  Dirac's original solution of the nontrivial Bianchi identity for magnetic
monopoles [Dirac 1948], which redefines the fieldstrength along the Dirac
string, diagonalizes the gauge and monopole degrees of freedom. We provide a
variant of the Dirac string, which we motivate through a formal expansion of
the Bianchi identity. We show how to use our variant prescription to study
monopole electrodynamics without reference to a dual potential and provide some
applications.
