Speeches:It is highly probable that among the UUP stalwarts gathered in Belfast on Saturday for the party's annual jamboree, there were few fans of Paul Weller's seminal 80s band the Style Council.
When the lights went out in the middle of leader Sir Reg Empey's speech, the greatest risk was of severe heart palpitations among delegates. The walls stayed firmly in place.
Poor Sir Reg's headline act was dogged by lighting problems. Perhaps it was the ghost of DUP defectors past - and they still haunted many a conference speech - but there was something very spooky about the way the ballroom chandeliers continued to flicker on and off while the dapper Sir Reg promised a newly invigorated party.
Some blamed a wayward shoulder pressed against the switches by the door. Others muttered darkly about the spirit of a certain Mister J Donaldson, now comfortably ensconced in Stormont with the majority unionist party.
It's hard to forgive old hurts. When the DUP held a meeting at the same Belfast hotel, there was no need for the ballroom to be partitioned, such was the strength of their numbers. But then the UUP has never been averse to partitions.
If the event itself lacked a certain razzmatazz - unintentional lighting effects aside - it would be wrong to suggest that the party faithful weren't hungry.
After 30-odd years of conflict, politicians across the traditional divide in Northern Ireland have recently developed an appetite for "bread-and-butter" issues.
Jam, however, is a rare commodity and Ulster Unionists are determined to ensure that is not the preserve of the two dominant parties on the executive - the DUP and Sinn Féin.
"For the first time in many years, there's a real point to being a member of the UUP," commented a younger member of the party. "We're talking real politics now." Even the great jam issue was still something of a sideshow. For most of the morning, delegates waited with barely contained excitement for the day's real star to put in an appearance. She arrived at lunch time in a blaze of flashing light bulbs and eager handshakes.
Yep, it was Margaret Ritchie, the SDLP Minister for Social Development who is cutting funds to a UDA-linked project because the paramilitary organisation has refused to decommission.
"No surrender!" she cried at the end of her speech, for which she got a standing ovation, maybe lasting even longer than Sir Reg's. So one wall did come tumbling down after all.