God bless you please Mrs Robinson

First it's a leadership challenge to Gordon Brown, albeit a bungled one by Geoff 'Buff' Hoon and whatshername. And then a great piece of political sleaze and scandal comes our way via Stormont but still the media can't quite shake off the snow as the top story par excellence.

The lack of inspiration in which the news desks are currently mired - or more accurately snowbound - is evidenced by the lack of creativity around headlines reporting the Stormont scandal which should have been manna from headline heaven for sub editors who've spent the last 72 hours thinking of new ways to say 'snow'.

"So what have you got for me?"

"60 year-old first minister's wife, had an affair with a teenaged lad and gave him some undisclosed loans."

"Like it, what's her name?"

"Iris Robinson."

"Mrs Robinson?"

"Yeah."

"Any headlines spring to mind?"

"Nah, we'll probably just go with Iris Robinson's lover named as Kirk McCambley or Iris Robinson's admission of a sexual affair 'prompted by BBC inquiry'."

Comments

[Simon]

It's a little secret just the Robinsons' affair / Most of all you got to hide it from the kids (with the exception of the 19-year-old-lad involved...)

[Garfunkel]

Every way you look at it they lose

[Graeme]

Attitude magazine are after Kirk as a cover boy (pants probably optional). I SO wish he does - it would be the icing on the cake!

[DiMaggio]

hide it in a cafe on a Sunday afternoon...