An offer you don't refuse

I had a great birthday yesterday - thanks to everyone who sent me kind messages - which ended with a magnificent performance by Amy MacDonald at the O2 Academy in Leeds. Simply brilliant.

And equally brilliant was the news (and pictures) I received via e-mail last night from my good friend Stephen Walker who - get this - will shortly be packing his bags and moving to Washington DC to become Barack Obama's new official spokesman (I KNOW!)

Originally from Ballymena, Stephen and I first got to know each about nine years ago when he was BBC Northern Ireland's Westminster Correspondent and I was working for the Ulster Unionists in Parliament.

Then, with weeks of each other in 2003, he moved back across the Irish Sea to chase criminals up and down roads for the award-winning Spotlight programme, and I moved North to live in a big field called Yorkshire.

In the period since, Stephen has been editor of Let's Talk, written a highly acclaimed book entitled "Forgotten Soldiers: The Irishmen Shot at Dawn," and, most recently, taken on the role of BBC Northern Ireland Political Reporter.

And throughout it all, he's been chipping and chipping and chipping away at his Ballymena accent which undoubtedly held him back in the early and middle stages of his career. In fact, he once conceded to me - and I could only really pick up the gist of what he was trying to say - that his indecipherable tones were the real reason he briefly turned to writing.

But as he now moves into the autumn of his working life, the many hours of elocution lessons, the decision to move his family to Bangor where the locals talk proper and his sheer determination to overcome what many would see as a disability, have finally paid off with his appointment to the most prominent media job on the planet, that of White House Press Secretary.

I understand Stephen was approached early this year to see if he was interested in taking on the role, at a time when the Obama presidency was in a genuine state of crisis. But, of course, a few days ago the 44th President managed to get his controversial health care bill through Congress and the future now looks a lot brighter for the first black man to hold the office.

In the midst of all the activity of recent weeks, Stephen travelled to Washington to take part in a series of "screen tests" from the famous lectern in the White House press room and to be interviewed by President Obama in the Oval Office itself.

And the boy clearly done good (as Stephen would probably have said in his thick Ballymena accent just a few short years ago).

He now has a little time to sort out the logistics of the family move Stateside before he finally gets behind his desk in the West Wing of the White House on 1 July.

Huge congratulations to him from the Whites.