Departments are supposed to reply to select committee recommendations within two months.
As an art critic, I know how I'm supposed to reply: I do anything other than visit museums, look at art and browse through exhibition catalogs.
"Ooh," she'd say, apropos of not much, "doesn't it soon get to 10 to 10?" Or, "Ooh, aren't eggs useful?" Or, "Ooh, doesn't a black skirt cover a multitude of sins?" I used to grind my teeth, knowing I was supposed to reply, "Yes, the evening has gone quickly, you're quite right".
Which invokes Satan, and he's supposed to reply?
Then, about halfway through the film, she said: "Did I miss something?" "You mean the part where Ida finds out that her mother and father and little brother were murdered by the Polish farmers who were supposed to be protecting them?" I replied in my inimitably diplomatic fashion.
"Those handcuffs were supposed to be there nine months ago," he replied bitterly.
And Archelaus is supposed to have replied to his own garrulous barber, "In silence".
When a friend pointed out that it was untrue, Orwell is supposed to have replied that it didn't matter, "it was essentially true".
Asked if he was finding his final moments difficult, he is supposed to have replied that dying was easy; it was comedy that was hard.
When an earnest undergraduate quizzed the aged E M Forster about the good life, the novelist is supposed to have replied: "Don't ask about the good life.
