"Things have changed a bit since my time," she adds, raising her eyebrows at two women, one black, one white, who wear nothing but discreet jewels between their legs and red feather head-dresses which trail down their backs.
She spent part of last year having very discreet conversations with the treasury as she sought to persuade George Osborne to commit serious money to building the artistic headquarters of his northern powerhouse plan.
The preparations by the "golden triangle" – cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Queen's private secretary, Sir Christopher Geidt, and the prime minister's principal private secretary, Chris Martin – show how discreet work is underway as Whitehall gears up for a second successive hung parliament, which could prove still more complicated than the last one.
"I think there are a lot of people that exist like [Carol] who don't feel the need to shout things from the rafters," Blanchett said of her character, adding that the film was similarly discreet.
I can't say this discreet device has ever bothered me, but the phenomenon is bothering lots of other people.
There is a discreet reek of money and horse manure about the lanes into Lambourne.
"Schedule a meeting with your boss and find a suitably private space for this, rather than grabbing a seemingly discreet moment by the coffee machine," advises Hernan Daguerre, career expert at recruitment site Monster.co.uk.
It was the first time the French business world, normally highly discreet about its private life, had seen a chief executive so publicly cavorting.
Had there been a briefing, or are they simply playing the role of discreet neighbours?
Tasteful and traditional was the mood, the hush of lobbies in discreet uptown hotels.
Geidt, the Queen's ever-discreet private secretary, would come into his own in trying circumstances.
