Private Eye has taken to referring to the Daily Telegraph as the Daily Hellograph because so much of its content these days is celebrity-led. A curious story last week, however, suggested news values little different from those of a parish magazine. The tale concerned a Suffolk vicar, the Rev David Matthews, who had withdrawn from a new posting at the last minute because the four-bedroom home he was being offered wasn't big enough for his needs. Hardly a story of earth-shattering importance; certainly not the stuff of a page lead.

But the oddest thing about this less than riveting article was that the crucial fact necessary to turn it into news (of a sort) was utterly missing. On and on it droned, to a full, fat 16 paragraphs, without once stating the size of Mr Matthews's domestic establishment, or even whether he was married.

For a philoprogenitive parson with, say, eight children, a four-bedroom vicarage would of course be inadequate. But if he were on his own, or with a family of modest dimension, there would be no problem at all.

How odd that we were left in the dark.