But nor should we allow the agitations of shareholders, amplified by certain of our colleagues discountenanced at the performance of their stock options, to force us into a hair shirt, the corporate equivalent of
sackcloth and ashes. We do not deserve anything so demeaning.
Although the travel writer's lot is a fairly impecunious one, it isn't all
sackcloth and ashes. Pre eminent among the benefits is a licence to travel to all parts of the world at someone else's expense.
That same public, however, isn't ready for a total "
sackcloth and ashes" approach to economical motoring.
That's it Richard Johnson dons the
sackcloth and ashes after Rooster Booster is beaten by Self Defense in the Agfa Hurdle I must be the thickest trainer in England as I thought it was three miles!
And yet, at domestic level,
sackcloth and ashes are the order of the day as fans lament Wales' worst performance in the Heineken Cup since the competition's inception.
Dressed in
sackcloth and ashes at a hastily arranged press conference, he may have offered a mealy-mouthed apology to manager Graham Taylor, his own team-mates and his own supporters.
Should the pollsters now don
sackcloth and ashes? Not necessarily, argues Traugott, a professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan.
In the first, the speaker knows that she is literally plowing over the bones of the dead and wears burlap, if not
sackcloth and ashes. By the end, however, she has stopped putting laudanum in her coffee in order to deal with consciousness.
Scripture refers to individuals "wearing
sackcloth and ashes" and "sitting in ashes." Wearing ashes is both a natural and a spiritual outward expression of a sense of loss, sorrow, emptiness, and penitence.
Berlin's development since re-unification has allowed Germany to throw off the
sackcloth and ashes of 50 years and catch up with the pomposity of other European capitals.
? Time for
sackcloth and ashes. In last week's column, I dismissed Sam Eggington's European title challenger, Mohamed "The Problem" Mimoune, pictured left, as a no-hoper.
A little bit of '
sackcloth and ashes' is sometimes appropriate."
