BBC Boss Just About Keeping Body And Soul Together After Pay Cut Of 8½ Times The National Average Wage

This is how much poor Mark Thompson has lost. Happy now?

Friends say BBC Director General Mark Thompson is managing to bump along somehow, despite seeing his annual salary plummet from £838,000 to a meagre £615,000.

“So far, Mark’s kept his figure by shopping at Iceland and making himself lots of burgers,” said a neighbour. “But with food prices rising the way they are, pretty soon he’s going to be needing some string for his Armani trousers.”

Meanwhile, fears are growing for the BBC’s increasingly impecunious roster of talent, with Stephen Fry looking disturbingly pinched around the cheeks - while close friends are concerned that the strain of making ends meet may be affecting the balance of Jeremy Clarkson’s mind, after he made an uncharacteristically fair and balanced assessment of Salford.

“I don’t care if Mark Thompson did apologise,” said little Richard Hammond. “His apologies are automatically generated by computer nowadays, whenever the big man opens his mouth.”

Meanwhile, wildly optimistic Dr Who fans innocently asked if the BBC’s payroll savings meant there might now be more than the meagre four threadbare outings for their hero in 2012 - which are rumoured to feature a cost-effective Sherlock Holmes crossover episode, a fight with a hastily stitched-together Ood/Cyberman mutant, a desperate hunt for enough parts to assemble a complete Dalek and the convenient appearance of Doctor’s strangely hitherto-unmentioned identical twin, the Dentist.