Metres away, outside in the street, four Ebola victims lie listlessly on benches in a tent erected to deal with the queues of patients who descended on this clinic in Freetown when Ebola first flared up in the Sierra Leonean capital.
Another issue which flared up in a number of conversations with people I had thought were long-standing work friends, was that now I, after years of bridling against management, was the exemplar of a newly-regimented, over-determined managerialism.
Tempers flared near the end, when Málaga lost two players to direct red cards and gave Bilbao their best chance of the match.
The government on Thursday delivered a statement to clarify its stand on the controversial question of the legality of settlements after the issued flared up at a Senate hearing the night before.
However, they then changed tack again after the opening tour fixture in Perth, when Michael Carberry capitalised on an unexpected chance after Alastair Cook's back condition flared up.
The conflict in Gaza has flared up with renewed rocket fire and air strikes as talks in Cairo aimed at forging a durable ceasefire in the six-week war broke down.
Fracking, by contrast, requires substantial amounts of energy to release gas from dense underground rocks, and some of the gas is likely to be flared rather than captured.
Take the row about Ofsted, which flared up at the start of this year.
Comparable moves from Obama last year, including new emission caps for some power plants, drew the ire of anti-regulation Republicans, and the argument flared up again in November, when the president announced an agreement with China to reduce harmful emissions.
I have been wearing two pairs of flares, in real life: a new silky high-waisted black pair, £39.99 from Zara (it says wide-leg trousers on the website, but since the width of my thigh equals that of the trousers, they are definitely flares in my book) and an old pair of Made In Heaven flared jeans which are flat-fronted with a double row of gold buttons down each hipbone.
Eight fans were arrested during the violence that flared following Sheffield Wednesday's relegation to League One, South Yorkshire police said today.
