This time next year the poor old sick counties will be mulling over the verdict of the most confused election in their tortured history.
Will there be shocks, surprises and gnashing of teeth too close to tell, as the pundits try to make sense out of the welter of propaganda, lies, damned lies, soundbytes and pollsters' predictions.
The electors have just four days left to make up their minds how to rescue the hard-fought-for Good Friday Agreement which they voted for five years ago from the clutches of the muddled no men, the stupid dissidents, green and orange, and the crocodile pool of Paisleyism.
They have been advised to exercise care in marking their preferences, dismissing swiftly the idiot candidates who haven't a clue about the future, or would have us marching back with banners unfurled to Bigotsville to the sound of drums and pipe bombs.
It all depends on the turnout and let's hope the weather is kind – no rain, hail, snow or storms.
It must be admitted that the politicians, having made a mess of devolution – now firmly established in Scotland and Wales – have found difficulty raising interest among an electorate fed up with all the old airy-fairy bordermania to the exclusion of more immediate worries such as rampant crime and violence.
There have been other distractions this week – global terrorism by Islamic extremists brought death and destruction to far-off Saudi Arabia. Rome and Istanbul.
The fearsome fanatics of al-Qaida are blamed for the carnage and reports say Osama bin Laden himself installed sleepers and would-be suicide bombers in Britain.
This resulted in astonishing police precautions with whole areas of London closed down by armed guards, mobilised in thousands for president Bush's amazingly mistimed three-day state visit to Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street.
The horror of the Istanbul attack on the British embassy and a British bank on the eve of a rent-a-mob anti-war march of thousands against the Bush visit to Trafalgar Square turned the protest into a resounding flop. But coming on top of the visit was the Daily Mirror's sensational 'world exclusive' revealing that their undercover reporter Ryan Parry had been a Buckingham Palace footman for two months in the biggest royal security scandal ever.
In seven pages Parry revealed that he had got into President Bush's bedroom to serve breakfast and, in a flaring headline, claimed 'I could have poisoned the Queen'?
He took intimate pictures of the royal apartments and actually travelled on the royal coach.
Al-Qaida must be green with envy at the superior cunning of the Mirror in penetrating royal security.
The Islamic extremists in his place could have made world history in their holy war by removing in one fell swoop two leaders of the western world.
Parry revealed that the Queen at breakfast fed her corgis under the table with tit-bits of her toast spread with marmalade.
Cruelty to animals too? Have these fanatics no mercy?
The pictures of the shattered bodies being carried out of the wreckage in Istanbul reminds us of Omagh. Greysteel, the Shankill and our determination never again to let the madmen take over our future.
The pro-agreement candidates – including the SDLP helped by electoral experts from Dublin – have been out knocking doors in a last-minute campaign to explain the importance of registering every vote.
Paisley's battle-bus raid on Trimble's East Belfast headquarters met with an unexpected counter attack by Trimble demanding to know why the DUP boss, big Ian, was 'hiding', showing unusual reluctance to face the Unionist leader face to face in a Kennedy-Nixon style encounter.
Still no explanation.
The Paisley battle bus left to tour the constituencies Will he show his nose in West Belfast? Trimble, who has hired a helicopter, can at least claim that he has had a good look at it from the air.
