IT'S hardly the weightiest story on the agenda but the banning of the BBC biscuits has fought its way to the top of this column's teeming agenda. And, crumbs, if you want something else, you'll have to read the bit at the bottom about Jeffrey Archer.

Now it is traditional on such occasions for newspapers to raise their inky hands in horror at what has been done with our money at the BBC.

Apparently, £210,000 has been spent annually on biscuits for meetings of BBC executives. But no more. Director General Greg Dyke has thrown out the Rich Teas, ditched the digestives and banned the bourbons. The croissants have already been crossed off and now the biscuits are banished too.

This cutting of a last perk has led to the BBC being described as the Banned Biscuit Corporation, presumably as a replacement for Bring Back Croissants. Another possibility would have been the Banned Bourbons Corporation.

Anyway, the DG - the digestive guardian - has withdrawn biscuits as part of cuts in the amount of free refreshment available to staff. Expenses have been slashed, restrictions placed on the use of taxis, and now Mr Dyke has taken the biscuits.

I was surprised to see that my copy of the Radio Times had already been altered to allow for this latest money-saving measure. First, there is the new universal series Space (What's Left In The Biscuit Tin), then EatEnders, No Food And No Drink and The Naked Biscuit Barrel.

As we spend £1.6 billion on biscuits in Britain each year (1999 figures), the BBC's £210,000 is just a crumb on the nation's carpet. So in this sense, it counts for nothing. And yet it matters for the simple reason that, along with the weather, the BBC gives us something to moan about. Having a good old grumble about how the BBC is wasting our money on fattening its staff with fabulous luxuries (or Rich Tea biscuits) is almost a constitutional right.

Stories about parsimony being inflicted on BBC employees are clearly intended to cheer up the rest of us by showing how the other half no longer live. But in any wider sense, the biscuit bill is irrelevant. So why did Greg Dyke, the custard cream crusher, take this step? For the simple reason that he can appear in the papers looking mean. Like any other boss, Mr Dyke wants the world to know that he is being tough. So no more biscuits.

His stricture puts the BBC's managers in that harsh destination, favoured by grumblers everywhere, known as the Real World. When was the last time you got free tea and biscuits at work?

Speaking for myself, it was back in nineteen-o-never.

THE Germans, as ever, have a mouthful for it: schadenfreude. Literally, this translates as harm-joy. But, as of now, this word for savouring the displeasure of others truly means 'feeling chuffed that Jeffrey Archer got his comeuppance'.

The Sunday Times pointed out that Archer was now being held at Her Majesty's Pleasure - and everybody else's, which seems to capture the popular mood.

Normally, I would feel uneasy about joining in the gloating. But there is something about the Lord Of The Lies that deflects all sympathy.

After reading many column inches about Jeffrey Archer's trial and conviction for perjury, after digesting all the asides about his glacial wife Mary, it was easy to wonder how the novel-writing Tory got away with it for so long. One answer lies in the willingness of the Tories to tolerate and even encourage Archer's grandiloquent ways. Another answer can be found in this country's libel laws, which seem designed to protect the rich, wealthy and litigious.

And a final thought is this: isn't it possible that Archer has a psychological flaw which means that he actually believes every tricky word he utters?