If you run the BBC, you'll never sleep a wink Second, don't expect to get rich. The advertisement doesn't mention money, but you can't expect the megabucks so many chief executives receive these days. You can't blame Mark Thompson for earning, by the end, £671,000 a year - that's what the then BBC chairman, Michael Grade, was prepared to pay him when he was lured away from Channel 4 to take on the job. Fourth, the advertisement should say it is dangerous for the D-G to take holidays. In my four years at the BBC, whenever I went on holiday a new crisis emerged. I was in Turkey when Rod Liddle was forced to resign as editor of Today; I was in Australia when there was a bust-up about what a BBC website had said in a fictitious story about the Queen Mother dying; I was away skiing in France when the Queen Mother actually died and the colour of Peter Sissons's tie became a big story; and I was in the west of Ireland when the BBC report on weapons of mass destruction was first broadcast - and of course that was the story that led to my demise at the corporation. I thought it was me, but Mark Thompson has suffered the same problem. He was on holiday when the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand story took off, which was by far the biggest crisis of his time at the BBC. In the end he had to fly home early from his vacation to quieten the whole thing down. So the lesson is: don't take holidays. And if you really need one, stay in the UK. Lastly, you must have an optimistic personality and have every confidence in your own abilities, because you will certainly find some people, even on your own board, who didn't want you in the first place. They will spend several years trying to undermine you. In my case, the libel laws prevent me from naming names, but a would-be Director-General needs to recognise that very few D-Gs ever left of their own accord. Remember, even the founder of the BBC, Lord Reith, was kicked out by the governors. But the governors are your supporters compared with most of the politicians you are likely to deal with, particularly those in government. Governments always get into power with an ambivalent attitude to the BBC, but end up disliking it intensely, largely because the longer politicians are in power, the more paranoid they become about it. Ministers say they recognise that the BBC belongs to the people, not the government of the day. Most of them don't really believe it. What this means for the Director-General is that even if most of your decisions are right and you are an incredibly successful D-G - and I make no claims to either - there will always be someone on a parliamentary select committee or a minister in the relevant department who will try to exploit what you got wrong. It is why top jobs in the public sector are increasingly unattractive. So, given all this, why should anyone apply? The answer is that it is a great job in a great organisation full of talented and enthusiastic people who believe in what it stands for. How many chief executives can claim that about their organisation?