'Adams, Paisley to meet Blair in Downing Street' - yesterday's running order of news items slotted in the central fixture of contemporary northern politics. The dominance of the DUP and Sinn Féin stopped being news some time ago but bureaucratic acceptance has lagged behind reality, writes Fionnuala O Connor
Courtesy of a repeat endorsement from the electorate, the most unlikely of duos is now the touchstone for three governments, Irish, British and American.
The rest of the picture is not quite as we forecasters saw it. The patch of waste ground where once the UUs stood is as bleak as anyone predicted.
By contrast the SDLP had a pretty good election, and are clearly tempted to thumb their collective nose at the pundits. Unionists may have only one viable party to vote for: nationalists retain a choice.
Mark Durkan's handsome win in Foyle should inspire regeneration and reinforce what seemed a glimmer of new authority during the campaign. The SDLP's survival looked all the more substantial set against the indignities visited on the UUs.
Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams as important as each other; some form of co-operation between them vital to a durable settlement? The "who'd have thought it" factor may have lost its novelty value, but contemplation of Paisleyites and republicans as the centre of attention still induces queasiness.
Which gives them both quantities of grim amusement. There's a difference, however.
Sinn Féin's front rank have known for years that they're taken more seriously than the SDLP: the DUP had to wait for complete validation and the appropriate symbols until this election. Mr Paisley's underlings will be abrasive as they choose for some time.
The DUP don't see courtesy as a political attribute, whereas republicans have been confecting it when it seems desirable, schmoozing for Ireland, at least as far back as adopting the dual strategy of ballot-box and Armalite. For which they reap double loathing from the sizeable sections who will always mistrust them.
It is bad enough for many to see killers accorded political clout: unbearable to have them admired for finesse.
The mirage of a female leader emerging from the rubble of Ulster Unionism never seemed less substantial than when Lady Sylvia Hermon told RTÉ's Tommie Gorman how much nicer manners Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness had than her colleagues, because they bothered to ask about her sick husband.
For a woman apparently serious, if only briefly, about putting herself forward as UU leader, it was a devastating mistake. Imagine giving "them'ns" that kind of credit! A shudder of unionist disbelief said it all about Sylvia's singularity. The Adams leadership, blasé about celebrity and brazen about using Westminster without gracing its Commons chamber, would have it that the DUPs are the clodhoppers in London and further afield. It's a view shared in Westminster. There is no argument against the DUP clamour for their share of the peerages Ulster Unionists have soaked up all these years. But the Mother of Parliaments is a snobbish old dame, insular to a fault.
Ian Paisley and his troop, no matter how central they have now become in Northern Ireland and no matter how Downing Street struggles to absorb them, will remain disregarded colonials who speak an uncouth tongue.
Beneath the post-election bravado, both the DUP and Sinn Féin may be less sure how far their predominance will take them. If the IRA's much-vaunted new mode brings nothing but a DUP demand for prolonged "decontamination", then how exactly can the governments push them to relent? If the DUP's new status and the UU collapse reflect widespread unionist rejection of power-sharing, what hope is there for future devolved government? A battle a day as all the likely participants expect it to be, who could bear to operate it or watch it in action?
Republicans may be forced to focus increasingly on the southern arena, balked of progress in the North. But they can take some comfort in the knowledge that nationalists have an equal lock with unionists on major change, while for the DUP Northern Ireland is the only playing field. A peerage for Eileen Paisley may greatly please her husband. The sight of a solo female in UU colours no doubt warms his vengeful heart.
DUP success has brought a new challenge, however, perhaps the greatest ever faced by the party and its leader. Now master of unionism, Ian Paisley can sit tight and gloat at the fact that he has vanquished his ancient enemy, the UUP.
Or - like Tony Blair - he can aim for one final flourish, in his case one that would install him as First Minister if only for a glorious lap of honour.
Much will depend on whether he settles for glorying in electoral triumph, or turns out to be an old man in a hurry.