Glacially

‘Monsieur,’ Louis XV glacially remarked to Choiseul days before the dénouement, ‘I told you that I did not want war.’

Played acoustically, glacially paced and sung in Kristofferson’s parched, age-weathered voice, even his more lighthearted songs – Jesus Was a Capricorn, Best Of All Possible Worlds – were leant an eerie gravitas, while Me and Bobby McGee and Sunday Morning Coming Down sounded heartbreakingly careworn and poignant.

The daunting problem is that the incidence of tuberculosis has declined only glacially (at a rate of 1.0 to 1.5% per year) and in some places may be increasing.