Like quite a few others, my wife and I would feed him at the briefest of notice and be repaid with an evening of non-malicious gossip, absurd tales from the Labour movement and descriptions of the latest crisis to afflict our electoral prospects, all within an atmosphere which swung between gloom and hilarity.
Glitzy diamond studded white sunglasses covered most of the face that remained visible between her platinum page boy hairdo and the extended ropes of pearls – picked up on Bourbon Street after Mardi Gras? – which swung between her neck and her Christian Louboutin-ish stiletto heels.
First there's Martin Lawrance's short but satisfying duet Pendulum, which swings between contemporary styling and clean classical steps, wary confrontation and intimate pas de deux.
He offers a daily barometer of his mood, which swings between elation, frustration, and despair, and records each night's pre-bedtime rituals — some combination of listening to ESPN, saying prayers, doing pushups, writing letters, drinking tea — and signs off with "Another one".
It was Mulgrew's introduction which swung the contest.
The prickly, unyielding deserts with their tiny oases of beauty move me, as do the native scrub on the hillsides and the manic-depressive architecture, which swings wildly between the truly hideous and the grand.
The plot, which swings convincingly between Moscow, Helsinki, Athens and Washington, begins with echoes of Fleming's "From Russia With Love" — an attractive Soviet "sparrow" is used to compromise a randy Western spy — and ends with an extended homage to the denouement of le Carré's "Smiley's People".
My "home" seat, which has swung between all the main parties in my lifetime.
Both are democracies under stress: Nigeria, which has swung between military dictatorships and civilian leadership, is in a democratic phase but is deeply troubled by corruption and growing income disparity; South Africa is in economic doldrums.
It is not a prisoner of the time, though, and one of its delights is the cavalier way in which Linklater swings between pure fantasy and the everyday made fantastic.
I enjoyed, although somewhat less, Julie's up-to-date New York, in which she swings between her crummy apartment over a pizzeria, her job answering phones at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and chic Cobb salads with sleek, successful, obnoxious former classmates.
