Some years ago Europe's leaders were toiling over an important, if dreary, issue when Mr Berlusconi suddenly turned to Gerhard Schröder, Germany's then chancellor, and said: "Let's talk about women.
You're at some dreary event.
In the cramped 49th Ward Democratic headquarters, one learned again about the dreary but relevant issues that dominate a local politician's life.
In addition, after years of resisting the right wing as it won victory after victory, and of watching the Democrats morph into a neoliberal crew and then into a failing party with its own dreary laundry lists of issues and personalities, the capacity to hope for fundamental change may have gone the way of Herbert Marcuse and Martin Luther King.
Sonya praises our battement tendu (leg extended, toes on floor, heel off, and stretching instep, sweeping round) – "It's meant to hurt – embrace the pain" – but takes issue with our dreary expressions: "You look like you're waiting at a bus stop".
As shadow home secretary, she played dreary political games with carefully-crafted interventions on issues such as immigration and drugs - and even now seems largely defined by distancing from rivals on either flank rather than her own appeal.
The subject is a dreary fact.
A dreary 0-0 drawasas the outcome.
But however you take its politics, the film upholds a dreary tradition of simplifying and sentimentalizing matters of serious social concern, and dumbing down issues that call for clarity and creative thinking.
As a governor, burdened with the sometimes dreary obligations of running a state, Ashcroft had little chance to shine on the issues that meant the most to him and to his supporters.
