In a trice Mr Jospin would no longer be his party's hero, but its scapegoat.

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With little inertia, friction or drag, the wheel can be spun up to speed in a trice, and then made to dump its rotational energy back into the car's transmission in seconds.

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To cap it all, NATO, in its frustration at failing to remove the regime in a trice, is killing civilians the very crime it was meant, under UN Security Council Resolution 1973, to prevent.

ECONOMIST: Libya

At literary parties, tiddly in a trice, she could be the life and soul, mistaking the queen for Vera Lynn loudly and to her face, or inviting men to join her under the piano.

ECONOMIST: Dame Beryl Bainbridge, novelist, died on July 2nd, aged 77

The cannier despots know that whispers of dissent among the few can turn into howls of anger among the many in a Tunisian trice.

ECONOMIST: Tunisia and the Arab world