And what you saw there was when Bill de Blasio and Elizabeth Warren raised their hands and said that they were the only two candidates in favor of outright banning private insurance, that was them, I think, passing what we were talking about as this purity test and drawing the most extreme contrast that we have seen so far.

I have a straight rule, that is, unless I can afford to pay for that thing outright in cash, I shouldn't be buying it with any form of debt.

For others, this could look like a warning handed out at the return counter or being outright banned from returning at that retailer.

Watch what happens: they'll push, guilt trip, mock, or outright ignore your limits.

Because it was a natural disaster, the government was able to pay a lesser amount of compensation to many survivors, or outright deny compensation claims in some cases.

Some are better than others, for sure, but nobody is outright bad, which is a skill of Leitch that I've come to appreciate.

Sometimes I'm in a place like the UAE or China where certain sites are outright banned.

You say it outright or write them something personal.

Europe and China makes outright escalation tricky, and not without consequence for both powers. But easing tensions is complicated. China is both a competitor to Europe and a strategic rival.

News that two people who had a harrowing break-up are now trying to get back together again a few months or years down the line tends, among sensible people, to raise at the very least suspicion, if not outright irritation and despair. Why are these two cursed lovers heading back to the old chaos and drama? Isn't this just a fantasy sprung from naivety, loneliness and most probably short-term lust? Shouldn't they keep faith with their original choice, double down on the highs and lows of dating and perhaps each buy a dog? And yet, to deny ex-couples any legitimate chance to revisit their situation also feels excessively punitive and in its way naïve, insisting blindly that people can never change, that psychotherapy and introspection, books and conversations, time and long walks have nothing whatsoever to teach us, is as foolish as to assume that change can come readily and lightly. For every misguided attempt to resume a relationship, there must be a proportion of equally misguided refusals to countenance a new start, born not out of wisdom so much as pre-emptive fear and disbelief that people are, occasionally, able to learn a new thing or two. We need to make progress a tool with which to strip the matter of sentiment and rationally distinguish mature from sentimental plans. What follows is a sequence of questions, amounting to a kind of examination, that exes who are meeting up again after a long break should discuss with one another – and as importantly, with themselves – before coming anywhere near to holding hands, let alone – and here we must be very definitive – going to bed.