His favourite scene was where Penny, carrying a dead cowboy, rode through the rain to apply for the dead man's job, only to be mocked.

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But both to victims of abuse and to people who observe church affairs from outside, the spate of disclosures has mocked the Vatican's claim to be a fount of moral authority and have made it harder to see why the church insists on restricting the priesthood to celibate males.

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Romney was roundly mocked in that race for claiming to be a lifelong hunter of "small varmints" like rabbits and rodents.

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Yet the idea--easily mocked though it may be--refuses to die.

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Mr Lebed might be wise, however, to stay away in Siberia while politicians in Moscow are mocked and buffeted by events.

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For those 10 million people who will be buying the iPhone 5, it looks to me like they have turned into the very drones that Apple mocked in 1984.

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