Slack-jawed prison guards watched as the helicopter then spirited away as two of their prisoners clung on.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

But Mabel's most popular routine was much more intimate than that and never failed to leave the audience slack-jawed with amazement.

ECONOMIST: New fiction

Reporting from Tennessee some years ago, Bagehot was left slack-jawed on entering Knoxville's titchy yet lavish airport, which boasts a giant indoor replica of a Smoky Mountain stream, complete with real trees, 18, 000 gallons of water, boulders and a wooden sculpture of a bear.

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