You can always rely on the National Enquirer to come up with lulu of a story, and its latest lead – ‘Gore was like crazed sex-poodle says massage therapist Molly Hagerty’ – is one of their better efforts.

Molly (at 54, she’s a bit old for this lark) alleges that she went to Gore’s hotel room during his 2006 stay in Portland Oregon. There, she found a change of climate she wasn’t expecting in the shape of a guy very bored with being in Portland Oregon.

Ms Hegarty (who went to Al’s room billed as a massage therapist and was thus, we assume, not expecting to have tea and buns) dithered a bit before giving the story to the Enquirer. She first made the complaint in 2006, and then again in 2007 before failing to turn up for the hearing. For those who are vague on this sort of thing, it’s 2010 at the moment.

“This has nothing to do with money, we paid her zilch” said an Enquirer insider – omitting to mention that Molly had asked for a million bucks, and been told she had two chances of getting it.

The Enquirer wasted no time in getting down to the Gore-y details (ouch), describing Molly’s knickers (by now in need of a clean, I’d have thought) as having ‘Monica Lewinsky-style stains’ on them. Usually it’s maps of New Zealand, so this has to be a key human-interest element in the story: semen stains that look like Monica must be worth a million bucks on their own.

Gore has split from his wife Tipper – not as a result of this case, and not (one assumes) because her husband is a sex-crazed poodle. My problem is that I’ve never owned a poodle and thus I’ve no idea what sex-crazed poodle behaviour adds up to.

Anyway, in classic tabloid style, The Slog can only conclude that ECO-MAN GORE IN SEX-POODLE MONICA-STAINED MASSAGE SHOCKER.