter who took pictures of dogs being forced to inhale cigarette smoke, resulting in an iconic 1975 People splash: "The smoking beagles."

The animals were being used in an experiment to test a new (allegedly) "safe" cigarette.

The story behind the story was a classic example of investigative journalism - a mixture of determination, chutzpah, good luck and comedy.

Beith, then working for The People in Manchester, was asked by its investigations supremo, Laurie Manifold, to see if she could obtain a job in an ICI animal-testing laboratory.

She chose the Macclesfield lab for the simple reason that it was close to her home and, in spite of lacking insurance cards, managed to land the job.

Part of her work involved trussing the dogs into fabric slings, essentially straitjackets.

"Their heads were restrained by locking boards in place like medieval stocks," she later wrote.

"The dogs were then lifted on to trolleys to the smoking platforms and the masks, valves and tubes were fixed to their faces."

Some of the 48 beagles used in the experiment were expected to smoke as many as 30 cigarettes in a day.

Beith was equipped with a spy-style camera and snapped a number of shots of the chain-smoking beagles. But when she took the film back to the office the dark room staff laughed at her efforts.

One told her: "The next time you take pics of those beagles, Mary, please be sure to take your finger off the lens!"

"It was a very small camera," she told me in an a couple of years ago.

So the following day she went back to the lab and got the shot that you can see above, the one that shocked People readers.

In all, Beith spent seven days at the lab in the summer of 1974. But, she said, "the paper then sat on the story for around six months."

It caused a sensation when it was finally published in 1975 and Beith won an award as campaigning journalist of the year.

Though this was her best-known exposé by far, Beith carried out many other investigations, including the abuse of the elderly in psychiatric institutions. Her daughter, Alison, remembered her mother dressing in a nurse's uniform for that assignment. She was also sent on several assignments to Northern Ireland.

Mary Beith was born in 1938 in London. Her father, Freddie, spent some years as a journalist before he became a civil servant.

She went to boarding school in Surrey and was briefly a teacher before taking a journalism course and initially working for the Bournemouth Times. While there she met and married a Bournemouth Echo reporter, Roger Scott. They later had three children.

After moving to Macclesfield, she took a reporting job with The People at its Manchester office.

In the late 1970s, following the break-up of her marriage, she moved to Glasgow and joined the Sunday Mail.

She then moved to the Highlands and began freelancing, mainly for The Scotsman, and much of her work was concentrated on archaeology and botany.

She eventually settled in Sutherland, at the mouth of the Kyle of Tongue, and in 1989 started to write a fortnightly column for the West Highland Free Press, mainly on the history of Gaelic medicine.

It led to he writing a book Healing Threads, Traditional Medicines of the Highlands and Islands. She became immersed in Gaelic education and also wrote a couple of children's books. One, The Magic Apple Tree, was published in Gaelic.

In view of the smoking beagles story it was perhaps, ironic that she was an habitual smoker throughout her life. Diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer, she managed to outlive the doctors' original prognosis.

She is survived by her children - Alison, Andrew and Fiona - and eight grandchildren.

Mary Beith, journalist. Born 22 May 1938, in London. Died 13 May 2012, in Sutherland, Scotland

Sources: The Scotsman/The Herald/Personal communications Hat tip: allmedia Scotland

Mary Beith, who died last weekend aged 73, was responsible for one of the most memorable newspaper front pages in the history of popular journalism.

She was the undercover reporter who took pictures of dogs being forced to inhale cigarette smoke, resulting in an iconic 1975 People splash: "The smoking beagles."

The animals were being used in an experiment to test a new (allegedly) "safe" cigarette.

The story behind the story was a classic example of investigative journalism - a mixture of determination, chutzpah, good luck and comedy.

Beith, then working for The People in Manchester, was asked by its investigations supremo, Laurie Manifold, to see if she could obtain a job in an ICI animal-testing laboratory.

She chose the Macclesfield lab for the simple reason that it was close to her home and, in spite of lacking insurance cards, managed to land the job.

Part of her work involved trussing the dogs into fabric slings, essentially straitjackets.

"Their heads were restrained by locking boards in place like medieval stocks," she later wrote.

"The dogs were then lifted on to trolleys to the smoking platforms and the masks, valves and tubes were fixed to their faces."

Some of the 48 beagles used in the experiment were expected to smoke as many as 30 cigarettes in a day.

Beith was equipped with a spy-style camera and snapped a number of shots of the chain-smoking beagles. But when she took the film back to the office the dark room staff laughed at her efforts.

One told her: "The next time you take pics of those beagles, Mary, please be sure to take your finger off the lens!"

"It was a very small camera," she told me in an a couple of years ago.

So the following day she went back to the lab and got the shot that you can see above, the one that shocked People readers.

In all, Beith spent seven days at the lab in the summer of 1974. But, she said, "the paper then sat on the story for around six months."

It caused a sensation when it was finally published in 1975 and Beith won an award as campaigning journalist of the year.

Though this was her best-known exposé by far, Beith carried out many other investigations, including the abuse of the elderly in psychiatric institutions. Her daughter, Alison, remembered her mother dressing in a nurse's uniform for that assignment. She was also sent on several assignments to Northern Ireland.

