The clash between Brienne and Sandor was the best of the season, both a showcase for two very different fighting methods and an acknowledgement that the reality of combat is you have to fight dirty to win.
Gillard has declared the lack of constitutional acknowledgement an "unhealed wound that even now lies open at the heart of our national story".
Deploying that well-worn reference to moderate Conservatism – the country club kind, not the Tea Party variety – was an oblique acknowledgement that his tough talk on further benefit cuts for hard-pressed Britons and polarising attacks on the SNP had left him with work to do.
US secretary of state John Kerry arrives in the Holy Land this week on his fourth visit in two months amid deepening scepticism on all sides about his chances of breathing life back into the moribund peace process, and an acknowledgement by European diplomats that there is no "Plan B" in place in the event of its failure.
A spokesman for BT said that the company is "disappointed" the Competition Commission did not act on its acknowledgement that the UK pay-TV market is still "ineffective".
It was an acknowledgement of something we had already begun to figure out for ourselves; that Eurovision would be better off without us.
This appears to be a clear acknowledgement that the chancellor wants to get money going directly to companies because of the difficulties the government is having in getting the banks – despite the taxpayer having bought £65bn of shares in two of them – to lend.
In a notice on Thursday featuring the tantalising words 'matrimonio George Clooney', the city council gave its first, understated acknowledgement of the hugely-anticipated A-list shindig set to take place amid its canals and palazzi in coming days.
There was no acknowledgement of rising delays for in- and out-patients, nor of the great wave of rationing that two in five commissioning groups are signalling that they might soon embark on.
On Tuesday, the White House announced that the US would use the 100th anniversary of the genocide "to urge a full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts".
But, having secured this year's Grand Depart of the Tour de France – in part as an acknowledgement of its cycle-friendly outlook – the city is preparing for its day in the sun.
