L. was in her office, admitting a new patient, a young woman who sat with her back to the door.

NEWYORKER: The Reptile Garden

The problem for the wildly overexposed Affleck of the early 2000s was that the attachment of his name to any project was the equivalent of admitting in advance near certain box-office death.

FORBES: Congratulations To Ben Affleck, Hollywood's Greatest Failure

Missing the joke, ministers queued up to denounce Mr Morris and his programme, with all the vigour of the gutter-dwelling tabloids. (Oddly, the government was much quieter when, last year, a newspaper incited a wave of anti-paedophile vigilantism, resulting in attacks on, among others, a paediatrician.) Beverley Hughes, a Home Office minister, excoriated the programme before admitting, as tradition demands, that she had not seen it and did not want to.

ECONOMIST: In a row over satire, ministers can only look foolish

Admitting yourself into the presidential hall of fame after a year in office is not the same thing as aspiring to be a great and consequential president.

CNN: 1 year in: Will fortune smile on Obama?

They'll buy anything to keep from admitting that they made a mistake in 2008 and helped put in office the most anti-immigrant president in a half century.

CNN: Don't deport the 'tamale lady'

But Robert Meyer, a top official in the office that approves drugs, took a more tempered stance, admitting there were fundamental disagreements at the FDA about what to do with Avandia.

FORBES: Unsafe At The FDA