WELL, that didn't take long. President Barack Obama is already showing signs that the White House is aging him six weeks after he took office. He is getting grey around the temples.

The New York Times and the Washington Post seem to have discovered this at the same time. The Times had a front-page story about it. The Post ran a story on the front of its Style section.

Time seems to run faster in the White House than everywhere else. A president can enter the place looking youthful and vigorous, and come out four or eight years later looking worn down, hair turned grey or white, back bowed. The job does that to them, all the life-and-death decisions that are made, the long hours, the political battles.

George W. Bush looked boyish when he entered, and came out with a wrinkly face and whiter hair. And look at photos of Abraham Lincoln at the end of the Civil War - absolutely exhausted.

As for Mr Obama?s patches of grey, The Post quoted an expert, Karin Schallreuter of the University of Bradford in England, as saying that high stress affects the hair follicle, and that this could explain Mr Obama?s hair. -- REUTERS