be a little arduous. fun for all of the family, but only the bravest dare look down. tim allman, bbc news. goonhilly earth station in cornwall, set up almost 60 years ago — it's the oldest commercial satellite station in the world. and now plans have been announced to put it firmly on the space map, by turning it into a space communication base to track missions to the moon and mars. jon kay reports from the lizard peninsular. newsreel: upon the fantastic dish aerial of cornwall‘s goonhilly downs... since the 1960s, goonhilly has been making history, like receiving the first pictures from the telstar satellite. ..goonhilly marks an impressive step forward in international communication. and now this earth station will be the first place in britain which can direct missions into deep space. this is goonhilly dish number six. this antenna is 32 metres in diameter... also known as merlin. it rotates 360 degrees... this one was built in the 1980s. it beamed live aid around the world, but now an £8 million upgrade means

it will be able to do much, much more. we will be able to send commands to spacecraft around the moon and around mars, and also receive data coming back from the moon and mars. so in 2020 when a mars rover is on the surface of mars and detects life, we could send that data back and be received by this antenna here. direct to cornwall? direct to cornwall. and cornwall‘s ambitions to join the space race don't end here. newquay airport. today passengers were flying to dublin and manchester, but soon it could be much further. because this county, which relies on tourism, wants to take things to the next level. the airport is bidding to turn its two—mile runway into a commercial spaceport, hoping for a share of

a multi—billion pound industry. the millions for goonhilly are coming from the local enterprise partnership, and some ask if it's the best use of public money right now. one local baker delivering space—themed pasties today believes this poor county needs to aim for the stars. the perception of cornwall from a lot of people is that it's a beautiful place, which it undoubtedly is, but we also need a thriving future for people. it would be great to see better high—tech jobs being created in a very much a long—term project. more customers for you. that would be nice. pasties and a giant dish. the new cornwall. john kay, bbc news, goonhilly. the headlines on bbc news: haiti suspends oxfam operations, as it investigates claims of sexual misconduct by charity aid workers

in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. it comes as unicef‘s deputy director justin forsyth resigns — saying he doesn't want coverage of his past to damage his current work. russia says there is no agreement in the un security council on a humanitarian ceasefire in syria. the un says conditions in the besieged enclave of eastern ghouta, are appalling. and police say a letter containing a substance sent to st james‘s palace is being treated as a racist hate crime, it's reported the letter was addressed to prince harry and meghan markle. now its time for meet the author. now it's time for meet the author. this week on meet the author, jim naughtie talks with the arts administrator, journalist and author john tusa about his new book making a noise — getting it right, getting it wrong, in life, the arts and broadcasting. john tusa has been broadcast, bbc executive, a tsar in performance and in academia, but now he's brought it all together in a memoir called making a noise. from his own experience, getting it right and getting it wrong, as he puts it. and from the people he has worked with. it's more than a personal portrait, it's a picture, drawn from an intriguing angle of what kind of country we live in today. welcome. it is a story of modern britain,

isn't it, seen through some of our institutions in the arts? and of course, here in the bbc. yes, i think it is, and i think that what it is is trying to understand what makes major organisations work. this tussle over the last 20, 30 years as to how efficient organisations have to be. the answer is, yes, of course, everybody has learned about how to run an organisation properly, but the interesting question... and i hope it comes out in the book. ..is how do you combine being efficient with being true to what the organisation is about? the values. and we always believed, and i think the bbc used to, it certainly did, the world service did, that values and efficiency can go hand in hand and i think that organisations... and i'm not talking about the bbc now.

..but organisations which lose touch with their values do get stuck. and i think this is a continuing tussle in britain today. let's just take your story through to remind people. you were a journalist for the bbc for a very long time, and you were there particularly on the screen, as many people will remember, at the very beginning of newsnight, which was a difficult birth, which you described in great detail there. and then of course you got the job you really wanted and didn't expect to get, which was running bbc world service. now, where do you think it sits in the panoply of, you know, broadcasting in the modern era? well, there is absolutely no question that the trust that audiences had for the bbc world service was higher than for anybody else, and the voice of america and all that would tend to get larger audiences and that was probably because they were more propagandistic, and people liked that. that was fine, but audiences knew what they were doing.

but the trust level of the bbc world service was greater than for any other broadcaster, and when communism fell, almost all the world's broadcasters, certainly the ones in the communist block, just collapsed. and even the voice of america and liberty and radio free europe lost their purpose because there was no longer a propaganda war to fight. but bbc world service continued, because what we always said was, "we are giving information to audiences," and that was true then and i think it is true now. there's an interesting other side of the coin that you pointed in your story that when government ministers said, "well, why can't all the bbc be like the world service?" the source code for the fact that they didn't like the bbc, because it was saying things about government that they didn't approve of. this was mortifying, and also a lot of government ministers, bbc governors, when they were giving the board of management at the bbc

