The BBC news website was down for over an hour at lunchtime today due to an apparent technical glitch with its servers.

A spokeswoman for the British broadcasting behemoth told El Reg that the Beeb had been "experiencing technical difficulties", and it hoped to bring the service back online as soon as possible.

Anyone attempting to access the site to get their daily fix of anaemic news, while munching a sandwich at their desk during lunch, was greeted with a status page that read "this page isn't redirecting properly".

The site has come back to life, but it is still carrying an error message about "processing this directive".

In recent months the BBC's embattled board members have been struggling with a flurry of high profile cock-ups at the broadcasting institution. It recently had to apologise over false competition phone-ins on a number of its programmes, including kids' favourite Blue Peter.

It also had a run-in with the Royal household after a documentary falsely suggested that Queen Liz was a miserable old woman. Who'd have thought it.

At the time of writing the site had been down for over an hour despite one brief reappearance. ®

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