Mary Beith was born in 1938 in London. Her father, Freddie, spent some years as a journalist before he became a civil servant.

She went to boarding school in Surrey and was briefly a teacher before taking a journalism course and initially working for the Bournemouth Times. While there she met and married a Bournemouth Echo reporter, Roger Scott. They later had three children.

After moving to Macclesfield, she took a reporting job with The People at its Manchester office.

In the late 1970s, following the break-up of her marriage, she moved to Glasgow and joined the Sunday Mail.

She then moved to the Highlands and began freelancing, mainly for The Scotsman, and much of her work was concentrated on archaeology and botany.

She eventually settled in Sutherland, at the mouth of the Kyle of Tongue, and in 1989 started to write a fortnightly column for the West Highland Free Press, mainly on the history of Gaelic medicine.

It led to he writing a book Healing Threads, Traditional Medicines of the Highlands and Islands. She became immersed in Gaelic education and also wrote a couple of children's books. One, The Magic Apple Tree, was published in Gaelic.

In view of the smoking beagles story it was perhaps, ironic that she was an habitual smoker throughout her life. Diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer, she managed to outlive the doctors' original prognosis.

She is survived by her children - Alison, Andrew and Fiona - and eight grandchildren.

Mary Beith, journalist. Born 22 May 1938, in London. Died 13 May 2012, in Sutherland, Scotland

Sources: The Scotsman/The Herald/Personal communications Hat tip: allmedia Scotland

Chelsea's European Champions League victory kept Sunday paper editors later at the office than usual because it was delayed by extra time and a penalty shoot-out.

But they did the unfavoured British team proud with pages of pictures, reportage and analysis. Every national title ran front page coverage, mostly in the form of pictures and blurbs.

There was also a similarity about the papers' references to the German national team having twice beaten England on penalties.

I'm not certain there is an equation between national team contests and a match involving a multi-national English-based league side and a multi-national German-based league side, but there we are.

The serious titles had the benefit of front page space. So the Sunday Telegraph ran an eight-column picture above its political splash under the headline: "At last! Chelsea conquer Europe... and Germans lose on penalties."

The Observer's picture was excellent, showing Didier Drogba handing the trophy to Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich with a beaming chancellor, George Osborne in the background. It was a good headline too: "To a Russian, with love."

The Independent on Sunday also featured a picture of the feted goal-scorer alongside the penalty-saving goalkeeper: "Blue heaven! Drogba delivers Chelsea's Champions League dream in dramatic penalty shooot-out."

The Sunday Times showed Drogba holding the cup aloft under a rather pedestrian headline, "Finally Chelsea win on penalties."

The Mail on Sunday's take was slightly oblique, featuring a picture of banner-waving TV presenter Christine Bleakley, who is engaged to the Cheslea player Frank Lampard, "Christine salutes her champion of Europe."

But the Sunday Express totally underplayed the event by carrying only a banner cross-ref blurb above the masthead.

By contrast its red-top stablemate, the Star on Sunday, caught the mood with a jubilant Drogba picture with a neat main headline, "Spot on!" The sub-deck read "Germans are finally beaten on penalties."

The People's pun was ok: "Bluetiful! Chelsea beat the Germans... on penalties!" But the Sunday Mirror's line was ordinary, "Kings of Europe."

The Sun on Sunday took the trouble to splash on the victory with the headline, "Germans lose on pens."

Finally, as a West Ham fan, I had suffered palpitations earlier in the day. But an 87th minute goal returned the team to the premier league. Only the Sunday Mirror acknowledged its importance on page one with the headline I really wanted to read: "Hammers are back in the big time."

Chelsea's European Champions League victory kept Sunday paper editors later at the office than usual because it was delayed by extra time and a penalty shoot-out.

But they did the unfavoured British team proud with pages of pictures, reportage and analysis. Every national title ran front page coverage, mostly in the form of pictures and blurbs.

There was also a similarity about the papers' references to the German national team having twice beaten England on penalties.

I'm not certain there is an equation between national team contests and a match involving a multi-national English-based league side and a multi-national German-based league side, but there we are.

The serious titles had the benefit of front page space. So the Sunday Telegraph ran an eight-column picture above its political splash under the headline: "At last! Chelsea conquer Europe... and Germans lose on penalties."

The Observer's picture was excellent, showing Didier Drogba handing the trophy to Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich with a beaming chancellor, George Osborne in the background. It was a good headline too: "To a Russian, with love."

The Independent on Sunday also featured a picture of the feted goal-scorer alongside the penalty-saving goalkeeper: "Blue heaven! Drogba delivers Chelsea's Champions League dream in dramatic penalty shooot-out."

The Sunday Times showed Drogba holding the cup aloft under a rather pedestrian headline, "Finally Chelsea win on penalties."

The Mail on Sunday's take was slightly oblique, featuring a picture of banner-waving TV presenter Christine Bleakley, who is engaged to the Cheslea player Frank Lampard, "Christine salutes her champion of Europe."

But the Sunday Express totally underplayed the event by carrying only a banner cross-ref blurb above the masthead.

By contrast its red-top stablemate, the Star on Sunday, caught the mood with a jubilant Drogba picture with a neat main headline, "Spot on!" The sub-deck read "Germans are finally beaten on penalties."

