"When you write a political book, you can be accused of polemic, didacticism and earnestness.
However, even if the pair, as renowned former hedonists, are overdoing the earnestness a little as they settle into their 30s, in the quietly demented strains of Diary, it's clear neither has lost his flair.
Wasswa said these words with a weighty earnestness, but they were not news to half the courtyard.
Indeed many people viewed Stravinsky's evolution beyond the Rite as a betrayal of both his Slavic roots and modernistic genius, so the question can be posed in all earnestness: did Stravinsky himself survive the Rite?
Today, connoisseurs of both sexes discuss the merits of different brands with an earnestness which was previously reserved for fine wines.
I don't think that's right: if the songs are rooted in reality, they're not the sound of realism, and there's certainly no hint of earnestness in Williamson's ranting over Andrew Fearn's spartan instrumental backing.
That tone of co-operation with the west is maintained throughout the Chinese statement:The Olympic Torch Relay embodies the Olympic spirit and represents the earnestness and excitement with which the world awaits the Olympic Games.
And it is being sold with a heavy dose of sugar-coated earnestness that many non-Americans may find indigestible.Yet even its defects seem somehow appropriate.
And unlike Britain's Private Eye, France's Canard Enchaîné or the now defunct Spy from New York, it offers no inside gossip just comic relief from the facts, factoids and earnestness of the regular media.
Unlike Mr Sonneborn's turbo-centrist, Mr Colbert's on-screen character is a lovably deranged right-winger who would do well with the real-life audience of Fox News if he traded his irony for earnestness.
He exudes a heavy, hang-dog earnestness; and, the way he tells it, he started out as a novice with no idea of political campaigning, a mere "babe in the woods".
