What a joy to welcome Dara O Briain back into the stand-up fold. The Irishman has been away from live performance for five years because he has been busy hosting the panel show Mock the Week and mucking about in boats on various Three Men... series, both on the BBC, and writing a travelogue, Tickling the English, which is about to be released in paperback. His hunger to interact with an audience is almost palpable as he strides to the front of the stage.

“The Mob made Vegas,” says its mayor since 1999, Oscar B Goodman. And he should know, having defended plenty of mobsters in his time when - he and I are equally quick to point out - he was a defence attorney and didn’t know what they were really up to. What a trick presenter Alan Yentob missed here; he could have simply chatted to this wrinkly, wily New Yorker transplanted to the Nevada desert and The Lure of Las Vegas (shown as part of BBC Two’s Vegas night), produced and directed by Janet Lee, would have been a whole lot more entertaining.

Last night's BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards ceremony was a surprisingly glitzy affair at the Brewery, near the Barbican in London. Winners included Bellowhead for Best Live Act and Lau for Best Group. Steve Knightley's recession sing-a-along "Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed" won Best Original Song, Cara Dillon won the best album for Hill of Thieves and Martin Simpson won the Best Traditional Song for his version of "Sir Patrick Spens". Sam Carter won the Horizon Award for up-and-coming artist, but one consensus of the evening was that 26 year-old Jackie Oates, who had three nominations in the Folk Awards – for best singer, album and traditional song - is on the verge of becoming a major folk star.

Last night's BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards ceremony was a surprisingly glitzy affair at the Brewery, near the Barbican in London. Winners included Bellowhead for Best Live Act and Lau for Best Group. Steve Knightley's recession sing-a-along "Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed" won Best Original Song, Cara Dillon won the best album for Hill of Thieves and Martin Simpson won the Best Traditional Song for his version of "Sir Patrick Spens". Sam Carter won the Horizon Award for up-and-coming artist, but one consensus of the evening was that 26 year-old Jackie Oates, who had three nominations in the Folk Awards – for best singer, album and traditional song - is on the verge of becoming a major folk star.

In his forbidding dark suit and heavy-framed sunglasses, declaiming his artfully wrought texts to camera with the ominous certainty of a hanging judge, Jonathan Meades is one of TV’s most unmistakable presences. While it may be lamentable that we don’t see him more often, it’s miraculous, in the current climate, that we see him at all.

The BBC launched today its own popular opera talent hunt (details below), while ITV's Popstar to Operastar has suffered heavy critical attack and disappointing public ratings. The BBC's Commissioning Editor for Music and Events, Jan Younghusband, added a private comment to our review of the ITV show here

It always used to be said that boarding school prepares you for every hardship. Whether that includes prison in one of the most impenitent dictatorships in Africa is not a question that was put to Simon Mann in last night’s edition of Storyville. Mann, still incarcerated when the BBC caught up with him, was awaiting a pardon from President Teodoro Obiang, the very potentate he had attempted to topple five years earlier. Never mind that they like to keep a battery and electrodes handy for interrogations, Mann wasn’t about to slag off the great man’s excellent hospitality.

Immediately following the death of radio DJ John Peel in 2004, it became clear very rapidly that there was no obvious heir apparent. With so many specialist shows on the station, nobody ran the full gamut of leftfield and underground music in the same way that Peel had. But if anyone comes close, it is Mary Anne Hobbs.

I have a little story concerning correct usage. Several years ago, when BBC Three had yet to overtake Channel 5 and VH1 as perhaps the world’s leading purveyor of documentaries about breasts and suchlike, I received a press release in the post. The young channel’s fresh approach to quality control on screen had percolated through to its publicity department. The release contained a motorway pile-up of typos.