By the time Mr. Rouhani took the rostrum at the United Nations late on Tuesday afternoon, it was clear that he felt compelled to undertake a slight course correction.
On the other hand, if you set a course and then make slight course corrections when you find you have veered off, you can home in on your destination.
A slight course correction - the fourth since launch - was instigated last Saturday, and the latest analysis indicates Curiosity will be no more than a kilometre from going straight down its planned "keyhole".
Such deals between managers, and directors of football, and their clubs are commonplace in the English game, and not criminal in the slightest, of course.
The slight difference, of course, is that I'm not a stranger in the normal sense.
Again, there a slight bristling: "Of course, I'm fully aware of that.
There is a slight conflict, of course: McGinley likes his subjects naked; fashion likes them clothed.
Next to bulky Gordon Brown and two-chins Prescott, he has always looks rather slight, and of course cartoonists delight in portraying him as lightweight.
Unless someone aboard is prepared to leave the party and go up on the bridge and do something about it, at least a slight change of course, the whole chromium, metal-flake Leviathan could go down with all hands.
You've read all this before, of course: slight, sad stories about slightly sad people, who are vaguely troubled by their slightly sad lives and who face some minor crisis that prompts them to reassess their priorities and to learn a little about themselves and others, so that in the end everything is vaguely OK again.
For some, a slight change of course for their career plan gives them a temporary burst of fresh enthusiasm for their work.
