"It's that time of year when we have sinister plots, ghostly goings-on, whispers, plaintive cries and maybe the occasional damp squib," Talkback presenter David Dunseith told his listeners yesterday.
But enough about the Ulster Unionist Council meeting due to take place at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast this morning.
Hallowe'en analogies were impossible to resist, when fireworks were widely anticipated to go off at an event being billed as the "Watershed on the Waterfront".
The final result of the Talkback phone-in poll which has been running all week was announced on yesterday's programme. Listeners had been asked whether they thought the UUP should set a deadline for decommissioning at the meeting. In the end, 60 per cent were against setting a deadline.
But there were signs that crisis fatigue was setting in with Dunseith telling listeners that neither the First Minister, David Trimble nor Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson would be interviewed on the programme. "They have been on all the TV and radio programmes and I think we all grasp their respective messages," he said.
Despite the absence of a heavyweight interview subject, Talkback listeners were keen to get their spoke in. A caller from England was critical of the British government, saying the Belfast Agreement had just been "a one-way street of appeasement to terrorists". He also disapproved of the way David Trimble attacked Jeffrey Donaldson during the week. This was "very immature and an insult to those who have a different opinion".
Clare from the US had called Talkback to praise the programme, calling it a "safety valve". She had lots of opinions about Northern Ireland but, perhaps wisely, said she didn't want to express them in case they got her "into trouble".
Grassroots Unionists interviewed on BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra later yesterday were in two minds about their leader, David Trimble. "It was he who coined the phrase `no guns no government' so he should be very comfortable with it," said one. Another man had a different view: "For years the Ulster Unionist people cried out for a professional leader . . . we have got that person now, and unfortunately some people who put him there can't handle it," he said.
On UTV Live, a news report contrasted the harmonious scenes at the Waterfront Hall where the Ulster Orchestra was rehearsing last night with the verbal turbulence likely to unfold there today.
Nobody was daring to venture an opinion on which way this morning's meeting would go. Martina Purdy of BBC's Radio Ulster said that like the US election, it was too close to call.