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I got back to work yesterday and didn't even have time to start deleting my e-mails, as I had a day's filming lined up for a piece about devolution for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s internal College of Journalism. So not much craic there, then....

Well, not until I ran into the SDLP's PJ Bradley in the Stormont Great Hall in the company of what Father Ted would have called a bunch of "lovely girls". Not the Craggy Island contestants but the international finalists for this year's "Maiden of the Mournes" competition. They included Natasha Genuk from the Russian city of Kirovsk.

PJ told me that Natasha had made a 36 hour train journey enroute to the competition before being refused travel documents to leave Russia for the Mournes. Her interpreter blamed the new cold war between London and Moscow after the murder of Alexander Litvinenko for the snag.

Not to be outdone, PJ pulled strings in the shape of his contact with the UK's Newry born Vatican ambassador, Francis Campbell, who helped smooth the Maiden's path to the Mournes.

So not a case of divine intervention but perhaps one of Vatican intervention. I'm sure Father Ted would have been proud of PJ.

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