To spend your life in a waiting room is the worst mistake you could make you have to get out there and live

To spend your life in a waiting room is the worst mistake you could make, you have to get out there and live it. I've never felt like I was waiting for someone to come along, I've just got on with living. Don't think of yourself as a victim and use words like "abandoned". Being alone is a passport to self indulgence, don't let it become an excuse for self pity. So I'd say let your hair down, take risks, expand your horizons, go on a Skyros holistic holiday What a great age to be fancy free. It's only a matter of time before you meet someone and have to compromise again.Mariella Frostrup is in 'The Vagina Monologues' at the New Ambassadors, West Street, London WC2 (020-7369 1761) until 29 July.

She is also appearing in 'The Nation's Favourite Prom', BBC1, 5 August at 6.30pm. First Greg Dyke, the BBC's director general, declared war on the croissant Now he wants to ban the biscuit. First Greg Dyke, the BBC's director general, declared war on the croissant. Now he wants to ban the biscuit. A new round of money- saving measures at the Corporation is likely to eat into the £210,000 annual biscuit bill run up by senior and middle management, according to an internal BBC memo leaked yesterday. Although the BBC refused to discuss the memo, the bill is understood to be part of an annual £3.3m spent on internal catering and hospitality, with at least £350,000 going on tea and coffee for staff out of meetings.

Mr Dyke hopes to cut that by £1.5m."The BBC would not normally expect to provide hospitality services to its staff," the memo said, "except when the host is entertaining a person/organisation from outside the BBC." It also proposes banning kettles in favour of vending machines. This would have the extra benefits of "eliminating the potential safety and electrical-loading issues and reducing cleaning costs".Mr Dyke wants 85 per cent of the BBC's income to be spent on programming within three years. He has pledged to find £1.1bn in savings and extra commercial income in the next five years and has already raised the proportion of the budget spent on programming from 76 to 81 per cent.The latest move reflects Mr Dyke's determination to attack the "three Cs" – "consultants, cars and croissants". His campaign has so far freed up an estimated £5m to be ploughed into programming.

The £80,000 annual alcohol bill is also under threat, although "rewarding success" would be permissible.. Can you believe that the Inland Revenue is getting itself rebranded? In January it finally ditched the stolid, pinstriped, Clement-Attlee-moustached cartoon figure of Hector the Tax Inspector, who for five years had urged us to be sensible and fill in our self-assessment forms. Then it called in M&C Saatchi to sort out the ad campaign, and a design consultancy, Corporate Edge, to work on the branding. Can you believe that the Inland Revenue is getting itself rebranded? In January it finally ditched the stolid, pinstriped, Clement-Attlee-moustached cartoon figure of Hector the Tax Inspector, who for five years had urged us to be sensible and fill in our self-assessment forms. Then it called in M&C Saatchi to sort out the ad campaign, and a design consultancy, Corporate Edge, to work on the branding. Now, the IR's marketing director, Ian Schoolar, has announced a whole new "communications strategy" that will emphasise how the Revenue isn't there just for the Nasty Things in Life – that its operators occasionally dish out money as "tax credits", as well as extracting it with menaces. They wish to emphasise the more, shall we say, positive side of an organisation generally held to be a confederation of heartless and relentless, moralising bloodsuckers.One thing they'll be turning their attention to is the name. "Inland Revenue" – how did the British tax collection agency ever get called that? "Inland" means something that's not on the coast, and usually refers to waterways.

Revenue derives from the French word "revenirX", to come back, but means simply "income" Neither word has anything to do with tax. But then, "tax collectors" as a breed – as a professional brand name – never had a good press, either. Even in Jesus's day, they were known as pariahs.So the tax people will need a new name – a nice, cosy, user-friendly handle. One serious branding expert, Peter Venables suggested Communitax, to emphasise that paying tax was, in fact, a benefit to the community rather than simply daylight robbery. But is it a sufficiently jolly name? What about "EasiTax"? "Taxes R Us"? "Tax'n'Go"? "I Can't Believe It's Not Deductible"?Image-burnishing may seem the last refuge of a desperate company, but it's all the rage now among the major corporations.