For a typical antihero jerk, Bosch isn't so bad, and Welliver plays him with a velvet growl that somehow is welcoming even as we realise what a giant mess his personal life (or what there is of it) is.
Nigel Farage, in his corn-coloured trousers and velvet-collared coat, is semaphoring a message to small-c conservatives that he's just like them.
With guitars, pianos and the odd horn, the tunes are gloriously breezy, heartfelt affairs but pack a crafty left hook in a velvet glove.
On the other hand "velvet-collar" Dave is embracing a fast-track EU referendum strategy, which is highly risky.
It was curtains for the whole bally lot of it – a heavy velvet drape drawn across a series that had taken artistic license to extremes, then set fire to it, then run away laughing.
Czechoslovakia's "velvet divorce", approaching its 20th anniversary, probably serves as the best example in postwar Europe of a relatively smooth parting of the ways.
Now, 44 years on, a glorious velvet revolution is unfolding.
This week the Metro freesheet said that Manuel Pellegrini had been "officially unveiled as the new manager of Manchester City," and I imagined the Queen pulling on a silken rope attached to the velvet cloth covering Mr Pellegrini's head.
I will put prices up if I suddenly want a velvet cloak or a bejewelled cock ring.
His boss insists that "velvet revolutions", whether in Iran or eastern Europe, have always been driven by Americans and "rich Zionists".
As the referendum on Scottish independence nears, I recall the feeling of deep depression that came over me 21 years ago at the time of Czechoslovakia's "velvet divorce".
