The drivers and teams changed, but for as long as most people can remember, Murray Walker-fast, furious and very flappable-was the voice of Formula One. In Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken, the much-loved commentator reflects on a unique career with all the style and enthusiasm that he brought to his broadcasts Whether he's talking about his first experiences of motor sport as a competitor, his time in the army, his career in advertising, his transition from media part-timer to media legend or his retirement from frontline F1 broadcasts at the end of the 2001 season, Walker has a fascinating story to tell-and he retains his journalist's sense of what the people really want to know. He shares his face-to-face knowledge of motor sport gods like Fangio and Enzo Ferrari and recalls his less daunting encounters with British luminaries such as Nigel Mansell, the Hills, Jackie Stewart and James Hunt, including the occasion when the latter pair sniped at each other in a memorable commentary box match-up. There's also a good selection of the best Murrayisms, such as "And the battle is well and truly on if it wasn't before, and it certainly was!", "There's nothing wrong with the car except it's on fire!" and "I just stopped my startwatch". Tremendous admiration for the skills and courage of the stars of his sport epitomises the Walker approach. This is no doubt fuelled by his own slightly fraught attempt at piloting a Formula One car in 1983 and by his experience at less pedestrian speed 15 years later when he was strapped into a two-seater McLaren behind co-commentator Martin Brundle. But he also gently settles one or two scores along the way. Elsewhere he reflects on the itinerary of affection so peculiar to the life of a British celebrity-This Is Your Life, Desert Island Discs and an OBE-and on his private life, his hugely influential parents, his late and happy marriage and what he hopes retirement will bring. It's a tribute to the man's singular voice that so much of the tone of this book is unmistakably Murray. It's not high-octane blunder-speckled race vintage, but the scripted television style he has made his own, a more measured bombast that makes this generously illustrated tome very easy to like. [+]

Greg Dyke is the former Director-General of the BBC who was forced to leave his post following a battle with the government over reporter Andrew Gilligan's claim that the government had knowingly `sexed up' the intelligence relating to Iraq's military capabilities. Inside Story makes no attempt at live and let live, which is a bonus for readers. It was no secret that Dyke felt he had been unjustly treated. He himself opens the book by saying that he has always found autobiographies `ridiculously self-serving' and not to be taken too seriously. So why would anyone be interested on more words spent on the `Gilligan affair' and why should we be interested in his life? The answer to each of these questions is that, firstly, the real story about the Gilligan affair, the role of Alistair Campbell, the BBC governors, John Scarlett, the Hutton enquiry and Tony Blair is in the fine details. Second, if you are at all interested in television then Dyke's story is a fascinating one. Before becoming Director-General of the BBC in 2000 he was Editor-in-Chief at TV-am, Director of Programmes at TVS and LWT, the Director of Channel Four Television and Chairman and Chief Executive of Pearson Television. Discovering how the world of broadcasting works, how it has changed and developed over the years, seeing how and why television shows succeed or fail and hearing of the personalities, friendships, rivalries and political in-fighting from someone who sat at the top of the tree is informative and highly entertaining in itself. Dyke devotes a whole chapter to a painstaking and ultimately damning analysis of the Hutton Report, particularly Hutton's ruling that it was not part of his remit to consider to what sort of weapons of mass destruction the Government's dossier on Iraq actually referred. The BBC itself, or at least the governors, are named and shamed for their cowardice in the face of political bullying and, in the short concluding chapter, Dyke persuasively argues that the structure of the BBC should be reformed and the governors disbanded on the grounds that they are, literally, a group of amateurs who belong to a bygone age. [+]