You know the famous Abbot and Costello skit about the three baseball players called "Who", "What" and "I Don't Know" and the innocent mayhem the two American comedians wreaked with their nonsense wordplay around the names.
Well, the DUP's Sammy Wilson, with the assistance of party colleague Gregory Campbell, engaged in some similar-type slapstick at Stormont yesterday at the expense of Sinn Féin Minister for Regional Development Conor Murphy.
It flowed from a document leaked from Mr Murphy's department to Mr Campbell, who is MP for East Derry, or is it East Londonderry? The memo carried the advice that the "following terminology should be used in submissions to Conor Murphy from officials": that the Republic of Ireland should be referred to as "all Ireland" or "across the island of Ireland" and that Northern Ireland should be termed "here" or "the north", and Derry should be called "Derry".
"This is absurd, infantile nonsense," Mr Campbell complained. "I mean what would he say when we beat England at Windsor Park? 'Here 1, England 0'?"
Later Mr Murphy said he was not imposing a diktat on the use of language. "I was giving officials guidance as to what my preference is but it was not an instruction to departmental officials about what they should say. They are free to use whatever language or terminology they want."
In the chamber, though, Sammy Wilson couldn't miss such an opportunity, setting up his routine by allowing that if "here" was Northern Ireland then it followed that "there" was the Republic.
He continued: "I can imagine someone ringing up the Minister and saying, 'Is the Minister there?' And his official saying, 'No, he's here'. 'Can I speak to him?' 'No, he's not here.' 'But you told me a minute ago he was there.' 'No, I said he was here, but he's not here.'"
Sinn Féin's Assembly team leader John O'Dowd interrupted that while he always found Mr Wilson amusing, he wasn't sure he was speaking to the subject, which was housing and planning yesterday.
"I can only conclude," said Mr Wilson, "that any member of the public engaging in that conversation will have the right to think that the Minister's staff were not all there."
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello would have been impressed.
