Diary: Hillary has a mountain to climb

PERHAPS it was primary-related fatigue, but Hillary Clinton managed to offend the sensibilities of one former ally this week.

In an interview with Newsweek magazine, the famously stiff Clinton (Hillary that is, not Bill) was asked to tell a joke.

"Here's a good one," she said. "Helen Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand – her opponents have observed that in the event of a nuclear war, the two things that will emerge from the rubble are the cockroaches and Helen Clark."

Oh dear, Helen Clark is NOT the former prime minister of New Zealand. Although the country is having an election this year, Ms Clark is still very much in the top job. The Dominion Post, a New Zealand daily newspaper, said that Ms Clark found the anecdote "amusing" and suggested that the senator may wish to speak to her husband.

"As a current prime minister, I spoke with him as a former US president in London only two weeks ago," Ms Clark said.

But the nation of four million has been sceptical about Ms Clinton ever since she met the late Sir Edmund Hillary, famously the first mountaineer to climb Everest – and claimed that she had been named after him.

It was later pointed out that Sir Edmund topped Everest and gained global fame six years after Hillary Clinton was born. Oops.

Scots wave flag for St George

THE only Scots MPs visibly to mark St George's Day were members of the SNP.

In the Commons on Wednesday, half the Tory benches looked like they had raided rose bushes, while a few Labour MPs dared to wear pins and badges to mark them out as English. But two Anguses – MacNeil and Robertson – bucked the trend among the Scots. AR wore a St George's Cross badge next to his Saltire, while AM donned a tie with the St George's motif. "More tasteful than usual," said a colleague.

He cried wolf once too often

ALISTAIR Darling displayed his oft-hidden sense of humour when the Lib Dems' Vince Cable likened the Chancellor to Little Red Riding Hood.
Mr Cable said it was a story he had read to his grandchildren of a little girl who "went round trying to be kind and helpful, but was outmanoeuvred and then eaten by a wolf". One MP called a point of order, to say Red Riding Hood had not been eaten, and Mr Darling asked Mr Cable to apologise for "inadvertently misleading his grandchildren".

Plenty more fish in the sea

ALBA is taken to task by Robert Ritchie for not asking for fish-related operas after the item this week.

He has suggestions: "Pilchard Wagner – Herring des Nibelungen, comprising Das Rheingoldfish, Codderdämmerung, Siegfriedfish and Die Valkrill. Wagner also wrote The Frying Dutchman and Parrsifal. Mozart wrote The Magic Troot." Ouch.