The Assembly election campaign has moved from third to fourth gear. Another week or so and it will be in overdrive. With nominations closed since 5 p.m. on Wednesday, about 280 hopeful politicians representing over a dozen parties, or standing as independents, are contesting 108 seats.
There are six seats for the winning in each of the 18 Westminster parliamentary constituencies.
They have less than three weeks to stomp the North's highways and byways, cities, towns and villages. There may be some interesting encounters between the pro-agreement and anti-agreement forces between now and polling day, June 25th.
For instance, picture the pleasant town of Ballycastle in the Glens of Antrim, in the Rev Ian Paisley's North Antrim constituency. In the run-up to the big vote it is quite conceivable that Dr Paisley and his son, Ian junior, could bump into the former senior IRA figure, Mr Joe Cahill, there.
Dr Paisley, never a politician to miss an opportunity for sullying his opponents, somehow managed to interpret Mr Cahill's candidature as proof that the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) supported "the leading terrorist godfather of Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein" - Mr Cahill has served a life sentence for murder.
Mr Cahill, at 78, is one of the oldest candidates, if not the oldest. He should be sufficiently experienced, should he meet the Paisleys, father and son, to retort with a few broadsides of his own.
Dr Paisley's attempt to tarnish Mr Cahill, the UUP and its leader, Mr David Trimble, was a pointer to things to come. This may be a nasty campaign. The pro and anti-agreement unionists will use everything in their armouries to gain the advantage over one another.
Dr Paisley said that unionists in North Antrim should vote DUP 1,2,3, and mentioned nothing about transfers to other parties. This was a strong indication that the No camp will work to keep number one votes and transfers strictly within its own membership.
The DUP will be the only anti-agreement unionist party in North Antrim. It is fielding 37 candidates, while the UK Unionists have 13. Former Forum member Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien has decided not to stand.
The UUP is fielding the largest number of candidates - 48. But Mr Trimble knows that as well as competing against anti-agreement unionist parties he has anti-agreement candidates in his own camp.
Of the 48, about eight would be fundamentally opposed to the agreement or be "soft Nos". The most vehement in his opposition is Mr John Hunter in South Antrim. Mr Jim Clarke in South Belfast, Mr Roy Beggs Jnr, running in his father's East Antrim constituency, and Mr Peter Weir in North Down also have serious misgivings about the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Trimble is leading a fourman team in Upper Bann. In addition to the opposition from the DUP and UK Unionist Party, he is also being challenged there internally by a former ally at Drumcree, Mr Denis Watson, who is Orange Order county grand master in Armagh and a UUP member. This a further sign of how the agreement has split the unionist family.
Mr Trimble is still pretty buoyant, however. He believes that his team offers a broad range of choice for unionists.
He has been keen to highlight that two of his candidates are Catholics, Mr John Gorman in North Down and Ms Patricia Campbell in North Antrim.
Mr Gorman is certainly one of the most interesting of the candidates. He has a distinguished second World War record and has praised Mr Gerry Adams's leadership qualities.
There will be a major battle for the nationalist vote between the SDLP, with 38 candidates, and Sinn Fein, with 37. In recent years, particularly since the first IRA ceasefire, Sinn Fein has been eating into the SDLP vote. In the local government elections of May last year Sinn Fein came within less than four percentage points of the SDLP vote, polling 16.9 per cent against 20.7.
The SDLP's reluctance to enter into a formal electoral pact with Sinn Fein reflects the competitive tensions within the broad nationalist camp. Sinn Fein has already signalled that it wants to become the main nationalist/republican party, and the SDLP in the coming weeks will battle assiduously to withstand that challenge.
The Alliance Party, which hopes to hold the balance of power within the Assembly, is running 22 candidates. The Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) has 12 and the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) and Workers' Party have nine each.
The Women's Coalition, with eight candidates, naturally has the highest number of women. In total there are over 40 women candidates. Sinn Fein has seven, the SDLP and Alliance six each, and the UUP and DUP four each.
The Natural Law Party has a candidate in each constituency. Four of them are women. The UDP and the Conservatives are the only parties with no women candidates.
There are also candidates running under independent unionist or nationalist banners, as well as small left-wing groupings. They all will have a hectic, frantic time ahead of them in the next few weeks.