Mrs Robinson inspires internet chart push

BELFAST (Reuters) - The extramarital affair conducted by Iris Robinson, the wife of Northern Ireland's First Minister, has inspired an internet campaign to push "Mrs Robinson," the song from the film "The Graduate," to the top of the British pop charts.

The drive began after Robinson, 60, said last week she tried to kill herself last year following an affair with a then 19-year-old man that resembles the plot of Mike Nichols' Oscar-winning film.

A university graduate played by a young Dustin Hoffman was seduced by the older Anne Bancroft in the 1967 movie which helped the Simon and Garfunkel song to number one in the United States pop charts a year later.

"Lets get the iconic song Mrs Robinson - made famous by the 1960's hit The Graduate - to number 1 in next Sunday's chart in honor of Northern Ireland's disgraced first lady," the campaign page, hatched on the Facebook website, said.

Participants have to download the song from the internet. A similar drive on Facebook, the world's No.1 internet social network, put US rap-metal band Rage Against The Machine on top of the Christmas chart but the 10,000 people backing "Mrs Robinson" falls someway short of the near one-million who supported that push.

Peter Robinson temporarily stood down as first minister on Monday to face an inquiry over whether he should have told authorities of the 50,000 pounds ($80,000) his wife raised to help the 19-year-old man open a cafe in Belfast.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin in Dublin)