So is it just a massive PR exercise or is it true?

Top Gear Presenters had originally claimed that 'The Prig's' true identity would be a 'staggering surprise' to viewers. However a BBC spokewoman claimed later, "We never reveal who or what 'The Prig' is.

Either way at the start of a new series last night, viewers were amazed when 'The Prig' removed his 'helmet' and revealed the face of Jeremy Clarkson.

A 'fan' of Mr Clarkson, writing on the Digital Spy forum yesterday claimed that people would be very gullible to believe that it was him.

But another wrote, "Does anybody give a damn?"

There is growing concern over the sharp rise in defaults in the property news sector.

The property editor of a respected broadsheet said today, "What we are seeing is a worrying trend towards second rate, poorly researched articles about property prices. We are concerned that a lot of journalists are basing their claims on heresay and speculation and are receiving dangerous levels of credit, thus creating an excess of low-grade, unsustainable output..."

The New Speaker will today announce that Parliament Hill Fields will be renamed New Parliament Hill Fields.

Angry Hampstead residents have deplored the change. "We have been walking our dogmas over here for centuries and we never thought we'd live to see such a cynical rebranding exercise."

On Start the Week today Andrew Marr will be asking whether the programme, Start the Week really is a showcase for highbrow culture or whether it is simply an opportunity for a number of writers, academics, actors and television makers to puff their new books / films / drama documentaries (delete as appropriate).

Joining him will be Libby Purves whose Wednesday programme Mid the Week is often accused of being a middle-brow version of Start the Week, Alain de Botton, whose new book Don't Bottle it, Kant examines the commercial applications of Transcendental Idealism; David Hare, whose new play, Hare of the Dog dramatises the hangover that post Blairite Britain is left nursing; and Lord Braggart, who asks whether he can have his old job back.