Sharon, if he could speak, would doubtless point out archly that it wasn't like that in his day.

BBC: Ariel Sharon's trip home triggers memories of firm hand

Inconveniently, Paul is engaged to shallow, manipulative but lovely Maude (Victoria Mack, archly petulant), who secretly has several irons in the fire.

WSJ: Review: 'Happy Birthday' a booze-filled romp

At one end of the spectrum the archly alternative, quintessentially Berlin venue of Kater Holzig played host to the Tech Open Air festival.

WSJ: Berlin Eyes Careful Balance To Bolster Tech Sector

Investment bankers archly observe that judgments on which bit of the business is the casino ought to be withheld until the end of the credit cycle.

ECONOMIST: The contract between society and banks will get stricter

Many of the pictures, though, were large-scale canvases of misty lakes, pagodas and jagged mountain tops, portraits of cheeky Chinese boys or archly posing Chinese beauties.

BBC: China's oil painting village feels global shift

Other banks, said the regulator somewhat archly, "are not co-operating".

BBC: Barclays�� chairman in firing line

Nance, who has a fine-arts background, elaborates the story with whimsical and enticing animations, multimedia collages, and copious subtitles and intertitles, as well as with an intricate and archly funny non-stop monologue of psychological self-revelation.

NEWYORKER: An Oversimplification of Her Beauty

And, true to form, when he couldn't find a bag he liked as a gift for a friend, he decided to make his own, coming up with an entire line of archly simple, high-quality leather bags with a unisex flair.

WSJ: Alejandro Alcocer Turns Passion Into Design

Yet just as the archly framed hike seems ready to sink into a miasma of flip condescension, something astonishing happens the couple encounter another rural wanderer, whose threats prompt Alex into an act of cowardice from which the relationship seems unlikely to recover.

NEWYORKER: The Loneliest Planet