He talked in firm, declamatory bursts in a growl of a voice tinged with cigars and alcohol.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

With a guttural growl we summon up a perfect specimen of hockle before launching it grenade-like to some unseen target across the pavement.

BBC: Should spitting in the street be banned?

When the president of the southern Russian republic of Kalmykia, a chess-playing autocrat with a belief in mysticism, threatened to secede on November 17th in a row over tax payments, a growl from the centre even one not backed with any credible force was enough to make him back down straight away.

ECONOMIST: Boris Yeltsin��s dying influence