"If we could have taken advantage of that moment, we could have been on a very different track. Were you going to get denuclearisation easily? Absolutely not. But would we be in a very different place in terms of tensions on the Korean Peninsula and how far North Korea has gone in its nuclear development, maybe. We'll never know, obviously, but there was definitely a will there that doesn't exist now."

“We are absolutely not proposing that anyone should eat green sludge,” jokes Mr Haflidason.

"They should absolutely not be allowed to operate with impunity," said Dame Sara.

Only once in these many rounds—when asked whether he took his staff to a strip club—did he append an “absolutely not” to his response of “anonymous smears.”

“We are absolutely not out of the danger yet,” Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said Wednesday.