The People's pun was ok: "Bluetiful! Chelsea beat the Germans... on penalties!" But the Sunday Mirror's line was ordinary, "Kings of Europe."

The Sun on Sunday took the trouble to splash on the victory with the headline, "Germans lose on pens."

Finally, as a West Ham fan, I had suffered palpitations earlier in the day. But an 87th minute goal returned the team to the premier league. Only the Sunday Mirror acknowledged its importance on page one with the headline I really wanted to read: "Hammers are back in the big time."

Senior policewoman will leave after London 2012 Olympics, Scotland Yard has announced

Sue Akers, who has been leading Scotland's Yard investigation into phone hacking, is to retire after the Olympics, the Met has confirmed.

The Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers has been on the force for 36 years. She is in charge of the three linked inquiries into phone hacking, illicit payments and computer hacking, and has been leading inquiries into the potential involvement of intelligence services in relation to detainees held abroad.

Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey said Akers's extensive detective experience would be missed but her decision to step down would not be allowed to affect the progress of the investigations.

Akers, who joined the Met in 1976, took control of Operation Weeting – the Met's second inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal – in January 2011. Operations Elveden, which is focusing on inappropriate payments to police, and Tuleta, which is looking at allegations of computer hacking, run alongside.

The fresh investigation came after detectives were handed a new dossier of evidence hinting that suspicious activities at the News of the World went beyond "rogue reporter" Clive Goodman.

The now-defunct tabloid's royal editor was jailed along with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire in 2007 after they admitted intercepting messages.

Mackey said: "Considerable resources have been dedicated to investigating phone-hacking and related offences and the officers on these operations will continue to follow all evidence of suspected criminality.

"The importance of the continuity of leadership will of course be taken into account when the future command structure for Operations Weeting, Elveden and Tuleta is considered."

Akers told the former Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson she had planned to retire after the Olympics even before the new phone-hacking investigation was launched, according to the Independent on Sunday. She is believed to be the longest-serving woman in the Met.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Deputy Assistant Commissioner [DAC] Sue Akers is due to retire later this year after 36 years' service with the MPS.

"The DAC signalled her intention to retire this autumn when she took charge of investigations into phone-hacking and related corruption and computer crime."

Akers, the former Borough commander of Barnet, was awarded the Queens Police Medal in 2007.

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Here’s Mark Zuckerberg’s way of telling the world he has tied the knot with longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan: A photo posted to his Facebook timeline.

The Associated Press, briefed by a source “authorized to speak”, says the ceremony happened in Zuckerberg’s backyard, in front of about 100 guests. Most of them apparently thought they were there to celebrate’s Chan’s graduation from medical school. Zuck went with a ruby.

I was on Facebook. It was the day after it went public and everybody on the inside became gazillionaires. I saw this "trending" story:

I clicked.

I muttered something under my breath and clicked "cancel."

Holy crap. So I went to Google News. Nothing about a plane crash.

So I ran a search.

The second item seemed to be what I was looking for. Wait, it's from May 1?

Click.

No, it's not from May 1. It's from Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011.

OK, at least there were some sparks.

Facebook still has a long way to go to make its value credible

The interesting thing about the Facebook IPO (initial public offering) is that there was no first-day "pop". In other words, the shares ended the day trading at just about the price at which they had started.

Given the advance hype, this surprised many observers and led some to speculate that the underwriters (the banks that handled the flotation) were discreetly buying shares to prop the market up. So could it be that the world is finally wising up to the truth about Facebook?

What is that truth? Simply this: Facebook is an advertising business: last year, 82% of its revenue – about $4 per user – came from that source.

Social networking is really just a means to an advertising end. It is achieved by providing an addictive service for millions of people who spend unconscionable amounts of time freely giving away the thing that advertisers really crave, namely detailed information about their lives and interests.

But therein lies a serious contradiction: Facebook cannot easily exploit this bonanza because its users obstinately continue to regard the platform as a private space: in a recent AP-CBNBC poll, for example, more than 50% of respondents said they felt "not safe at all" using Facebook to make purchases. Yet Facebook needs them to make purchases – lots of them. Those who know about these things think the company needs to make $20 a year from each user to justify the $105bn (£66bn) valuation produced by Friday's IPO.

Power, someone once said, is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Maybe. But money runs it close. At any rate, a reality distortion field (RDF) surrounds anyone or anything that has lots of it. Thus the RDF surrounding Facebook's market valuation produced selective amnesia in many observers who should know better. It caused them to forget AOL, for example, which at its IPO in 1992 was valued at $70m, soared to $150bn 10 years later – and is now worth about $2.5bn.

And then there's the RDF surrounding Mark Zuckerberg – net worth currently $19bn plus – which seems to have blinded observers to the uncomfortable fact that the shareholding structure of Facebook means that he has total control of the company.

There are two classes of share – A and B. Each class B share carries 10 times the voting rights of its class A counterpart. Zuck owns 27.1% of the class B shares outright and the company's pre-IPO filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed agreements with other owners of class B shares to assign their voting rights to him. The net result is that he has voting control over at least 57.1% of the class B shares. In other words, he's omnipotent.

