Timing is everything in politics. Suddenly after months of the big sleep when nothing has been happening outside the criminal activities of the paramilitary thugs the political leaders here have been bestirring themselves and there is talk of a deal.
Yes Bertie Ahern said it was over in New York after his talk with ambassador Richard Haass at the White House...What's the deal about?
It's about taking the bemused electorate of Northern Ireland by the scruff of the neck and telling them that it's their duty, their sacred duty, to elect a new assembly at Stormont to replace the one they walked out on a year ago.
Talks have been going on in London, Chequers, Dublin and even up at Stormont where Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has been closeted behind closed doors with the embattled Unionist leader, David Trimble.
Ahern and Blair – who have suffered a drop in popularity, according to the current polls – have become great pals and the British Prime Minister joked that he spent more time with the Taoiseach in recent months than with his wife Cherie!
Bertie who says he comes from a north Dublin family who had no time for British premiers says Tony is a great fellow, "a wonderful man".
As we ponder over this jigsaw puzzle wondering where it will end there was another twist. It took our breath away.
Here was Mary McAleese, president of Ireland, visiting the Shankill in Belfast and, according to her, possibly shaking hands with the same loyalists who machine-gunned her family out of her native Ardoyne in the 1970s.
The president and her husband – who have opened their door of Aras an Uachtarain to unionists and loyalists in the hope of building bridges of friendship – say the people of the north have paid a terrible price for being content to stay behind barriers and don't want to pay that price any more.
That was well said and we wonder whether this is part of the big picture building up of the new relationship between Ireland and Britain as partners in the new Europe.
Rumour has it that the next big surprise will be the arrival next year of Queen Elizabeth in Dublin on a return visit for the president's ground-breaking visit to the Queen.
Back to the porridge of that on-again-off-again Northern Ireland Assembly election. Bertie Ahern says in New York that if the deal doesn't come off it will be a 'bleak' Christmas for Northern Ireland. That will be a good description then for the moribund Stormont parliament – 'bleak house.'
However – with the approach of the deadline for an election within the next fortnight – comes an optimistic assessment from Tom Brady, the Irish Independent's usually well informed security editor.
He says the leadership of the IRA have paved the way 'internally' for acts of completion to break the impasse in the peace deal. But there is a proviso that the other parties to the talks also honour their pledges.
Who goes into oblivion first, the IRA or the UDA? That's a ticklish one... we can't wait to see the end of those rusty old guns and the dirty old pipe bombs.
I read somewhere that election 'fever' was building up in Northern Ireland.
The scribe concerned must have been suffering from a hangover... nobody talks about this weird election except the politicians mentioned and they do so only in a furtive way.
To say that there is giant apathy is no exaggeration.
If and when it does take place, it looks like they will have a terrible job dragging electors out to the polls.
Contrast that with the exodus of thousands by train, bus and car for the historic titanic battle in Croke Park, Dublin tomorrow between the two border counties of Armagh and Tyrone for the All-Ireland football final.
Politics takes a back seat before this unique battle between two northern counties for the All-Ireland crown.
May the most sporting side win. I am neutral.
My dad was an avid supporter of his native great Kilkenny hurlers and so am I.
