Its tone of world-weary Gallic somberness did, however, set it apart in mood from the other pieces on the program.
It is possible to hear in his poem, "On Being Twenty-six" tonetofe of world-weariness an older Larkin would make into an art form, looking back on "the slag/Of burnt-out childhood" with his familiar tone of regret laced with misanthropy: "Life, you aren't a god, you're a bloody old sod".
The inevitable omission of some stuff — a pirate-themed comic-within-the-comic; a mysterious gathering of artists and writers; a giant squid — may rankle die-hard cultists, but the tone of world-weary, self-justifying rage has been faithfully preserved, which may be a problem for everyone else.
The early reviews of Harper Lee's newly published book Go Set a Watchman have nearly all shouted in voices of outrage, or reported in tones of world weary cynicism, that Atticus Finch, our classic moral exemplar from the great American bestseller To Kill a Mockingbird, turns out in this new manuscript to be "really" an ordinary racist and bigot.
As each world was built up using these pieces, Blow suggested more changes that reflected the tone of each world and avoided art that distracted from the gameplay.
She added, "The tone of the World Cup really does suit the tone of education".
(Having said that, the tone of brooding, world-weary ennui that the voiceover adopts is somehow bracing; Lorius seems much more at ease in the world of ideas than the current crop of telegenic Anglo-American science types we are used to seeing in the media).
There is a familiar tone of gentlemanly world-weariness to it all, which should keep Mr le Carré's fans happy.
But "Without the King," Michael Skolnik's subtly perceptive documentary, avoids a tone of first-world outrage; leaning more toward understanding than blame, the film examines a country forced to choose between tradition and survival.
Matching the tone of real-world interactions could mean the difference between robots that squick us out and robots that we don't mind chatting with.
I'm sure there must have been the sound of the phone ringing, but all I heard was the dulcet tones of the world's most lucrative slot machine paying off for me.
