Water Fight's A Damp Squib

The political headlines today were dominated, and rightly so, by the presence of the Sinn Féin contingency at the Policing Board meeting. By all accounts the anticipated fireworks at the meeting, (I'm sure there is a bum-on-press-gallery-seat to expected ruction ratio) failed to materialise - indeed it was apparently a "business-like" affair, aka drab.
Likewise for the few reporters remaining in the Assembly for today's round of committee meetings, the attention was all on the Regional Development Committee as they had the opportunity to grill the head honchos of NI Water over the forthcoming water shake-up. Pens were poised just billimetres from paper as we awaited Fred Cobain, Jim Wells, et al to launch into a ding-dong row with the civil servants.
However the closest that the meeting came to sparklers let alone fireworks was when Fred Cobain repeatedly asked whether it would not have been more prudent to get the unions on board before basing their business plan on the axing of 550 jobs before 2010. NI Water didn't seem too unduly concerned by Mr Cobain's fears of a potential "fist-fight" with the unions scuppering their plans, insisting that they were ahead of schedule with efficiency moves.
If today's "business-like" meeting dampened the journalistic spirits, there will surely be fireworks when the water bills, which must come eventually, regardless of how often they are deferred, finally pour through letter boxes throughout the North.

Having previously given off about the suitability of the press offices in Stormont , it is now only right that I acknowledge the improved state of affairs (thanks be to God). On returning from my recent travels I found that the grubby press room bunker now has internet access.
No longer do I have to sit in the main hall - the only authorised place in the building where my wireless internet connection would work - and attract the attentions of security staff curious as to why on earth I treating the visitor attraction like my own office. Thanks to the Press Office Staff, the Stormont Correspondents and Paul Butler, who also rose the issue on our behalf, for making the lives of the handful (actually less than a handful) of newspaper reporters who show up at Stormont regularly infinitely easier.