a particularly hard time, and then saying, "but of course, the world service is marvellous," and i hated that. the world service being held up as some sort of goody—goody bit of the bbc when frankly a lot of the governors were attacking the bbc quite, quite unfairly and unreasonably. well, this is something... you look into this in excruciating detail, but there are passages in the book where you talk about the extent which there was in your view a great lack of affection, almost hatred in some cases, for the institution which they were supposed to be guardians of as governors of the bbc. time and again, governors of the nonexecutive body would say things like, "well, of course the bbc won't exist in six or seven years‘ time." now, as and informed comment or a judgment, you say, "well, maybe yes, maybe no." it has been proven very, very wrong. they would say that. but then the other times, when the remarks they

would make really indicated they were completely out of sympathy with what the bbc stood for. and to have people in the nonexecutive body, the board of governors, who really disliked what the bbc stood for, and this is one of the reasons why the relationships between the board of governors and the executive board fell apart in those years, 1992, 1993 under the chairman. you know, you've got to respect an organisation if you are responsible for it. your subsequent career, of course, took you into the arts. you ran the barbican centre. you had a great commitment to the arts. you then worked in academia in the same university of the arts. when you moved from the bbc with all its difficulties and always bureaucratic problems, trying to deal with artists and artist management, and produce a programme that he plays like the barbican with all its different aspects, what was the difference? i always thought there was a lot in common, because both

artists in their totality... a lot of hysterical people. and journalists in their totality. we all do things which they believe in. they are on the whole not very well paid, and they are acutely aware of the need to relate to the audience, to the public. so from that point of view, i felt completely at home with artists as with journalists. putting together the artistic programme was something that i didn't do. i tried to create the atmosphere within which an organisation could exist, and then the artistic field under graham sheffield did that, but you did need both. your own story is a fascinating one. born in czechoslovakia. although you save one of your regrets in the book is that you never learned to speak czech. you might have been delivered by tom stoppard's father. you may have been. yes. there were two doctors on duty that night and one

of them was his father. that's right. did you find when you came and of course were educated wholly in this country and so on that you still had the perspective of an outsider simply by the accident of birth? i think i always have done. i mean, iam british. i'm not english. i can't be english. i think british intellect is a wonderful, inclusive identity. part of that britishness, which i think many people will feel, is the ability to use your origin — in my case, czechoslovakia — as a way of looking at life in a slightly, slightly different way. and, you know, bits of czechness crop up, appear here and there. ifeel a huge identity with, for example, the great national hero, the good soldier, svej k. svejk survives dictatorship and autocracy by pretending to be an idiot, and saying, "i am an idiot." and there's something about that defensive strategy which i find very, very attractive. you say you're british, do you feel european? i feel intensely european. one of the reasons that i'm now applying for my czech passport, which of course i never

have, but i never abandoned czech citizenship, is that i do not want to be cut out from europe if, would say, the worst comes to the worst, and britain leaves the eu. i am intensely european. i travel there a great deal. european culture in all its aspects... and it's notjust my culture. it's britain's culture, for heaven's sake. you know, britain is part of europe. and i don't want to be cut off from that in any way at all. it's a glory and a privilege. and yet, the picture of the country that you portray here is, for all its difficulties, for example here at the bbc or in funding for the arts, which you are intensely passionate about, it's nonetheless a rich, diverse and culturally alive place, isn't it, which you continue to celebrate? you are not someone who is depressed. no, i refuse to be depressed. and i don't think...

i think there are many reasons for not being depressed, and the sheer intense variety of the culture of this country. the diversity of this country. i mean, the way that london hasjust accommodated people, nations, whole wodges of other nations‘ and london is the rich. you know, in history, all the evidence is that city nations which take in outsiders, strangers, they are the ones that flourish. they flourish economically, creatively and intellectually. there is a lesson there for us. john tusa, author of making a noise, thank you very much. thank you,jim. good evening. it is a quiet weather story at the moment, but the talking point will be

the feel of things as we head towards the weekend and beyond. this evening, and overnight, we keep some clear skies. the exception being northern ireland and western fringes of scotland. here, that blanket of cloud will prevent temperatures from falling too low. elsewhere, the blue tones terms denoting temperatures falling below freezing. so, a cold start to friday morning. there will be some frost around as well. we will see a little bit of clouds filling in off north sea coasts and we keep some cloud across western scotland and northern ireland. but, sandwiched in between the two, blue skies and sunshine. but still not particularly warm out there, five or 7 degrees. a greater chance, perhaps, of seeing more sunshine. 0n the exposed north sea coasts from the start of the weekend, it will be breezy. that is just going to exacerbate that cold feel and keep some cloud across western scotland and northern ireland. colder still as we move out of the weekend into the early half of next week. the air comes all the way from siberia. hello, welcome to outside source. the us gun lobby launches an angry

defence of weapons ownership amid calls for stricter controls following the florida shooting. to stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun. amid more terrible suffering in eastern ghouta, the un is trying to agree a humanitarian ceasefire. translation: shame on you! this is just a little boy who wants freedom. why are you doing this? i don't know what to do. theresa may is meeting at her country residence,