THE London papers are struggling to catch up with the referendum.

After the weekend polls, one title ordered a hack en route to Liverpool to keep going north, and scrambled another who had just turned up for work. Once in Scotland, the colleagues realised they had a single spare pair of pants between them for a fortnight. A third arrival was heard complaining: "I got here and realised I'd left my collar stiffeners and cufflinks at home." Truly, war is hell.

THE Unionist party leaders struggled on TV yesterday over their lack of a common offer on more powers. "And what's Brown got to with it?" a reporter asked. "Isn't it obvious?" muttered one observer. "He matches their trousers."

WE mentioned yesterday how Nicola Sturgeon was lauded at a debate by Labour MSP Kez Dugdale. In reply, Nicola said she'd love an independent Scotland with Kez as FM. As Ms Dugdale later acknowledged, rarely had the black spot been so silkily applied to her career.

HAS the latest royal insemination made a No more likely, Alistair Darling was asked by a panting hack. Luckily for the Better Together chair, the question about the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was so clumsily phrased he was able to duck it by saying of the happy couple: "I think you'll find only one of them is pregnant. I'm pretty sure that's how it works."

ROVING egg magnet Jim Murphy was speaking on Edinburgh's Dalry Road when a man gestured and jeered from a second-storey window. "Is that one finger or two?" joked the Labour MP. "It's two this time," the bloke yelled back, emphatically flicking the Vs. You know, sometimes it's just best to keep quiet, Jim.