This would be a problem even if Zuck had the brains of Einstein and the wisdom of Solomon. But, alas, he doesn't. He is undoubtedly a smart and talented guy, but he also happens to have a megalomaniacal obsession – that everything has to be social, ie public. And if you're a Facebook user and don't like that – well, tough.

So we now have another powerful media company with a shareholding structure that renders its charismatic, single-minded founder immune from shareholder pressure. Remind you of anyone? Hint: it begins with "News".

Roy Greenslade and other commentators may analyse the ABCs, but maybe sales disparities boil down to the change in our pockets

Professor Roy Greenslade (like other academic commentators before him) broods over the disparity between Saturday and Sunday newspaper circulations, as revealed by new ABC sales audits. What's so soggy about British Sunday sales? he asks, running through a gamut of changing social habits. But sometimes you don't need rocket science at all. Sometimes simple cash chinking on shop counters counts, too. I bought the total package of Saturday nationals yesterday for £10.80. Today's equivalent Sunday bundle will cost £2.80 more (and £3.30 the moment the new Sun stops its launch promotion). Newspapers don't like to talk about cover prices. It's not supposed to be a suitable topic for conversation in polite society. But that doesn't mean that even hard-working university professors don't need to count every penny.

Tweet nothings

Ten million Twitter users in Britain. John Prescott celebrates. But something called the Portland Communications NewsTweet index shows 80,000 fewer tweets from journalists in the first three months of this year, almost 25% down. As for Sky News, the Guardian and the Telegraph, their tweets have slumped nearly 40%. What's gone wrong? Boredom, overwork, stress, changing fashions, the beginning of the end? Or perhaps the realisation that no contender, however dogged, can out tweet the unstoppable and clearly under-employed Baron P.

Boris Johnson was as outspoken as ever about political placement at the BBC. But rare is the chairman of board or trust who has not been affiliated to one of the main parties

Boris, in full blond bulldozer mode, tells the BBC where to find its next director general: "We need a Tory, and no mucking around." Watch lips purse, hear sharp intakes of breath. The people appointed to run British broadcasting must surely be "independent" – not party nominees. The gabby mayor has boobed again.

But (just to remind) let's not get too sanctimonious about perfect Portland Place propriety. The BBC already has a former Conservative party chairman as its supreme trustee-cum-governor. He succeeded a former Labour councillor, who (after a spasm of trust transition) succeeded a former Tory chief whip, who succeeded the banker husband of the human dynamo who ran Gordon Brown's office. The chairmen of the governors before that were an active Conservative local politician (and Bow Group chairman), the retired MD of the Times and the brother of a Conservative cabinet minister.

And remember who appoints DGs. The chair of the trust takes the lead. Chris Patten is doing it again right now (as gossip about Ed Richards, ex-aide to Blair in No 10, moving over from Ofcom accelerates). And the thought that whoever emerges from the process will somehow be free of party connection is plain illusion, not born out by even the most cursory glance at history.

Is the BBC itself actually independent? For the most part, yes: because its staff in their thousands hang on to such freedom. Those are the people who safeguard its reputation. But politicians and sundry advisers? They've been poking their fingers in the pie through the decades: and we ought grimly to acknowledge as much.

Over at Leveson you could sense the same sands shifting as the lord justice and Gus O'Donnell, the last cabinet secretary, played a cosy little game. Gus wanted regulation made "independent and compulsory" under a "truly independent chairman" appointed by "fair and open competition" with "a panel that would have credibility".

It would need "to be quite a strong body", he added. And "not in any sense government-led or government-controlled," chimed in LJL – "either expressly or implicitly, so that it is seen to be independent in the true sense, not merely in its appointment but its operation."

They went on to discuss Gus's idea, based on his fleeting experience of American newspapers, of "segregating fact and comment" so that – "as with the code that civil servants operate to" – there could be strong belief in "honesty, objectivity, integrity and impartiality" imposed as a "kind of rule of thumb". Maybe someone like the information commissioner could have a role here, he suggested. At which point, listen for a scream of brakes.

Before he was cabinet secretary, Gus ran No 10 press relations for John Major. So, after him, did another career civil servant, Sir Christopher Meyer, who went on to be our ambassador in Washington before becoming chairman of the Press Complaints Commission. Saintly O'Donnell, soiled Meyer? It's a ridiculous distinction – as ridiculous as saying that Charles Anson (once press secretary to the Queen), Judge Jeremy Roberts, Michael Grade (once chairman at the BBC) and Julie Spence (former chief constable of Cambridgeshire) are also unfitted for the duty they exercise at the PCC.

What did Christopher Graham, the present information commissioner, do before he arrived at the ICO? He was director general at the Advertising Standards Authority – just like Mark Bolland, the first director of the PCC.

Independence isn't some adjective-rich device that pops down the Whitehall slipway on demand. Look at "fair and open competition" when it comes to choosing who'll run the BBC and hoot with laughter. Look at the tradition of British newspaper life over three centuries and laugh again. Think of a retired judge or a retired permanent secretary deciding what's fact, what's opinion and what pages they shall go on.

It would all be in the cause of press freedom, of course. No participant in the present debate would dream of saying otherwise. But even Boris would know what to call it: just mucking around.

