Reading Brian Feeney’s column today, I am reminded of a comment of a former teacher of mine, who telephoned after wading his way through about 10 minutes of the two of us grumping about politics on Hearts and Minds with Noel Thompson.

“I think the Greeks would have had a word to sum up you and Brian, and it would probably have been a pretty rude one.” I miss those days.

Anyway, I’m going to disagree with Brian’s assertion that unionists obsess about inessentials.

As Sherlock Homes, the complete works of which constitute my bible, noted: “There is nothing so instructional as the observation of trifles.”

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And he was right, for it is astonishing how many agreements, deals and understandings are eventually upended by later squabbles around the seemingly inessential.

The Good Friday Agreement is a classic example; with so many carried away by the very existence of a peace deal that they paid no attention whatsoever to what was later described as the ‘constructive ambiguity’ holes.

As Brian will know, I dislike a lot of things.

Chief among those dislikes, particularly in reference to politics,........

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