She looks like a pensioner going shopping ? No, it’s not the latest tart comment from some whippersnapper BBC boss having yet another pop at judge Arlene Phillips as she packs her bags in Strictly Come Dancing.

This time it’s a surprisingly personal attack on the current US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the regime of Kim Jong Il in North Korea.

According to the Pyongyang foreign ministry, Hillary is “unintelligent” “a funny lady” (I don’t think they mean in the ha ha sense), she has been responsible for a “spate of vulgar remarks unbecoming to her position” and “sometimes she looks like a primary school girl and sometimes like a pensioner going shopping.”

Hmmm.

I don’t know what Hillary has said to so rile the Dear Leader and his cohorts — but it’s obviously struck a pretty raw nerve.

Mrs C will at least be pleased to find herself back in the headlines.

From once being a real contender in the race to the White House, she has in recent months slipped quickly and quietly down the rankings of the world’s most powerful.

Even in terms of world’s most influential women she’s no longer numero uno, coming in behind Angela Merkel. And Susan Boyle.

So suddenly finding herself a target of Mr Kim’s derision won’t actually do Hillary any harm in the image stakes.

Looking tough on an axis-of-evil despot always helps to up a politician’s profile. And conveniently this comes at a time when her peace processing credentials have been given a boost with reports that she may be making another comeback. To us.

As a special envoy.

At first glance this sounds good — certainly for Hillary who memorably talked up her role in bringing peace to our land during her race against Mr Obama.

Then you think about it a bit ?

Special envoy? Why do we still need one of those in Northern Ireland?

After all we are consistently being told that the dark days of the past are well behind us, that the new Northern Ireland is upon us and that the world has moved on from us.

In other words, we’re over it.

To be told in these circumstances that you’re getting a special envoy is a bit like emerging from the hospital after prolonged and supposedly successful treatment for a nasty bug — only to be introduced to the specialist nurse who will be in charge of your case from here on in.

And what’s really in it for Hillary? (Forgive my cynicism. She’s a politician. This isn’t charity work.)

Obviously it will do her profile no harm. She may hold a powerful position in the US administration (as did another woman, Condoleezza Rice, before her) but since Obama swept to power she has been totally eclipsed by him — even in terms of foreign policy which is supposed to be her bag.

This has not gone unnoticed in Washington with one writer recently moved to suggest that it‘s time “for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa.”

A tad patronising to all concerned, but it does illustrate why Hillary may feel the need to make her mark.

And Northern Ireland will impress the Irish American vote.

But what on earth is she going to find to do here?

The photo opportunities aren’t what they used to be. The days of Bono punching the air between Trimble and Hume are over.

What constitutes a burning issue these days is the debate about where to site an incinerator. Or that bloody stadium.

Maybe she just plans to be here for the policing and justice denouement?

Whatever. If she does come, let’s hope Kim Jong Il doesn’t get wind of her travel plans.

Just our luck to attract a special envoy who has recently annoyed a deranged despot.

A despot with not only a strange line in verbal insult — but with his finger on the nuclear button.