On message? Who knows?

How shall we know when Delivering Quality First at the BBC has been, well, delivered? The idea – now fully endorsed by the trust – is to pare away here and there so that only the most attentive viewer and listener can spot that the money has gone. Blue Peter banished to CBBC? One presenter at a time on the BBC news channel? Fewer Radio Three3 concerts? Eight hundred newshounds out to grass? Somehow you feel a shrunken service may survive, though – if it can get over the stringent upheaval about to be wreaked on BBC4's service contract in the following, cherishable trustspeak: "Wording changed from 'it should record and broadcast performance from the nations and regions' to 'it should provide a platform for local celebrations in the nations and regions and should also create occasions that bring people together.'" Delivering incomprehensibility later, perhaps?

The powerful reportage of a friend and rival is greater than the sum of its parts

To read a great newspaper reporter's work in a collected volume is entirely different from the cumulative effect of the articles over time. One gets a sense – perhaps a false one – of coherence, or even teleological destination, though of course there is none. And to read that work when the eyewitness was a friend recently killed while trying to continue, if not complete, the narrative is downright surreal.

I had a strange friendship with Marie Colvin, if that is what it was. The Middle East was her fiefdom; I was an interloper – twice: Iraq both times around, 1991 and 2003. She was writing for the Sunday Times, I for the Observer. During the crucial, immediate aftermath of the 2003 invasion, Marie was embedded (in his compound) with the Iraqi dissident Ahmed Chalabi, who had done so much to take the Anglo-American axis to war. With the Sunday Times "in the bag" for the invasion, I had been doing all I could to counter Chalabi's influence on this newspaper, which I saw as deceptive and catastrophic.

And so Marie and I would eyeball each other through the Mesopotamian dusk, buy each other drinks – that waltz rivals dance when discussing the week's work over mezze. But knowing all along that what binds you is stronger than what divides you.

Here it all is, a vast Marie Colvin box set, poignant beyond words. It says on the back cover that Marie "believed in the pursuit of truth, and the courage and humanity of reporting", but I can't imagine her putting it like that. Marie was the greatest artisan war reporter: unlike most of us, she did almost nothing else but this insane metier. There was no "time out" to write a concert review or a piece about being Irish-American, or a glance across her adoptive Britain.

And when her articles between 1986 and the appalling last assignment in Syria come together in a book, the whole is suddenly greater than the sum of the parts. One realises that no one else entwined the powerful pieces and the pawns on war's chessboard quite like Marie (most of us specialise in one or the other): Gaddafi's son and the university student press-ganged into fighting for the Libyan dictator share a column.

Above all, the book captures the dramatis personae of her work. Here is Latif Yahia, tortured into having cosmetic surgery so as to live as Uday Hussein's body double. Here are the small people who make big history, such as Sasson Shem-Tov, who cares not a fig for politics, but is about to order a fleet of bulldozers to eradicate Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem. Here is the girl from Kosovo who returns to find the remains of her family in plastic bags, and the Libyan soldier who coolly describes how he and his comrades carried out an order to rape four sisters in a house they had broken into: "She did not move much when I raped her."

There is the epic adventure of Marie herself: clambering over mountains to escape Chechnya. There is her controversial apologia for Guantánamo Bay and her capacity to say so much with so few words: "Stunned and dusty in this new world, returning Palestinians wandered around a moonscape the size of two football pitches" – the Jenin refugee camp after the bloodbath in 2002.

We are told at the start that Marie paid the "ultimate price". A shot of martyrdom runs through this language that I don't think she would have liked. I remember having a conversation with her at the Frontline club and warning her: "If you keep doing this, you stack the odds against you." She was scoffing, more than slightly, at the fact that I'd quit this caper after four months in the Mexican drug war. This stuff is like heroin, I told her, and like heroin, it kills you in the end.

Therein lies the anger as one reads her last, marvellous paragraphs about Syrian first lady Asma Assad's schooldays in Acton, and a line she sent from Homs, quoted by her colleague Jon Swain in his heartbreakingly restrained account of the end: "I think the reports of my survival may be exaggerated."

The Mail prophesied the end of Simon Cowell when Britain's Got Talent was being outperformed by The Voice. So much for the power of the press to influence events

The supposed power of the press? Here's a chastening example from everyday life, one without a smidgen of politics on display. Begin at the end of March as Britain's Got Talent and Simon Cowell are caught in the headlights of a supposedly omnipotent Daily Mail. Look back and see The Voice from the BBC "soaring" as BGT fails. Oh what "a blow for Cowell"! His "reign as the king of Saturday night TV" is looking vulnerable. Maybe "Television's Mr Nasty has a made a fortune but lost his soul". Maybe his "botched botox" job is the final humiliation. "Will Simon Cowell have the courage to put himself out of his misery?"

Thus, as May crept onto our screens, the Mail's diagnosis couldn't have been clearer. Cowell was washed up. His show was getting walloped in the ratings. His new press adviser (hired from the Daily Mail, as it happens) didn't stand a chance. The Voice was the winner, loud, clear and thumping.

