Latest post excerpt which spans two columns of excerpts

Hi all,

I’ve been searching the forums, but as yet have not found a solution to what I’m trying to achieve.

I want to display excerpts of the 20 most recent posts in a particular category in two columns – but I’d like to style the latest post in the category differently, and have it span the two columns.

1 (latest post)
---------------
   2   |   3
   4   |   5
   6   |   7 etc

I had some luck with a PerishablePress tutorial and CSS for the first post, but it put my ordering out of whack for the second and third posts due to using CSS floats.

I’m sure there’s a WP/PHP guru out there somewhere who can restore my sanity and show me how this is done. Fingers are crossed!

Thanks.