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It is one of the great jokes of the BBC’s self-satire series W1A — hapless head of values Ian Fletcher and his folding bike. Now it transpires that its real-life muse, the Brompton bike of Alan Yentob (said to be worth £1,000), has been stolen. The crime occurred last Thursday at the height of the Kids Company crisis.

BBC creative director Yentob, who is also chair of trustees for Kids Company, was being pursued for an interview by his own Beeb colleagues, and his KC involvement lead to some in-house tensions: he was seen tearing a strip off BBC News’ special correspondent Lucy Manning for her reporting of the matter.

So imagine the harrumph when the BBC journalists turned on Channel 4 News to find Yentob opening his heart about Kids Company to a rival channel. He had pedalled over to Channel 4’s Westminster studios for an interview with its Europe editor Matt Frei, to proclaim accusations against Kids Company were unfair. As he was protesting everyone’s innocence, his beloved Brompton bike was swiped.

According to The Londoner’s source, the reaction within the corridors of the real W1A has been none too charitable. “There has been some sniggering,” says my man in the house. “We thought there was a bit of poetic justice that he couldn’t make the journey back after his treacherous trip over to the other side. These days he is to be seen forlornly riding one of his old bikes. Karma, we thought.”

When we put in a call to the BBC to commiserate we were told, enigmatically, that there would be no comment “for reasons of security”.

Paul Mason’s even-handed publicity push

All publicity is good publicity, right? Such is the sound principle Paul Mason is using to publicise his new book, Postcapitalism, which predicts the death of the economic system thanks to information technology.

The Channel 4 economics editor is re-tweeting every review — irrespective of whether they are favourable. Thus Mason has happily linked followers to the Socialist Worker (“Paul Mason’s enthusiasm about high-tech work sounds like he’s just seen an advert for a job at Google”) and Gillian Tett in the FT insisting there is “nothing new in such Left wing critiques” although Mason’s happens to be “unnervingly dense” and “irritatingly shrill”.

Helpful tweeters are now seeking out bad reviews, ensuring Mason doesn’t miss, for instance, The Telegraph’s Liam Halligan, who calls Postcapitalism “deeply misguided”. Isn’t IT wonderful?

Brits reach for the Stars

There might have been a Brit invasion at the CBS Stars Party in LA last night but at least they weren’t too cliquey. Old Etonians showed they don’t have to stick together as Dominic West posed with his co-star in The Affair Ruth Wilson and Damian Lewis pow-wowed with Matt Le Blanc. Actress Emmy Rossum would be forgiven for feeling well-disposed towards the UK — she is riding high on the success of Shameless, which has been transposed by Showtime from Manchester to Chicago.

Hotel talk is not music to one’s ears

When is a hotel not a hotel? It’s a deep philosophical question.

Alain de Botton was last night propounding the idea of “travel as a really deep area of life” in St Pancras.

Short-term rental agency Airbnb has sponsored the egghead philosopher to write a new foreword for his 2002 Art of Travel. When we ask “What is travel?”, de Botton says, what we’re really asking is “What is the meaning of my life?” The book will be given out free in Airbnb properties around the world, in a bold move to challenge Fifty Shades of Grey’s coveted position as Book Most Left Behind In Hotel Rooms.

A great proponent of mindful travel, de Botton also proclaimed that “If I was running a hotel, the emphasis wouldn’t be on the drinks, it would be on the mind”.

A hotel, Alain? Funny you should mention that. Earlier this year de Botton was at war with Hampstead’s yummy mummies over the proximity to a primary school of his proposed “Philosophers Hotel”, a guesthouse with rooms named after Freud et al.

So how’s the hotel coming on? “There is no hotel!” he interjected before our sentence was out. “That was just a box we had to tick on the planning forms.”

If a hotel is built in Hampstead and no one calls it a hotel...

Diane raises a glass in Soho

Who said champagne socialism was dead? This weekend, The Londoner saw Diane Abbott drinking bubbly at Quo Vadis in Soho. Could she have been celebrating the unexpected leadership bid of her old friend Jeremy Corbyn or is it just her tipple of choice? She was, after all, seen in June ordering a glass of champagne from the House of Commons tearoom. Cheers!

Friends in the spare room

Given our media’s incessant coverage of Corbynmania, you’d be forgiven for not reading what Europeans make of the new Labour star. The Londoner’s eye was caught, however, by a profile written for Italian magazine L’Espresso, by a certain Gian Maria Volpicelli.

The hack seemingly got good access to Corbyn for the piece, and not without reason: he’s a housemate of Corbyn and his wife Laura Alvarez. A quick chat with The Londoner revealed that he amusingly had “no idea who Jeremy was” when he moved in to the Finsbury Park house, and had only found the room through friends.

They do now seem to be getting along well, having discussed “the future of Labour after the defeat”, and Volpicelli revealing Corbyn isn’t teetotal. Sounds good to us.

Correction of the day: on Saturday, The Times said Karol Wojtyla was the “first non-Catholic Pope in 450 years”. Today’s apology? It meant “first non-Italian Pope”. Does the bear, etc.