The CEO era gave rise to the CFO (not certified flying object, as you might imagine, but chief financial officer) and, most recently, the CIO, chief investment officer, a nice boost for the bookkeeper you can't afford to give a raise . . .

The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.

If you re-read your work, you can find on re-reading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by re-reading and editing.

This is what it's all about. From what I could see, you could get a bunch of people together, whip up the press and have some impact.

The tension between the governed and the governing is what makes the world go 'round. It's not love, it's that tension, because that tension exists in love affairs. The whole idea of control is at the heart of human relationships. Control and resistance to control.

To 'know your place' is a good idea in politics. That is not to say 'stay in your place' or 'hang on to your place', because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place - a feel for one's own position in the control room-is useful in gauging what you should try to do.

Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.