Following the not-too-surprising revelation that some shows on GB News had no viewers, anchor Alastair Stewart, the former ITN presenter, has decided that instead of broadcasting he’ll stay at home and switch on, ensuring that at least someone is watching.

Stewart posted that he had broken a hip. He is just the latest “star” to bail out of the disaster. The first was creator and chairman Andrew Neil, who could only thole it for a fortnight, before decamping to his home in the south of France – he was a committed Brexiter but we’ll let the irony pass – promising to return at some point. That was a month ago.

Another who seems to have departed to boost the audience is former Boris Johnson spin doctor Guto Harri, although not willingly. During the week he took the knee, rather embarrassingly, in the studio and in support of black England footballers. It was “an unacceptable breach” of standards, said the station, although it’s surprising to discover they have standards. He’s suspended, but don’t expect to see him back. Then there are the off-camera people and the management. They’re going down like a Covid pandemic.

The channel has been plagued with technological problems, largely as a result of “fully automating” software designed to reduce the number of people in the gallery and save money.

They even misspelled Stewart’s first name on the online programme schedule.

The real problem is that it isn’t a news channel at all, just back-to-back shows with people on sofas talking to each other. It is, to quote presenter Neil Oliver’s previous take on daytime telly, “enervating drivel”.

It is also relentlessly right-wing. Ofcom, the broadcasting nanny, insists on balance across output but so far hasn’t uttered a peep. Perhaps they think it will soon be off the air anyway, so what’s the point?

Fly me to the Moon

This week, in 1969, men first landed and then walked on the Moon. Glasgow is presently dressed as Manhattan to commemorate the three astronauts’ triumphant return to New York, which will feature in the upcoming Indiana Jones movie.

Some fascinating (or not) things you didn’t know about the mission. Buzz Aldrin took holy communion before he stepped out onto the surface. I don’t know how he managed to secrete the wine en route. The three had no toilet on the module so they had plastic bags taped to their nether regions. When Neil Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon they actually wore nappies. I hoped they recycled responsibly and didn’t leave it all up there.

Playtex, of “cross your heart” bra fame, designed the space suits. I’m not sure if there was uplift and padding included. The astronauts had to sign customs forms on their return, declaring Moon rock and dust samples. And Aldrin submitted $33.31 in travel expenses, from Houston to the Moon and back, which is about 500,000 miles.

Down on the farm

I’ve been guiltily watching Clarkson’s Farm on Prime in which the petrolhead reveals he knows about as much about farming as I do astrophysics. It is totally engaging and Jezza comes across as almost likeable. But as an aside, he’s obviously been vastly overpaid in his career to be able to afford a 1,000-acre farm in the Cotswolds, conservatively valued at £12.5 million.

The farm isn’t doing too well, largely because he insisted on raising sheep, and at the end of the year the books show that he made a little over a hundred quid in profit. Mind you, they don’t tell you in the show how much Government subsidy he got. Or whether the £40,000 Lamborghini tractor he bought, too big for the barn, is factored into the costs.

It does also reveal the thicket of rules and legislation that farmers have to negotiate. Everything is overseen. With one exception. There’s no judgment on taste. Which is obvious when you chomp on a flavourless supermarket carrot, or a bland and squidgy tomato. What we need are taste police, with highly-trained palates, with every pack of veg or fruit with a symbol that it has passed an extended tongue.

Toughest sport

The Tour de France finishes in Paris today in a leisurely cycle into the capital where 22-year-old Tadej Pogacar will be garlanded as the winner not just of the yellow jersey but all the other categories. Only the sprinters, and the pre-eminent Mark Cavendish, will compete for the stage.

Le Tour and the Giro d’Italia are the hardest sporting events in the world, wtih 21 brutal stages over mountains, hills and thousands of miles, with only a couple of rest days.

The Spanish cyclist Pell Bilbao didn’t just do both this year, which is unheard of, he did the same last year. Because of the pandemic and the delays and reshuffles it meant that he did four grand tours within 12 months. And was in the top 20 in all. He is some kind of perambulating masochist.

Another rider, the Australian Simon Clarke, rode through 18 stages with a fractured vertebrae in his back. “Why would I throw the towel in like that? Why not go to Paris?” he said nonchalantly.

They’re not even that well paid. The entire prize pot is just €2.5 million with the winner getting €500,000 which is usually split with the seven other riders in the team. By contrast, the winner of the Open at the Royal St George’s at Sandwich will be given £2.5 million.

Scotland’s greatest-ever cyclist is the Shawlands Academy graduate Robert Millar – I mention that because I went there – who won the King of the Mountains prize in the Tour in 1984, finishing fourth overall.

He also won three stages in his career. Millar finished second, twice, in the Vuelta a España and was robbed of a win by Spanish teams’ dirty tricks, as well as a second in the 1987 Giro.

After Millar retired he coached the British national team and the Scottish team in the 1998 Tour of Britain. And then he disappeared, as Richard Moore covered in his excellent biography, In Search Of Robert Millar. In fact, he was starting the process of transitioning into a woman, Philippa York, until she revealed it more than two decades later in 2017. A truly remarkable man and woman.