That said, some of the funniest at Lyon's vast Maison de la Danse passed so solemnly that my yelps of mirth had to be muffled, if only out of politeness.
I used to imagine the hooded figures – choir monks and the lay brothers who ran the monastic granges and sheep shearing stations, with their brindling flocks and their creaking wagons – passing solemnly and silently up the track as the great bells of Rievaulx tolled below.
"We are in no way a group," said Godard solemnly, denying the obvious camaraderie that had passed between them.
On Friday, the children stood solemnly by the side of Westgate in their blue jumpers as the cortege passed.
Jim, now delirious from bull-related pain, solemnly took the hat off and threw it upward toward his father's ghost — but it passed through his wispy, non-corporeal form.
You can be forgiven if the festival has passed you by, as this special period, dedicated to celebrating the history and traditions of "black and other minority ethnic groups", is not much observed, except by local councils, state schools and sundry lovers of what young people used to solemnly refer to as "identity politics".
Occasionally, we encountered the indigenous people, standing solemnly in their (formerly) white smocks as they let us pass by.
And when one of the cats solemnly presented me with its latest catch from the backyard, it occurred to me in passing that the poor mouse would have had a better chance reaching safety with the help of some explosives.
To see it now, one must apply for a pass and be conducted solemnly past the scarlet cords that separate the rush of visitors from the sala degli animali – a stone menagerie of harts, boars, bulls, wolves and foxes that look as if they have just been petrified by the imperious wand of a passing White Witch.
As everyone knows, Thomas the Tank Engine is the story of several straight white men who solemnly obey the every passing whim of a white, straight, male dictator in a crude reinforcement of the belief that the working class should know its place.