Except that, of course, it wasn't. The Voice's audience plunged to below 6m. Cowell's Got Talent wound up on 11.9m. "If there's a happier, more family-friendly TV show, then I missed it," cooed the Mail's Jan Moir. God bless Simon, and Alesha, and David Walliams, and the incredible dancing Pudsey. It's a 180-degree turnaround. And caused, power-mongers please note, by nothing more complex than ordinary viewers in their millions flicking a remote from one channel to another. Simple is as simple does. Just one finger does it.

Stars of the small screen reveal their TV secrets

The entertainers: Ant and Dec

This feels like real life," says Declan Donnelly, settling back into the sofa next to Anthony McPartlin. "We've done this before." You would have thought that after all those hours on telly performing – often live – for millions, Ant and Dec would want to do anything but watch it when they got home. "It's my number-one way to relax," says Dec. "We watch everything and anything and we constantly text each other to check what we're watching." Dec's last text to Ant was about the best ham sandwich in the world, as featured on Countrywise Kitchen. Ant's alerted Dec to the Hairy Bikers' pork terrine. Both food related, "but we text through sport, documentaries and dramas, too," says Dec. As hosts of Britain's Got Talent, the pair have been baffled by the competition revved up between BGT and The Voice. "It's just about the time slot," says Ant. "The shows are completely different. BGT is fun, a laugh." Adds Dec: "But have any of their contestants sung, 'Where's Me Keys? Where's Me Phone?' Hopefully they will on season two"…

Would you be a good gameshow contestant?
Dec We would. We've hosted so many that we've got loads of knowledge about crap stuff. You accumulate it.
Ant I wouldn't mind being on The Chase and beating that woman. I don't like her.
Favourite childhood TV?
Dec Game for a Laugh, Noel's House Party, Tiswas and Going Live.
Ant Anything but Dad's Army.

The leading lady: Anna Maxwell Martin

I wish I got offered more comedy," says Anna Maxwell Martin. "People must think I just cry and have a sad face all the time." It's hard to feel sorry for her when, over the years, she's cried her way so brilliantly through such great TV shows as Bleak House, South Riding and White Girl. She gets to look sad in two new dramas this year. "I'm in a 50s thriller called The Bletchley Circle, which has a grisly murder and nice cossies." Then there's Jimmy McGovern's Accused. "The part wasn't like anything I've done before – I was cast as someone who works in a juvenile detention centre alongside Ewen Bremner. We were the scrawniest people in there." Anna says she's missing out on all the "groovy hot dramas" at the moment. "I've just had a baby so I'm in bed at 8pm. I'm watching Corrie though. It's my dream to be in it when I'm 70. If I could end my days on Corrie, I'd be happy."

Who's your favourite newsreader? There's my friend Romilly Weeks – I get really excited when I see her on telly – and Kate Simms on North West Tonight. She's my best friend and my daughter's godmother.
Favourite childhood show? I watched The A Team and the wrestling.
New TV discovery? Monica Dolan who was in Appropriate Adult. She's the most extraordinary actress.

The trickster: Kayvan Novak

After the phenomenal success of prank-call extravaganza Fonejacker, Kayvan Novak is relishing his new role on hidden-camera show Facejacker, when he acts out his surreal characters instead. "It tickles my acting ability. It's total immersion – no action, no cut – you're with people who think you're real." The show was mainly filmed in the States, which Novak enjoyed. "If you're winding up Americans, their buttons are in different places. I was trying to process how the British compare to the Americans, so I read Quentin Crisp. He says that the difference is that the British want you to fail because they're afraid you'll leave them behind. The Americans want you to succeed in case you take them with you. I want to be as articulate as that, instead of just regurgitating it."

Would you be a good gameshow contestant? I love cooking shows – like MasterChef: The Professionals. I'll be editing until 10pm then get home, make dinner, and sit and eat while watching other people make dinner. So anything to do with cooking would be good.
Favourite TV? Shameless has a good vibe and I love Breaking Bad.
Favourite childhood show? I loved Harry Enfield and Blackadder. Spitting Image was the first show that I started mimicking off the telly.

The super villain: Andrew Scott

Andrew Scott declares his role in BBC's Sherlock as arch-nemesis Jim Moriarty to be an absolute blast. "Every time he appears he gets great stuff to do. You get real bang for your buck." Though Scott first made his mark in theatre – appearing in such award-winning productions as Cock and A Girl in a Car with a Man in London and in David Hare's The Vertical Hour in New York – he has two more TV dramas coming soon. First, there's psychological drama The Fuse, starring alongside Christopher Eccleston, for the BBC – "It's a very human story about obsession," he says – then an adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's The Scapegoat for ITV.

After that there's the third series of Sherlock to consider – well, possibly. Any hints about the resolution of season 2's cliffhanger, which seemed to end with the deaths of Moriarty and Holmes? "I have to remain schtum. Even my mother doesn't know what happens."

Favourite sitcoms? Grandma's House and Twenty Twelve. Olivia Colman and Jessica Hynes are brilliant.
Favourite childhood show? The Muppet Show: the theme music makes me excited even now. I used to watch the drama Chocky, too. There's something about sophisticated drama for kids – it's just great.
Guilty pleasure? Judge Judy. It appeals to some weird side of me, I like the way she deals with idiots. I got into it when I was doing Emperor and Galilean at the NT last year. You can't go home and watch BBC4's The History of Desks after Ibsen.
Favourite US show? I've just started Mad Men. I want to be that person who watches it until 4am, but I don't think I am.

