The 21mm-thick case is made from glass and aluminium, with every side coloured matt black, save for a chamfered chrome lip around the upper edge. At 122.5g, the Sony is noticeably lighter than conventional watches of a similar size.

Funny though these lines are, especially when they're tossed out with such casual aplomb, they don't come from or reveal much about the characters themselves. Teenagers can be smart; they can be hyper-eloquent; but they don't normally trade in this kind of hip, zingy banter that soon wears a little thin.

Possibly for the first time in this Coalition, given Ed Davey's silence on the PM's announcement, I think I'm on the side of the LibDems. There ought to be a website to work that out for me, shouldn't there? Or a law."What this country needs is a good war." That's a phrase you don't hear all that much these days. Perhaps it's because we're now a country more at peace with itself. Or maybe because we're actually involved in one war, and weighing up the prospect of getting involved in another.

The other approach is to use the source text as inspiration rather than specific instruction, with the role of translator that of a creative collaborator, preserving the originals spirit and flair. was an early advocate of this method, saying that "literalism is a feature of boorish translators" (if I have translated "interpretes indiserti" correctly).

But there's no reason to think they won't break that vicious circle. In the premier league it happens all the time. Teams struggle through a couple of matches then win the next one with a flurry of goals. England have done it, too. Don't forget that we failed to win our first two games in Italia 90 and ended up in the semis.