FROM GAVIN ESLER
Hello,
Today's Quote for the Day comes from official Liberal Democrat advice to party candidates in the forthcoming General Election campaign:
"Don't get drunk."
Soberly, therefore, for a Friday night we turn to the main stories we are working on:
The Shadow of the Gunman. Hopes for a peace deal in Northern Ireland were today looking shattered. The Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, Hugh Orde, said he held the IRA responsible for the massive bank raid before Christmas.
The Democratic Unionists immediately said the British Government should consider commencing proceedings to exclude Sinn Fein from any power sharing executive. Sinn Fein said the chief constable's statement was a politically biased allegation, made without evidence.
The Northern Bank has now decided to withdraw all of its notes from circulation making this, what Mr Orde called, the biggest ever theft of waste paper. Liz MacKean has been following the case in Belfast.
And we'll be asking, the Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy, whether he can really expect unionist politicians in Northern Ireland to enter any kind of government with politicians who - if the chief constable is to be believed - are the close associates and political spokesmen for bank robbers.
The Shadow of the Gunman Part Two - this time in the Middle East. It's the final day of campaigning before the Palestinian presidential elections on Sunday.
The former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is largely assumed to be the inevitable winner. He's even talking himself about "when" he becomes president, not "if".
So is Mr Abbas the man to persuade the militants to drop their arms, and deliver a deal with the Israelis? And do Palestinians think he will make a significant change from Yasser Arafat? Our diplomatic editor Mark Urban has been on the campaign trail with him.
The government today raised the number of British citizens it believes were killed in the Tsunami to 440. With the Indonesians now numbering their dead at over 100,000, UNICEF today confirmed fears of people trafficking of orphans in the region.
We will be talking to the head of the UN children's fund, Carol Bellamy, who is - as I am writing this - in the air and on her way back from a trip to the region.
And a hitch for "B of the Bang" - the largest public structure in Britain, whose progress we've been following on Newsnight.
Days before it's formally unveiled, a large bit has fallen off. With high gales forecast, and with a structure that leans at about 30 degrees, will welders be able to fix it? We'll have the latest.
Finally a friend sent me some thoughts for 2005, which I pass on without comment...
1. Life is sexually transmitted.
2. Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
3. Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.
4. Some people are like Slinkies...not really good for anything but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
5. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
6. Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
7. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
8. Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?
9. In the 60s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
10. Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
Newsnight is on BBC2 at 10.30pm.
Gavin
If you have a story for Newsnight, please send us an email via our website:
bbc.co.uk/newsnight 
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