Governments may measure their progress in five-year plans, but for many men the four-year cycle of the World Cup is the true marker of the passage of life.
David Ervine is one of these men, and he has good reason to remember where he was at this stage of the World Cup four years ago. "My heart was breaking, and it wasn't because Ireland had beaten Italy. I woke up on Sunday morning to the news about Loughinisland when six Catholics watching the match in a Co Down pub were killed by UVF gunmen. We were in the middle of negotiating a ceasefire, and then this happened."
Back in 1994, Ervine was a plumber's helper with a criminal record. Today, as the leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, the political wing of the UVF, he is feted worldwide as an architect of the peace process.
Ervine may be Dublin's favourite unionist, but the PUP is still a fringe organisation struggling to find a niche in the political establishment. The party is working hard to convince a sceptical electorate in East Belfast of the merits of the Belfast Agreement; Ervine should pick up one of the six seats but success is not guaranteed.
The PUP headquarters on the shoddier end of the Newtownards Road is festooned with Union Jacks, and a Battle of the Somme painting dominates the wall. Next door in a souvenir shop you can buy Rangers jerseys, and Diana and King Billy mugs. Bootleg tapes with such titles as The Ballad of Michael Stone are also on sale.
Ervine's energetic canvass takes him quickly through the small streets under the shadow of the Harland and Wolff crane and Glentoran football ground. In these parts, he is known as Davy - as in "How 'bout ye, Davy?"
The candidate is well known and locals ask about his parents, who used to live here. There are the usual requests for help, like that from the mother of five who is looking for a transfer from her two-bedroom house to something bigger. No one seems to understand proportional representation and many are confused between the PUP, UUP, DUP, UDP - who wouldn't be? But they know "our Davy".
East Belfast is changing fast. The shipyards used to employ 20,000; now only 2,000 work there. Many of the streets have been cleared. New houses, tidy but lacking in character, have been put up; the bricks are still sweating. Other houses are boarded up, waiting for the wrecking ball.
Ervine points out the houses, quite a few of them, which have put up aerials to receive RTE. But on the doorsteps, there's little sign of a change in mind sets. A majority admits to having voted No in the referendum, and seems to be at a loss for someone to represent their political viewpoint.
"Vote Yes, and there'll be a united Ireland. Vote No, and they'll go back to bombing us into a united Ireland," says one woman. Another woman says she wasn't able to vote Yes because "God wouldn't allow it".
The canvassers move on to more middle-class estates, with their clipped lawns and hedges. The team, including Ervine's runningmate Dawn Purvis, and his wife Jeanette, wear suits of sober blue and take care to close the gates behind them.
This is a DUP heartland, and while Ervine's canvassers say they are weaning people off Paisleyism, the reaction on the doorstep is noncommittal.
Ervine takes all the rebuffs in his stride. "I live in Belfast, not Barbados. Whatever happens we'll just have to accept it," he says, tapping the tobacco out of his pipe.