COMMENT You can damn with faint praise; you can also achieve the same with an aria of it.

An example of the first was when George Bernard Shaw extended two tickets to the opening night of one of his plays to Winston Churchill. "One for you and another for a friend, if you have one," jibed the playwright.

Britain's wartime leader volleyed back: He said he would like to attend the opening night's programme but official duties prevented him; however, he would be free to attend the second night's staging, "if there is one."

Private eye P Balasubramaniam's lawyer, Americk Singh Sidhu, laid it on copiously when he praised fellow legal practitioner Cecil Abraham's integrity which he said was a byword among lawyers in the latter's 40 years of service to the Malaysian Bar...