So farewell then to the Ulster Unionist Party, which incredibly appears to require one more kick up the backside to appreciate the scale of its problem, yet which has now passed the point where it can possibly survive one more kick up the backside. Party grandees grandly rejected an invitation to join the new 'United Community' grouping in the assembly, apparently unaware that next time around they might not be worth the bother of asking. Could the UUP now become the first political party in history to fail to get into opposition?
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The SDLP has an even better reason to avoid a Stormont executive. With only enough MLAs to nominate a single minister, the Stoops can do little more than provide everyone else with a useful fall-guy.
Warning signs are not hard to discern. According to recent press statements from both Sinn Féin and the DUP, Mark Durkan was solely responsible for introducing water charging while finance minister in the last assembly.
If Sinn Féin and DUP memories are that imaginative, they won't have any trouble blaming a lone SDLP minister for everything that goes wrong in the next assembly.
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The prize for the worst election prediction goes, surprisingly, to Private Eye, which is normally a byword for well-researched revelations.
The magazine's anonymous 'Postcard from Ulster' column reckoned that Robert McCartney would split the DUP vote enough to make Sinn Féin the largest party, causing Ian Paisley to bring the whole peace process to a halt. However, no newspaper that printed the name Gerry McGeough (814 votes) more than once can really point the finger.
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Two things were noticeable about the DUP's election update text service.
The first was that all texts ceased abruptly throughout the lengthy periods when Sinn Féin was ahead in the polls. The second was that the DUP press office thinks "polls" is spelled "poles" and enough party colleagues agree for this mistake to go unnoticed for nearly two days. Alas, there was no text message explaining why these people support academic selection.
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Triumph elsewhere has only underscored the DUP's tragedy in south Belfast, where youthful media stalwart Christopher Stalford failed to win a seat while former Police Federation chairman Jimmy Spratt topped the poll (or was it "the pole"?) but failed to increase the party's vote or make inroads into middle-class wards.
However, the real DUP casualty of the election is Nigel Dodds. Dr Paisley's one-time favourite was already wounded by a BBC survey which placed him fourth out of six possible future party leaders. Now poor voter management in his constituency has allowed Ulster Unionist Fred Cobain to take a seat that the DUP could easily have won.
With Diane Dodds out in west Belfast, the golden couple are looking distinctly tarnished.
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Normally ultra-cautious former secretary of state Peter Mandelson has given a very indiscreet interview to The Guardian, in which he paints a picture of canny Shinners running rings around No 10 while driving hard bargains throughout the peace process.
So far no Sinn Féin representative has speculated that the timing of this story might be suspicious, which demonstrates a touching new faith in government sources, especially the prime minister's oldest friend and New Labour's original spin doctor.
So, all together now – Gerry and Martin are every bit as clever as the British establishment tells you they are.
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Passengers on a charter flight from Dublin to Salzberg just before the assembly election were surprised to see Mary and Martin McAleese step aboard. They were even more surprised when the presidential couple reappeared a week later for the return trip.
It seems that the Irish president didn't consider the election important enough to cancel a bargain package skiing holiday. Still, at least she chose an appropriate airline – Monarch.
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A Mr Patrick Melly of south Kensington has successfully registered "Sinn Féin" as a trademark with the UK Patent Office. He lists the goods and services he intends to provide as: "Fresh fruit, vegetables and salad, potatoes, tomatoes, malt, all the produce of Ireland, lemons, bananas."
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Now that we have a Chinese-born MLA it is time to consider what political lessons we can learn from the Middle Kingdom.
For example, when a state-owned bus company in the Chinese village of Zhushan put fares up this week, 20,000 people took to the streets chanting "Beat the government dogs to death!" Translink fares are going up six per cent next Monday, which is supposedly the first day of the new assembly.
Let's beat the minister for regional development to death!
