Saturday looms closer and tension mounts. Still in the balance. The stakes are high and that was palpable on BBC Northern Ireland's Spotlight programme on Tuesday night where David Trimble, Ian Paisley, John Hume and Mitchel McLaughlin made their pitches to a 100-strong studio audience.
Paisley versus Trimble was the main event and Trimble came out the clear winner. Both men got a rollicking from some of the hard men and women in the audience but the Ulster Unionist leader handled it best, for once sounding like a politician who believed in the message he was selling.
"If you were a true democrat you would resign," said one young unionist. Northern Ireland is comprised of more than just unionists, was Trimble's tack. "The majority of the people voted for the agreement," Trimble reminded him. "You bandy the word democracy about, but where is your democracy?"
There was no anti-agreement Ulster Unionist on the rostrum, so here, grey-haired, slightly stooped, was the embodiment of the alternative to the Hillsborough deal.
Dr Paisley used language that might appeal to the entrenched anti-Agreement bloc of the Ulster Unionist Council, but hardly the language to sway the waverers in the council.
Jeffrey Donaldson, Willie Ross, Willie Thompson and the others in the UUP No campaign must have dispiritedly headed for their beds after Spotlight on Monday night. But by lunchtime yesterday the bulletins on BBC, UTV and Downtown Radio had pepped them up.
The news was that two more UUP Assembly members - Roy Beggs jnr and Derek Hussey - had defected to the anti-side, joining Peter Weir and Pauline Armitage, already camped there.
Beggs and former UUP minister Sam Foster, went on David Dunseith's Talkback programme on BBC Radio Ulster to dispute. Roy provided an inkling of what Jeffrey Donaldson's as-yet-unveiled alternative to Hillsborough might be: Sinn Fein in committees but not in government until IRA arms are delivered.
"Don't lose your bottle," was Sam's advice for the UUC. If the council voted No it would demonstrate that unionists were "plain bankrupt of political intelligence".
The former IRA man and British agent Sean O'Callaghan turned up on the UTV news at 6 p.m. to tell unionists that the IRA statement was "unprecedented", and anybody who "under-estimates it is making a tragic mistake".
Every vote will count on Saturday. John Taylor is still playing hard to get.
Liverpool-based Nigel Cooke, in a poem read on Talkback, had a good read on the Strangford MP: Monday's John Taylor is all for the deal/ Tuesday's John Taylor says that's not how I feel/ Wednesday's John Taylor adds flags to the equation/ Thursday's John Taylor needs clarification/ Friday's John Taylor is sure - more or less/Saturday's John Taylor is anyone's guess.
