On the other hand...

[fpb]

...this last week, I had that clash with a certain conservative writer, because I would not flatter his views on what his party calls "socialized medicine"; at the same time as I was finally thrown out of the circle of a woman I had tried to befriend, basically because I did not flatter her delusions about President Obama and her general comfortable Guardian-reading ideology. It is not always easy using your own head to think with.