Listing and detail on same page, paging function on listing.

Can anyone help my time is ticking....
Hi I have a left hand column which lists a number of stories, at the foot of this column is the paging function to load the next stories. But. On the same page I have in the right column the detail of the content when clicked from the left hand column.
The problem here is I have 2 numbers in the url, one for the page and one for the record. The detail page sees the last number in the url and thinks it is the record number, when infact it is the page number.

If I click on the next page, then click on a story in the left column I want it to stay on this page and also pick up the correct story. I am baffled as how to do this.

Basically, I am wanting a list and detail on the same page with a prev next page to affect only the list and maintain the selected detail story.

I hope this make sense.

I can post the actual url, but I'd rather not make this public.



I'll paste the relevant code here.

<?php header('Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8'); ?>
<?php
require_once "/xxxxxxxxxx/cms/lib/viewer_functions.php";

list($tal_newsRecords, $tal_newsMetaData) = getRecords(array(
'tableName' => 'tal_news',
'perPage' => '3',
'allowSearch' => '0',
));


list($tal_newsRecords_detail, $tal_newsMetaData) = getRecords(array(
'tableName' => 'tal_news',
'where' => whereRecordNumberInUrl(1),
'limit' => '1',
));
$tal_newsRecord = @$tal_newsRecords_detail[0]; // get first record

// show error message if no matching record is found
if (!$tal_newsRecord) {
print "Record not found!";
exit;
}
?>

<!-- left hand column -->
<?php foreach ($tal_newsRecords as $record): ?>
<h1><a href="<?php echo $record['_link'] ?>"><?php echo $record['title'] ?></a></h1>
<p><?php echo $record['precis'] ?></p>
<p class="talrule"></p>
<?php endforeach; ?>

<!--Paging -->
<?php
list($tal_newsRecords, $tal_newsMetaData) = getRecords(array(
'tableName' => 'tal_news',
'perPage' => '3',
'allowSearch' => '0',
));

?>

<?php if ($tal_newsMetaData['prevPage']): ?>
<a href="<?php echo $tal_newsMetaData['prevPageLink'] ?>">&lt;&lt; prev</a>
<?php else: ?>
&lt;&lt; prev
<?php endif ?>

- page <?php echo $tal_newsMetaData['page'] ?> of <?php echo $tal_newsMetaData['totalPages'] ?> -

<?php if ($tal_newsMetaData['nextPage']): ?>
<a href="<?php echo $tal_newsMetaData['nextPageLink'] ?>">next &gt;&gt;</a>
<?php else: ?>
next &gt;&gt;
<?php endif ?>

<!--Right hand column -->
<h1><?php echo $tal_newsRecord['title'] ?></a></h1>
<h2><?php echo $tal_newsRecord['initial_para'] ?></h2>
<?php echo $tal_newsRecord['body_text'] ?>