An experimental offering proved just too relaxing while Alan Yentob nearly got bounced from opening night for wearing trainers

Lazy days

Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul showed his experimental, hour-long film Mekong Hotel. It's set by a long quiet river and features a man chatting about Pob ghosts and Bangkok floods with a young woman and her mother on a hotel terrace overlooking the water. Occasionally, it cuts to one of them eating entrails, or hearts, like vampires or wild dogs. Throughout, a man plays a gentle blues on an acoustic guitar. It contains the literally immortal line: "I will be reborn as a horse and then several kinds of insect." It was screened after lunch in the hot Salle Bazin. On screen, the flies buzzed, the river flowed, the music played and the sun shone – I looked around and counted nine people blissfully asleep in my vicinity. Only for this Zen master director could one say that this reaction should be taken as some kind of compliment.

They shoot, he scores

If one theme dominates this Cannes it is Alexandre Desplat. The prolific composer's name – he's done scores for The King's Speech, The Tree of Life, Harry Potter, The Queen - flashes up on the credits of a record-breaking five films in the selection: Audiard's Rust and Bone, Garrone's Reality, the Polanski documentary, Moonrise Kingdom and Gilles Bourdos's Renoir which will close Un Certain Regard next week. You'd think they'd get his name right by now, at least, then? "I've been nominated for four Oscars and they alway read my name out wrong," he tells me. "It's Day-plah, I say, no S, no T, and yet every time they read the nominations: Alexander Dessplatt." Maybe they're waiting till he actually wins one to get it right, I venture? "In that case, I will be very forgiving."

Yes to Yentob

BBC creative director Alan Yentob was nearly ejected from the opening night ceremony, for incorrect attire. The Imagine presenter wore a silver-striped tie and trainers to the strictly black tie (noeud papillon) event and was promptly blocked by bouncers. Only the glamorous head of BBC Films Christine Langan saved him, with a last ditch appeal to Cannes boss Thierry Frémaux who was standing at the top of the red carpet steps. Just as well – Yentob gets a little name check in the opening night film, Moonrise Kingdom, when Bill Murray and Frances McDormand lie awake discussing their legal cases. "Did you get the approval on Yentob versus Crawford?" asks Murray. Did Alan know about this? "No, I didn't, but it's definitely me," he told me at the film's after-party, still smarting from the bouncers' clench. "And had I not got in, there might well have been another lawsuit with my name on it." A glass of bubbly and a couple of canape skewers later, though, he was all smiles.

Roberto Di Matteo's love of football was among the revelations during extended coverage of the Champions League final

They say that on the big occasions it is often the first to settle who prevails and with a significant head start on their rivals Sky Sports were all-conquering in this regard. A panel of Jamie Redknapp, Ruud Gullit and Graeme Souness were knee deep in the real business long before those watching on ITV had reached the third act of Keith Lemon's LemonAid. Gary Neville is Sky's prize asset and as such was wrapped in cotton wool until as late as possible. When he made his first appearance – moments before people may have been thinking of switching over to ITV for the start of their coverage – he went straight for his weapon of choice – the tactics board –while Redknapp, Gullit and Souness looked on like bored schoolkids watching a geography teacher run through a presentation about volcanoes.

There were revelations (of sorts) in Sky's coverage. The Chelsea squad had been gathered to play a game where they pull the name of a team-mate out of a hat and reveal his best and worst traits. John Terry pulled his own name, referred to himself in the third person and decided that the best thing about himself is that "he's good looking" – a Derek Zoolander moment for the Chelsea captain.

But for the most part it was left to Redknapp, Gullit and Souness to eat up the time. Gullit, in particular, brings an air of aloofness to his analysis which suggests he thinks avoiding answering the question is the name of the game. Roberto Di Matteo, he insisted, "really loves football" – a reassuring revelation for anyone who was wondering if the Chelsea manager might be a bit bored by the prospect of having to sit through yet another match. As it turned out, it was the rest of us whose love of football was tested by 85 minutes or so of the ensuing contest.

Thankfully most of the pre-match inquisition on Sky could be dealt with by saying "a lot" over and over again. "How much does this mean to Chelsea?" Geoff Shreeves asked frequently. "How surprised are you at Bertrand's inclusion?" Jeff Stelling wondered of his panel.

Strangely it was the broadcasters who seemed to struggle most with Ryan Bertrand's inclusion, in particular how to pronounce his name. ITV's Gabriel Clarke took the most elaborate approach, opting for a pronunciation that made the youngster sound as if he was a Parisian wedding planner rather than a 22-year-old from south London.

This was as avant-garde as ITV got as Adrian Chiles ran through his usual repertoire of telling his guests the answer before asking them the question. "Gianfranco, you're a bag of nerves. How do you feel?" he inquired of the Chelsea legend Zola.

But Chiles came into his own with an interview with Frank Lampard where he quizzed the midfielder on a bout of ear-flicking among the Chelsea players shortly after André Villas-Boas's dismissal earlier this season that had particularly enraged Roy Keane. Roy, Chiles assured Lamps, has mellowed a bit in the meantime.

