I'm in the office late tonight, contributing to a Spotlight programme about Ian Paisley Jr.'s departure. They have a relatively candid interview with Sammy Wilson about how the DUP's MPs have viewed the affair.
Earlier today Sammy kept a date with the Greens. After hearing that he had been given an award for anti-environmentalism at the Green conference over the weekend, Sammy rang the Greens and insisted on picking up the trophy ( a recycled globe) personally. The ceremonial handover took place in the Stormont Great Hall this morning.
Flicking through my e-mails tonight I see that Gerry Adams has paid tribute to a veteran politician stepping down after leading his people for 50 years. I had to read the message twice just to make sure the Sinn Fein President was really talking about Fidel Castro.
Castro and Adams are of course two of the most famous bearded politicians in the world. But my colleague Gareth Gordon found himself wondering who the strangely familiar man was sitting close to him at Belfast City Airport tonight. Ah yes, he twigged, it was a clean shaven Alex Maskey. The Sinn Fein MLA - minus his usual beard - was heading to Westminster, whilst Gareth was off to Edinburgh, hot on the heels of Messrs Paisley Snr and Jnr, on what will be their last joint official trip. Together with Martin McGuinness the Paisleys are in Scotland for talks with Alex Salmond.
The rush of events yesterday stopped me from dwelling on a couple of notable moments in the Chamber.
During Martin McGuinness's question time we braced ourselves for a hard hitting question from the DUP's Stephen Moutray. It's not often questions are right on the money so far as the news of the day is concerned, but an apparently prescient Mr Moutray wanted to know more about "the role of the First Minister and deputy First Minister in relation to the removal of a Minister from the Executive".
Sadly when the time came for the question Mr Moutray was nowhere to be seen. Methinks he had Caitrion Ruane in mind when he tabled his question, not his party colleague Ian Paisley Jr.
MLAs later moved on to discuss the press reports that the Eames Bradley commission on the past might consider reclassifying the troubles as a "war". The exchanges were some of the sharpest yet witnessed in the chamber. A casual visitor might have assumed there had never been a DUP-Sinn Fein deal last March.
For example: the DUP's Trevor Clarke is recorded in the Official Report as apparently calling Mark Durkan a "Provo lover", Sinn Fein's Jennifer McCann called the republican dead "noble, brave...patriots", whilst the DUP's Mervyn Storey described the IRA as "grubby" cowards, the Deputy Speaker David McClarty had to admonish the other Deputy Speaker Francie Molloy (who was speaking in his Sinn Fein MLA capacity) for shouting, Iris Robinson called loyalist paramilitaries "hoods, thugs and murderers" adding that (in a reference to the PUP's Billy Hutchinson and the late David Ervine) "the unionist community elected two, and, thank God, they are not here any longer, because they were an abomination to me and to the people whom I represent".
Clearly there were strongly held views on all sides, but you would need a psychologist to advise on how the debate sat alongside the parallel reality of the power sharing government. All the while, noone mentioned the conflicts in the coalition, or the conflicts within the Assembly's biggest party. Is this what you might call "displacement activity"?
I'm 
