MAD ABOUT THE BOY

Listening to BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend yesterday, one might have been forgiven for thinking that not just the "First Lady" of Northern Ireland, Iris Robinson, but British broadcasting herself had gone "Mad About The Boy". I refer, of course, to Mrs Robinson's affair with her "teenage lover" and the impact of this upon Stormont politics.

However, whilst Mrs Robinson, in the words of Dinah Washington's great song, has, apparently, be driven"quite insane" by the episode, I do wonder what would have happened if the affair had taken place in the Home of Popery ?

For events in Northern Ireland rather remind me of the recent antics of Italian President Berlusconi. Indeed, I'm wondering whether Mrs Robinson should consider conversion to Catholic faith, which is, I believe, more forgiving. She will in time, I suspect, be regarded as a kind of "New Madonna" who has liberated middle-aged female sexuality for the world media.