Both are drawn from reviews in the Sunday Times by Waldemar Januszczak: "Rothko's problem… is the dark myth that he allowed to emerge around him while he was alive… This tremulous Rothko story line presents him as the Melancholy Martyr of Modernism, a deeply pessimistic presence whose painted fogs sag, paradoxically, with tons of heavyweight spirituality… His suicide topped it all off splendidly.
This week's is the splendidly titled The Bastard Sings the Sweetest Song, which received some minor festival attention in 2012 before dropping off the radar.
It's that they so rarely celebrate authors themselves in the way that the Maya Angelou stamp splendidly does.
Belacqua's purgatorial round is described almost purely in terms of references to Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, Hamlet, Augustine's Confessions, On the Origin of Species, Dr P Garnier's rather splendidly titled Onanisme seul et à deux, the Bible, and anything else he happened to be reading at the time.
There are four bedrooms, two bathrooms, more flat-screen TVs than Dixons, a fridge/freezer/ice-maker the size of Kent and, splendidly, a floodlit wet bar and hot tub on the vast top deck.
Set in lovely grounds, 14 acres of general lushness, Blue Waters is fine for families and couples, all of whom seemed to be chilling out splendidly when we were there.
Which is what makes the Primark protests, or the Tesco shelfie campaign, or the UK Uncut rallies so splendidly aggravating – because they undercut the multimillion-pound marketing with point of sale information about poverty pay for shop staff or high-street tax dodging.
When the Test Match is being played at Chester-le-Street as well, it's not uncommon to find yourself the only person in the splendidly restored Central Station who isn't wearing a sombrero or a Superhero outfit.
But the film tells the human story splendidly, and makes a companion piece to Tate Britain's breathtaking exhibition, Late Turner Painting Set Freee.
Even so, governments would be wise to bring in policies that speed the end of the age of oil.But why, ask oilmen, when oil has served the world economy so splendidly over the past century?
IT HAS gone on splendidly for years, and the party isn't quite finished yet.
