This, and three other things, offer scraps of consolation to the doleful Mr Clegg.

ECONOMIST: The Lib Dems are having an identity crisis. Splendid

The doleful quip making the rounds is that Mr Mubarak, gravely ill, is having the last laugh.

ECONOMIST: Turmoil in Egypt

They look like scolded schoolchildren, their expressions doleful as they silently watch Powers search the compartments of the boat.

FORBES

Pristine beaches, tranquility and mediation retreats can offer some remedy for doleful souls.

CNN: Best places for a breakup

Something between a sob and a siren, it is how Lamby expresses a doleful emotion that he experiences roughly twice a day.

NEWYORKER: A Box of Puppies

We also have a bit of a tendency towards doleful solipsism.

FORBES: Do Irish Immigrants to the Bay Area Feel Guilty for Living in Such an Amazing Place?

This is doleful news: a recent study of people who had both lost weight and stayed slim found that exercise was the key to their success.

ECONOMIST: That other national expansion

Here she describes what drove the British and the Americans in 2007 to try to bring back Benazir Bhutto, a manoeuvre that showed beyond all doubt the depth of Pakistan's doleful rentier status.

ECONOMIST: The forces of destiny

What is behind this doleful phenomenon?

FORBES: "Paradise Lost" -- Love, Retirement, and Marriage in Japan

Melville reflected on his time here: 'It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me.

BBC: The haunted land of New England