The conversation was moving along quite nicely, quite civilly, until it turned -- as all conversations with British comedians must -- to the subject of toupees.
MTV's Video Music Awards last September, for example, had a sophisticated Twitter tracker that showed not only which stars were the most buzzed about but also how fast the conversation was moving.
"Andrew recognized very early on, before many people did, that the conversation was moving onto the Web," said Arianna Huffington, who saw him in the weeks before his death.
"Illusion of trouble," J said, cheered that the conversation was moving her to the square of reason, since her husband had made a knight's move to the square of paranoia.
(The young female protagonist of "The Late Novels of Gene Hackman," talking by phone to her husband from Key West, where she is attending a writers' conference with her stepmother, is "cheered that the conversation was moving her to the square of reason, since her husband had made a knight's move to the square of paranoia").
After considering during the first week of their term a Republican-drawn plan from Wisconsin that hurt Democrats and, now, a Democratic-drawn plan in Maryland that undermined a Republican congressman, there was a sense the conversation was moving in circles.
"A lot of the conversation was moving online," says Huffington. "And I felt it would only accelerate".
"Usually the conversation is moved to the lounge area.
The official conversation is moving quickly, and the month ahead will offer a significant opportunity for public review before the process moves behind closed doors.
"This hasn't been on the table in the past, but that's where the conversation is moving now and that's helpful," said Lael Brainard, the Treasury under secretary for international affairs.
On the other hand, if the meeting is covering a variety of areas and the conversation is moving into something I'm not involved in, I don't feel too bad about catching up on my e-mail.