"I think even Frank agreed the timing wasn't right," Roy chipped in back in the studio, providing ITV with the revelation of the night – the rumours of Keane's mellowing have been greatly exaggerated.

On the pitch, we were made to wait for the real drama as Neville and ITV's Andy Townsend struggled to find positive ways to describe Chelsea's display. When Didier Drogba scored Clive Tyldesley reminded us what happened the last time Bayern conceded a late equaliser to an English club in the Champions League final – something he has never failed to mention in the 13 years since Manchester United's triumph.

Gullit sensed a higher power. "A miracle," he said of the goal. Now just try illustrating that on a tactics board.

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If you were one of Gannett's most in-the-know executives, and thought the company's stock was poised to chug higher, would you keep your shares in hopes of making more money down the road? Conventional wisdom says you would. Saleh But perhaps GCI's outgoing chief financial officer knows something we don't. I say that because Paul Saleh, who's leaving for another CFO job at a much larger

Sky pundit under fire, Matt Prior doesn't trouble the Lord's glaziers this time, while Graham Gooch is a happy Hammer

FEUD TO FOLLOW

Forget Jonathan Agnew's fleeting Twitter retirement after receiving abuse on Friday night. Kevin Pietersen appears to have strong feelings about a member of the Sky Sports team. In November, during a swipe at the punditry skills of Dominic Cork and Kepler Wessels on Twitter, Pietersen concluded they were both "as bad as Nick Knight". KP was at it again on Friday, tweeting: "Can somebody PLEASE tell me how Nick Knight has worked his way into the commentary box for Home Tests?? RIDICULOUS!!" Look out for a frosty interview soon.

GABRIEL'S ANGEL

Shannon Gabriel, the West Indies debutant, had personal support at Lord's from Nigel Camacho, a dentist from Port of Spain and the only member of the supporting "Trini Posse" who was able to make the trip at such short notice. Gabriel's summer could have been so different. Before his surprise call-up, he was due to play in the Northern League for Barrow – the Cumbrian club where his West Indies coach, Ottis Gibson, spent a summer.

GOOD TO SEE …

… Matt Prior placing his bat against the dressing room's window with utmost care after being bowled by Gabriel. With no broken glass to trouble them, the members enjoyed their day unscathed.

ATTENTION GRABBING

Big day in London with action at Lord's, Wembley and Twickenham. Graham Gooch, England's batting coach, enjoyed himself listening to West Ham's win on the radio and then miming climbing a ladder once their Premier League return was confirmed.

MORNING AFTER ILL

On the six occasions on which Andrew Strauss has remained not out overnight after scoring a ton, he has yet to add more than six runs the following day. Against South Africa in 2004‑05 he added four and six after scoring an overnight 132 and 120, in New Zealand in 2008 he added four to his overnight 173, against West Indies in 2009 he added three to an overnight 139, against Australia in 2009 he added nothing to an overnight 161 and yesterday he added one to his 121.

STAT OF THE DAY

After Ian Botham described Kirk Edwards's farcical run out as Nasser Hussain-esque, Sky served up a stat showing Hussain survived 87.5% of run-outs he was involved in. Shivnarine Chanderpaul is catching him, though, running a staggering 20 people out for an 87% return. But all have a way to go to match Jimmy Adams's 100% record of nine runs outs, no dismissals.

The social TV network YouToo — which Mark Burnett invested in earlier this year — has launched a Facebook app to encourage people to submit video, get on TV and then tell their friends about it. “Naturally, you want to be seen by your friends and family on TV,” CEO Chris Wyatt told Lost Remote, explaining how getting on TV and then sharing the experience go hand in hand.

Both YouToo.com and the Facebook app pose questions to users, who can upload their video responses. The videos air on the YouToo TV cable network, and Wyatt says several broadcast partners will be participating soon, as well. If users submit the clips via the new “Be on TV” Facebook app, it shares the video with the user’s friends. Then, if the clip has been selected for TV, the user is notified when and where it will air — so they can tell their family and friends to watch. And when it airs, YouToo sends the user a video aircheck, which can be shared on Facebook, as well.

“It’s a hugely popular feature,” Wyatt says of both the airtime notifications and the airchecks. “Since everyone is not able to tune into the linear television broadcast, the aircheck gives users a chance to share the experience online. We’ve seen a 1600% fold increase in people forwarding and sharing their airchecks of their television appearances.”

We asked Wyatt if people are still as excited to get on TV as the were before the era of YouTube, Facebook and the fragmentation of TV. “Becoming famous has been one of the primary human motivators throughout history,” he says. “Today, we find ourselves with over 300 reality programs, millions of hopefuls lining up to be on television singing competitions and there has never been any shortage of aspiring actors in Hollywood. In face, Youtube grew to prominence with the tag line ‘Broadcast Yourself.’ but that is only online and not on the first screen.”

YouToo says it has broadcast 90,000 user clips on its cable network, which is in 177 of the top 200 markets. For Facebook users who don’t want to be on TV, the Be on TV app allows them to send personalized messages including birthday greetings and congratulations to family and friends.