Now, I took exception to Obama's public proclamation in September that Americans "respect all religions". I don't respect any religion, subjecting the lot to equal opportunity disgust, and my right to denigrate belief in fairytales is what I need my president to stick up for. Fundamentalism of any stripe intensifies my constitutionally protected aversion. So had Anika worn a hijab, we might not have got to know each other so well.

Still, if I'm honest, the "Muslim world" over the last decade has seemed especially annoying, and fortunately my lovely publicist reined in an unexamined bigotry. I may have little patience with Islam itself, but I did respect her. So it's time that all those millions of Anikas out there made themselves heard. If my South African publicist was a revelation, she shouldn't have been.