David Trimble's predecessor as Ulster Unionist Party leader James Molyneaux, now Lord Molyneaux of Killead, is 84.
He resigned as leader almost 10 years ago and while some of his opponents unkindly say he is forgotten but not gone, he's nonetheless making his mark on this election.
A "dull dog" was how he liked to portray himself, although he was plenty canny with it. He took pleasure in bamboozling interviewers with his wilful tendency to obfuscation. I remember after one curious conference speech in the 1990s his remark to us reporters, "Well, is there any puzzlement at my tendency to seek refuge in complexity?"
There was, but even after his briefing to explain what he meant in his address we were no wiser.
Lord Molyneaux was at it again out in the Dunadry Inn in South Antrim yesterday, where he was supporting David Burnside who is seeking to hold on to the Westminster seat he won from the DUP's Rev William McCrea in 2001.
Lord Molyneaux was absolutely forthright in endorsing Mr Burnside, as one would expect of the patron of the Ulster Unionist Party.
But what about, for instance, the UUP candidates in South Belfast and Lagan Valley, Michael McGimpsey and Basil McCrea - did he support them against, respectively, the DUP's Jimmy Spratt and Jeffrey Donaldson? After all both Mr Spratt and Mr Donaldson proudly feature Lord Molyneaux's photograph in their election literature.
A simple question requiring a simple answer. As if . . . Lord Molyneaux, then as now, doesn't function in the black or white, yes or no world that journalists like to inhabit. He explained that the photographs weren't formal endorsements of these DUP candidates but neither did he renounce their use in the DUP election bumph.
Six times I politely asked him did he support the UUP candidates Mr McGimpsey and Mr McCrea, and six times he equally politely provided tangential but irrelevant information about the use of the photographs but declined to answer the central question. Pity his successor.
Lord Molyneaux, however, did provide some explanation of one of his most intriguing and baffling comments when, after the IRA ceasefire was called in August 1994, he described the cessation as one of the most "destabilising" events since "partition".
Sinn Féin as recently as last week - during the row over Lord Molyneaux and outgoing UUP MP Rev Martin Smyth appearing in the picture with Mr Spratt - but other nationalists as well frequently argued that this demonstrated that unionists such as Lord Molyneaux preferred war to peace, even if it has been very much an imperfect peace since the IRA cessation.
Lord Molyneaux explained that his initial reaction to the ceasefire was based on his suspicion that this was a republican trap to better create the conditions for a united Ireland.
He also believed that some of the mandarins in the British Foreign Office effectively connived to facilitate these conditions.
He did not deviate from his original opinion. He added, "I would have got at that time, nearly every day, people - a lot of them elderly English peers - saying, 'you must be very happy now that violence has been called off'. My reaction would have been, 'Yes, but what price will be paid'?" His view was based on his conviction that what was on offer from republicans was "phoney" from the outset, and this, he was sure, was borne out by the latest failure, in December, of yet another attempt to achieve a deal.
He was hearing the same things in 2004 as he heard in 1994. "In December they were saying to me, 'You must be very happy the way things are working out well and there is going to be a settlement in 24 hours', that sort of thing. My remark was to smile at them and say, 'Have you been boozing at the Foreign Office'?" Lord Molyneaux, still unimpressed with the peace process, then joined Mr Burnside to unequivocally endorse him as the UUP man for South Antrim.