Ross leaving the BBC

Jonathan Ross has announced he's leaving the Beeb later this year.

"Although I have had a wonderful time working for the BBC, and am very proud of the shows I have made while there, over the last two weeks I have decided not to re-negotiate when my current contract comes to an end," he said.

Couple of thoughts.
1. He's made the decision during the holidays - I remember once hearing that a high proportion of clergy who took sabbaticals then quit their jobs during the year after they returned. There's nothing like a time of reflection for adjusting your sights.

2. Ross was one of the crowd of 'kidults' in the History of Now, a BBC analysis of the noughties, which looked a couple of nights ago at the effect on the generations. It trod just the right line between being trendy and being informative, and Steve Tilley has some excellent thoughts on it. Along with Blair, Botox, Top Gear, and pretty much everyone else you could think of, the noughties gave us a generation of adults who wanted to carry on behaving like children (yes, I went sledging yesterday too). This creates a real dilemma - how are you going to be a rebellious teenager when the Prime Minister likes the Artic Monkeys? Or when the prime symbol of your rebellion is immediately bled dry by the market - no sooner had the phrase 'Hoodie' been coined after a shop in the Bluewater centre banned hoods, than other stores in the same complex saw sales of the same garment rocket.

So I guess Ross is 'iconic', in that he stands for a generation who've tried to behave young whilst growing middle aged - Robbie Williams would be another example. This seems to be more of a man thing (we used to call it immaturity), whilst women have gone more for cosmetics (hadn't realised that Botox was actually short for Toxic Botulism). No doubt he will be back.