This word ‘pledge’ is intriguing. Has its capital sunk like toxic debt? Is too much pledging like too much chocolate; you get sick of it and ignore it after awhile? Americans pledge allegiance to flags; we breathe oaths to truth; promises to love; resolve New Years; re-member ourselves with commitments; determine futures; shake hands; guard honours. Maybe Roger McGough is right: Discretion is now the better part of Valerie.

Or, as John Donne puts it:

For when through tasteless flat humility,
In dough-baked men, some harmlessness we see,
‘Tis but his phlegm that’s virtuous, and not he.