There is an overpowering smell of mothballs from Stormont these days as the mirage of home rule (but not Rome rule) fades like an impossible dream and the part-time Labour blow-in ministers from London do the job the local MLAs were elected to do, but gave up with tawdry excuses.
An electorate, sick to death of revolution, voted for devolution but made the big mistake of returning back-sliding leaders who have made minimal efforts to provide the new beginning which seemed within our grasp when the Good Friday Agreement came in April 1998 like a ray of sunshine and was hailed as such worldwide.
I have before me a copy of that agreement and its opening lines read as follows:
"We the participants in the multi-party negotiations believe that the agreement we have negotiated offers a truly historic opportunity for a new beginning.
"The tragedies of the past have left a deep and profoundly regrettable legacy of suffering.
"We must never forget those who have died or been injured and their families."
"But we can best honour them through a fresh start, in which we firmly dedicate ourselves to the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance and mutual trust and to the protection and vindication of the human rights of all."
Have these noble sentiments which seemed so right at the time been forgotten?
In the years between has the dismal propaganda of the enemies of change obscured the promise of an historic breakthrough?
No need to catalogue that dreary campaign of lies, half truths and conspiracies all designed to unravel the hard-fought-for agreement and turn the clock back to the miserable past of 50 years misrule by one-party government.
The new assembly and all-party executive is once more out in the cold because the majority unionist party, led by the former first minister Trimble feared the tenuous link with Sinn Féin in government would become a Paisley torpedo at the Stormont election due in May.
Meanwhile we are back to the old routine of party talk about talks and the boring old flights to 10 Downing Street.
What's new to talk to Tony Blair about is a mystery, especially as the Prime Minister is up to his neck in troubles of his own over a looming war with Iraq.
McGuinness and Adams have been over and can only tell us that the next couple of months will be critical... in time, some have suggested, for the usual St Pat's Day jamboree in Washington (war permitting).
Trimble is due to meet Adams face-to-face on Monday, no doubt to ask about 'completion' – the latest jargon since the D-word went stale.
Strangely there is an awkward silence from that quarter about the more immediate and deadly problem of the murderous feud between the loyalist paramilitary gangs.
No talk about 'completion' there and no hint from the so-called loyalist convention as to what the feud is about.
It's certainly not for God and Ulster.
