Sketch By Nick Assinder Political correspondent, BBC News website

As Gordon Brown's first appearance before the Commons liaison committee came close to breakfast time - thanks to an early start to allow him to travel to his one-man EU treaty signing - it was a battle to stop thoughts of food popping into the imagination.

There were some lighter moments in PM's performance

It was also inevitable that Mr Brown's performance would be compared to his predecessor's.

Tony Blair always adopted a shirt-sleeved, "Hi guys", first-name approach to these sessions - habitually, and almost always inaccurately described in the media as "grillings". (There you go - bacon already.)

He was, if you like, a well known crispy rice-based cereal with a habit of going snap, crackle and pop. All light, lively and with the occasional tiny and harmless explosion.

Mr Brown - no surprise here - was porridge. Not with sugar, definitely not with honey and certainly not the Englishified sort that comes in a runny mess and sometimes has sweet jam slopped into the centre of it.

The Scottish prime minister is that style of porridge once beloved of crofters who poured it into a kitchen drawer, later to be sliced up into squares when cold and taken into the hills for lunch.

In other words, solid, grey, functional and most definitely salty.

Treaty signing

He kept his jacket on, and even referred to Tory Sir George Young as "Sir George" - with Tony it was always the chummier "George".

He lightened up a bit on a couple of occasions during the lengthy session, even conceding he had recently suffered a torrid time, and offering a brace of jokes about the row that has surrounded the ridiculous diary cock-up that saw this event clashing with the official EU treaty signing.

Tory Eurosceptic Edward Leigh thanked him for believing "a bunch of select committee chairmen were more important that the massed ranks of EU heads of government".

Mr Williams said sessions were not about blood on the carpet

Mr Brown told him he had the advantage of being able to attend both meetings, "although you, I gather, won't wish to join me in my visit to Lisbon".

Cue clubby laughter all around the Boothroyd Room.

By the way, the PM's spokesman has previously expressed astonishment that this diary clash has become a story about whether or not the PM wants to be pictured signing the controversial document, or whether he is trying to do another Macavity and disappear when trouble is around. Maybe that is the problem.

But, those prime ministerial quips aside, this was stodgy and heavy to wade through.

Where Mr Blair often seemed mildly miffed by questions of detail, Mr Brown visibly relished them.

Deeper reform

They allowed him to do what he does best and dive into the minutiae, the nuts and bolts and, most intimidatingly, the figures.

Where Mr Blair used charm and self-belief as weapons, Mr Brown tries to bludgeon with argument and intellect.

He took on the issues of police pay, "wider and deeper" reform of public services, the missing data discs, banking reform and current worries over the global economy, "Britishness" and immigration.

There was not a single explosion of the sort that occasionally erupted during the prime minister's performances when one or other of the inquisitors - often Mr Leigh - attempted to stage a row.

As committee chairman Alan Williams declared at the end, the sessions are not about getting blood on the carpet.