Jonathan Ross spends £40,000 on a bath

From the department of bad timing: The latest edition of the glossy giveaway magazine Hampstead Life reveals that Jonathan Ross (pictured), a local, has splashed out £100,000 on redesigning his bathroom, with its star feature being a £40,000 made-to-measure egg-shaped bath, hewn from single rock of marble. As the mag's editorial says, "we all need a special place to pamper ourselves and escape from life's stresses".

Apparently, Ross has spent more on tarting up his bathroom than on any other room in his recently remodelled house, choosing a handmade rose motif mosaic for the walls. "Celebrities are used to seeing the finest things in life - but a bath from a stunning piece of stone never fails to impress," says Carlos Zanarotti, managing director of Limestone Gallery, a bathroom supplier. Not to mention the perfect view of your career going down the plughole.

Meanwhile, Ross isn’t the only BBC presenter who can expect a severe pay cut when his contract next comes up for review. When Director-General Mark Thompson met the BBC Trust last week to discuss the Ross/Brand fiasco he was warned about the "widespread public concern" about high-earning presenters. Among those on lucrative contracts, who can expect a renegotiation downwards, are Graham Norton (£2.5 million a year), Newsnight anchor Jeremy Paxman (£1million a year) and Antiques Roadshow and news presenter Fiona Bruce (£800,000 a year). Politicians are also questioning the need to pay managers quite so much. Thompson's salary is £816,000, while Jana Bennett, the director of BBC Vision, earns £536,000 and Mark Byford, the deputy director-general, earns £513,000.