THE untimely death of Christopher Stalford, whose funeral takes place today, and the tributes that followed from political colleagues and opponents, serve as a reminder that the vitriol that often passes for debate in this place is very far from the whole story.
It was amusing to see politicians in the BBC's make-up room chat amiably over tea and biscuits before going into the studio to tear lumps off each other.
There was one occasion when then-MEPs, Rev Ian Paisley and John Hume, were exchanging stories about their health issues and Hume was particularly pained that evening.
"Is it your guts, John?" Paisley enquired solicitously. "Might be your gallstones. That's worse than going through labour."
Both men nodded in agreement. The make-up woman and I rolled our eyes.
Unfortunately the public only gets to see the shouting matches. Only the very committed, or the very bored, will bother to tune into the more civilised exchanges in Stormont committee meetings.
Elections always make things much worse, as Sammy Wilson discovered at Markethill when he was booed and catcalled by Jim Allister's supporters. Jim appealed for courtesy, but according to the miffed Sammy's later press statement, this was only after he had spent half an hour lambasting the DUP and getting the crowd's dander up.
Not much sign of unionist solidarity there. And what was Sammy's erstwhile colleague, Arlene Foster's response? She said there would be even more protests in the future, and they'd be even bigger.
And that's really why unionism is ultimately doomed. They can't see the logic of making the protocol work to Northern Ireland's advantage, and therefore the advantage of the union.
Instead they cling to a past that no longer exists. Like the Bourbons they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
Vladimir Putin is unlikely to lose a lot of sleep over the sanctions announced by Boris Johnson. Monty Python's squashy cushion torture comes to mind. It'll be the comfy chair next.
Johnson, whose party is stuffed to the rafters with Russian donations, tried out his Winston Churchill impersonation to announce that five banks and three Russian oligarchs will have their assets frozen. He doesn't mention the fact that the trio have already been on a UN sanction list since 2018 and on a US list for the past eight years.
Let's not forget Putin suffered no real consequences for annexing Crimea in 2014. Despite calls from numerous quarters for a ban, Russia went on to host the World Cup four years later. He should have been made an international pariah, like apartheid era South Africa.
China should also not have been allowed to host the Olympics, winter or summer, until they stopped their repression of the Uyghur muslims and their abuse of human rights in formerly democratic Hong Kong.
They faced no real consequences for their actions, so why should they stop?
What accountability has there been for the bosses at the Post Office who hounded hundreds of sub-postmasters and -postmistresses through the courts, between 2000 and 2014, unjustly accused of pilfering money from their employers when instead it was a major problem with the new Horizon software provided by Fujitsu?
Many of those completely innocent employees went to prison for theft, fraud or false accounting. They lost their homes, their incomes - marriages in some cases - and were shunned by their local communities. A number went to jail – at least four took their own lives, and many more died before their names could be cleared.
Surely no-one would believe some 700 previously upstanding people would suddenly turn to theft. Surely to God, someone would ask why this apparent epidemic of fraud should take place after a new computer accounting programme was introduced.
Twenty years on, a public inquiry into what's been described as the greatest miscarriage of justice in British legal history is finally under way.
In the meantime, Paula Vennells, then chief executive, who was awarded the CBE in 2019, has quietly retired from her positions on a healthcare trust and as a non-executive board member of the Cabinet Office, as well as from her role as a Church of England minister.
Chairman Tim Smith, who was also behind the policy of aggressive prosecutions, announced he was stepping down in the autumn. He is still head of the Courts and Tribunals Service.
The current CEO, Nick Read, wants the government to foot an estimated £1 billion in compensation. For 'government' read 'the tax payer'.
Fujitsu has to date paid nothing in compensation. Since 2013, it's been awarded a further £3.1 billion in government contracts. No accountability.
