I didn't want to think about cancer, and mercifully, I didn't.
"Casmin" was seriously considered and, mercifully, thought better of.
The House Democratic leadership, mercifully, thinks the commission is exactly the wrong medicine, and has told the White House so.
And drugs have, mercifully, never worked, so I think I'm far more frightened of being out of control".
My favourite kind is called "Indian Prince" (Mr Fothergill's, £1.95), which is mercifully un-dwarfed (why do breeders think that we necessarily want squat plants?) and has flowers of a gorgeous brownish orange, the petals backed with mahogany.
If such behaviour is now mercifully rare it would be naive to think the Scot is a lone rogue recidivist.
"If Paula had a bad arm," he begun, "Freud would say…." Mercifully, he thought better of that one; the sentence was left hanging.
Then, two years later, he wrote enthusiastically about Altman's hallucinatory "3 Women": "…the movie mercifully doesn't attempt to explain what's happened in logical terms (any explanation would be disappointing, I think, compared to the continuing mystery).
And think about ordering some traditional sides with the main meal, like lovely crunchy french fries and excellent creamed spinach, which was, mercifully, easy on the cream.
But mercifully the food arrived, and it struck us all that it was the first time in hours that we had opened our mouths without having to think.
