“Dear President Obama, Her Majesty’s Northern Ireland assembly is waiting..”

From Saturday’s Irish News, Patrick Murphy does his best to add to Máirtín’s media rumpus about the non-appointment of a US political envoy.

While awaiting your decision, the assembly has pursued its cunning policy of investing in the maritime economy. Our key strategy involves building a memorial to the Titanic (honestly) and bringing tall ships to Belfast. (Some of them were really tall.)

(We know you are busy but is there any chance that if you opt for a special envoy, you could send him or her on a tall ship? It would keep the Northern Ireland Office press staff in work until Christmas.)

Too many good lines..

Our people have lost jobs too, you know. But since every MLA is labelled unionist or nationalist, job losses never impact on politics here. Unlike your congress, we just wave a flag and people vote for us.

And you think US politicians are clever?

(Mr President, we realise that we have not included obligatory Stormont words like community, equality and rural-proofing in this letter – if you can think of a sentence with all three words in it, please insert it here. If not, wait until the Association for Quality Education reveals the answers to its replacement 11-plus test. It will contain tasks like that.)

What do you mean where do we get our economic policies? We get them from Keynes. No, not John Maynard Keynes – they come from Milton Keynes, the English town which houses the Open University. They sent us a book on economics. (Now, now, Mr President, there is no need for language like that.)