Friends of Greg Dyke say the BBC director-general is not a happy chappy. One close chum said he is at the stage where he doesn’t want to get up and go to work.

The Hutton inquiry is taking its toll — the report is due in weeks. Dyke is also about to incur the wrath of his own team by decreeing that BBC reporters cannot carry on writing freelance columns for newspapers. It is a weak sop to the government, according to many at White City.

BBC critics sneer that his undoubted talents are better suited to running a commercial station, not a public service. And money-conscious Dyke’s mood will not have been helped by the knowledge that Tony Ball, his counterpart at Sky, is departing with a payoff of £10.7m. Dyke is on a rolling contract and had hitherto indicated that he would carry on for another four years, until he is 60. But it seems that he may no longer stay that course. The BBC chairman, and fellow Labour donor, Gavyn Davies, is sure to be keen to find out soon if Dyke intends to hang around.

If he does want out, Davies will need to get the negotiations going or risk having a lame duck DG at such a crucial time for the Beeb.

Caborn gets a second call for World Cup glory

Sports minister Richard Caborn will be attending the Downing Street reception to honour the England rugby World Cup winners tomorrow.

Caborn, you will recall, was happily enjoying a few cans of Aussie lager Down Under, looking forward to the final, when he was called back to London for a Commons vote. We were told that Caborn was furious and didn’t give a XXXX for the foundation hospitals vote. Number 10 was not amused, but isn’t holding a grudge.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t repeat his radio interview faux pas when he failed to name the England captain. He’s the tough-looking one who looks like Shrek, Dick, and answers to the name of Martin “Johnno” Johnson, or “sir” to you.

Guardian hoaxer scores a politically correct goal

Gongs have been flying back to Buckingham Palace faster than Concorde to the scrap heap in recent weeks. First, Benjamin Zephaniah, the Rastafarian poet, rejected an OBE in protest at British imperialism. Then journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown returned her MBE to show she really is anti-Establishment.

So The Guardian must have been slapping itself on the back to receive a letter from Elsie Owusu, founding chairwoman of the Society of Black Architects, saying she was thinking of handing back her OBE because of the jingoistic reaction to England’s victory in the rugby World Cup. “The idea of a vainglorious parade is exclusive of the whole ethnic-minority population of this island and redolent of Anglo-Saxon imperialism. This rugby jolly has already cost £10m that should have been spent on relieving poverty for the black urban underclass,” the tirade ran.

The letter claimed to come from her and was on headed notepaper bearing her home address. Except that it was a forgery and the paper now accepts it was hoaxed. Owusu, who is in Ghana designing a public transport system for the capital, Accra, is not amused. Expect a grovelling Guardian apology this week.

• Who was that media pundit seen sniffing a line of white powder at a luvvie party? He ought to take more care who sees him do it. Hasn’t he himself written that drug abuse is so widespread in the entertainment industry that being caught out by the tabloids is far too easy?