"Do you know where Reyjavik is?" "No." "Pity. I hoped you might. No one in the office does."

Gawker has it about that former New Yorker and Talk editor Tina Brown has conned another buzillionaire, Barry Diller, into letting her waste his money on a publication. This time it's an internet rag called The Beast, after the rag in Evelyn Waugh's 1937 farce, Scoop.

Given Brown's spending propensities, we can expect reality to imitate fiction, and hope that a trick cyclist will catch her attention and be hired on as the sports page editor for five years at an ungodly per annum.

One assumes this is also another attempt- like the dreadful remake of Brideshead Revisited- by the Waugh heirs to monetize the old boy's literary legacy in lieu of writing something themselves.