The North: There must be a great tendency for Northern Ireland politicians, for Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, and for their officials to see out this year with a "bah humbug" and a "bad cess to 2004", bawled out with a heartfelt Edvard Munch-like scream of exasperation and disappointment.
In the middle of this season of bad will and Big Mouth politics, British and Irish leaders and their ministers and mandarins were frantically seeking out a "creative" Solomon figure who could reconcile the irreconcilable, who could transform a row over photographic negatives into a political positive.
Were there any fresh ideas out there, they pleaded? People tried to help. Some rang phone-in radio programmes. The Rev Ian Paisley wandering around an IRA bunker to see the guns decommissioned for himself was a popular suggestion.
Paisley wasn't interested. He just wanted photographs and Gerry Adams parading along main street, Ballymena, in sack cloth and ashes. But the photographs were "dead and gone and buried in Ballymena", said Adams.
There were other soluble issues but everything hinged on the pictures. This is the cul de sac to where politics through all of 2004, before Leeds Castle and after, was heading. And right now nobody has a clue how to reverse out of this dead end.
Of course, other things happened this year in the North. For instance, this was the most peaceful year since the conflict erupted in 1969. Possible large-scale slaughter was avoided in Ardoyne on the night of July 12th by senior IRA figures assisting British paratroopers under attack from local nationalists. Otherwise, the 2004 marching season was a relative doddle.
Sinn Féin and the DUP continued their electoral advances. Jim Allister topped the poll for the DUP in the European elections in June, his transfers carrying Ulster Unionist Jim Nicholson over the line for the third seat, further reflecting who is unionist supremo. Bairbre de Brúwon Sinn Féin's first Northern Euro-seat, casting aside the SDLP, whose candidate Martin Morgan lost the seat John Hume held for 25 years.
Ahern and Blair will maintain pressure for a deal early in the new year. If that fails, the expected British general election in May means that it could be September at the earliest before the governments and parties venture forth bravely again.
It seems all rather depressing, but at least people can take consolation in the fact that this time last year there were four major issues - policing, decommissioning, ending IRA activity and stabilising the institutions - while at the end of this one these are effectively sorted, or are capable of being sorted.
It's just the pictures. Beyond all the disagreement, the streets were comparatively quiet and there was real political progress but that can't mask the disappointment and frustration.
Gerry Moriarty