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It's been a long journey as the bureaucrat at the big man's shoulder comes around the desk and into the spotlight, writes Fionnuala O'Connor.

WHEN A fond sister told a recent BBC Radio Four profile of a newly prominent Northern Ireland figure that her brother is amazingly witty, that teachers told him to cut out the jokes in his essays, and she would never have thought of him in politics, few would have identified the young comic as Peter Robinson. The memories were even more adrift from his public image than the picture of Brian Cowen, pub singer. There is one connection, however. His nostalgic sister remembered the young Robinson as a good singer, who wrote "Donovan-Dylan, American protest-type songs".