  Following the suggestion from the Monte--Carlo experiments in Jim\'enez, J.
of Turbul. 2020), that dipoles are as important to the dynamics of decaying
two-dimensional turbulence as individual vortex cores, it is found that the
kinetic energy of this flow is carried by elongated streams formed by the
concatenation of dipoles. Vortices separate into a family of small fast-moving
cores, and another family of larger slowly moving ones, which can be described
as `frozen' into a slowly evolving `crystal'. The kinematics of both families
are very different, and only the former is self-similar. The latter is
responsible for most of the kinetic energy of the flow, and its vortices form
the dipoles and the streams. Mechanisms are discussed for the growth of this
slow component.
