M-Mac and Bobba: Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness have fairway to go to show they're team players

Are we not being a wee bit harsh on Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, castigated as two under par for their decision to take themselves off to the golf at at time when Stormont is in the throes of multi-million pound crisis?

Consider after all the sterling and selfless work this pair have already undertaken on our behalf. Five-star fact-finding and trade missioning in Rio, Shanghai, Washington, Texas and Hollywood (Tinseltown) when the pair of them would have been much happier back at home watching the telly and mulling over what jibe to fire next at each other in the debate about budgeting.

Give the guys a break. Or several. As OFMDFM might say.

And it's not even as if they were at the golf for ... well ... the golf. Or the schmoozing.

They were there to "engage with business representatives".

Engaging with business representatives! Why didn't we think of that?!

Possibly there is also inward investment to attract as they always seems to be at these five-star/VIP thingies. Jobs! How can we appear churlish when the pair of them are out there sourcing jobs for us. Over canapes ...

What jobs though? Is caddying set to become a boom industry?

The thing that fascinates me is how, when the twin pillars of our OFMDFM take themselves off on jollies such as these, they always put such a brave face on it. Looking at the pictures you'd almost think they were enjoying themselves.

And they seem to get on so well together, too. Especially when back here the atmosphere between the pair appears to be even more glacial than a Phil Mickelson/Tom Watson Press conference.

Doubtless this show of bonhomie will be enough to fool potential investors, savvy business people who are unlikely to check out what is really happening chez Stormont, to note the Horlicks this pair have made of that, to see current jobs and services endangered and to wonder.

Do they truly take us all for fools, the two of them?

Then again, perhaps instead of griping we could be on the lookout for even more glamorous bashes to send them to. It's not as though they are a whole lot of use to anybody here.

At a push we could maybe farm them out as a golf commentary duo.

M-Mac and Bubba Robinson.

M-Mac: "Frankly I believe that what you are seeing here is a failure of leadership with this team."

Bubba: "Agreed. They have the strategic vision of a lemming."

M-Mac: "If they are really serious they need to refocus and step up to the plate. They are chipping away at the process ..."

Bubba: "Puffed up with their own importance ..."

Which phrase brings us back neatly to OFMDFM. And DUP/Sinn Fein, two parties which boast of their working-class roots, but seem not to notice the gulf (golf?) between themselves and their separate electorates.

Which aspect of this last-minute-announced jaunt do they feel their own voters will not sneer at? Jobs, real jobs are on the line here. Vital services are being hit. Stormont totters from crisis to crisis.

And meanwhile our First Ministers take themselves off to watch a ball go down a hole as country goes down the tubes. It's politicking in the finest traditions of Nero.

Arrogantly they've refused to heed public disquiet about their previous five-star fact-finding. They're out of touch as much as they're out of the country.

What next?

Robbo and McGuinness at the polo?

The Chukka Brothers?

Paying for tax disc just plain car-azy

So farewell then, the car tax disc which shuffles of this mortal windscreen as of today. Drivers no longer have to display the disc. Although, needless to say, we still have to pay the tax.

Will the perforated paper disappear completely overnight? Possibly from the windscreens of tidier cars. The rest may linger until the next big interior dung out.

Before you ditch the thing, though, a word of caution. One collector has a specimen said to be valued at £100-plus. Who is happy to pay that sort of money for an out-of-date car tax disc? Bad enough having to fork out for the thing when it was actually valid.

Dee shows Tories White way to go

White Dee speaks at Tory party conference event! At first glance this looks like politics taking just another gimmicky dip into popular culture. Except that the controversial star of Benefits Street actually made some very valid points about what life is like for the have-nots.

"Just because you are on benefits does not mean that you are not a real person. Just because you are on benefits doesn't mean that you are not physically looking for a job."

She signals some support for UKIP(!) and doesn't rule out entering politics herself, but "I wouldn't want to go straight in and have David Cameron's job".

Be afraid, Ed Miliband.

Belfast Telegraph