Polanski is a French citizen, and France is probably more indulgent towards its great artists than is the US.

Citizens of rich countries may be self centered and self indulgent, but things are not quite as horrible as some would have us believe.

Still, possibly the British mood portends a wider change of climate for Western liberal democracies, and the onset of a new, less indulgent era.

Indeed, the plethora of separate banking regulators had created opportunities for banks to arbitrage the system in search of a more indulgent approach to capital.

Then there are those American leaders who still speak of making the US self sufficient in energy supplies. But this is basically a joke self indulgent, maybe, but self sufficient, never.

Gays and other modern practices are rejected as self indulgent. As the political scientist Andrew Hacker recently put it, the Bush candidacy was framed to make a majority by giving some 60 million people a chance to feel good about themselves.

There was indeed a sign for Sheba in their dwelling place Two gardens on the right hand and the left ( as who should say ) Eat of the provision of your Lord and render thanks to Him . A fair land and an indulgent Lord !

If you reply that the girls who want to wear headscarves to school aren t living in Nigeria or Saudi Arabia, and almost certainly don t share the extreme Wahhabi views found in those countries, you will be met with a look of almost indulgent pity, a look of the type reserved for the terminally naïve.