WORCESTER'S Green Party missed out on winning the St Stephen ward by a mere 92 votes last week, but that narrow defeat spared their candidate's blushes.

Neal Murphy had booked a holiday to Turkey and was already boarding a plane over the Mediterranean on the day the votes were counted last Friday, meaning if he had won he'd have been the only council candidate in Worcester's history to have not been there to celebrate.

While his Green colleagues have been left to stew, the Murfster's excitable sun-drenched frolics can now be viewed all over Twitter, where our man has left messages such as "this is what a Horny Lady looks like" with a cheeky snap of his wife holding said cocktail.

That's the way to get over defeat!

* 'Houdini of the Week' award goes to Worcester Tory Allah Ditta, who defied the sceptics by somehow clinging onto his Cathedral ward seat.

Councillor Ditta, who defeated Labour's Adam Scott by 139 votes with the not-insignificant assistance of Robin Walker, was so sure of defeat that he spent last Thursday night telling yours truly how he'd lost.

Will Battenhall's 'Chateau Ditta' ever get the polish it deserves?

* NORMALLY so on-message, during a Worcester visit last week shadow health secretary Andy Burnham let his guard down and whispered to yours truly that he felt this year's election was "like 1992" all over again.

He wasn't wrong, was he.

* FORMER Tory councillor Francis Lankester made an appearance at the count last Friday, prompting his rivals on The Left to whisper how ‘Mr Lankenstein’ was in the house.

Later on in the evening, Francis quietly remarked that the disgruntled Labour activists looked like they were "waiting to be shot".

Last laugh was on him, eh.

* THE election predictions were so off, the British Council of Polling is now investigating how so many apparently respected pollsters could get the outcome so horrifically wrong.

But Worcester defied the rest - Lord Ashcroft confidently predicted in March how Robin Walker would keep his seat by at least six clear percentage points.

And of all the many, many politicos who dared give The Source their predictions in recent weeks only one - Sir Peter Luff - was prepared to say Robin would increase his majority.

Have you got next week's lottery numbers?