Voters may be turned off by candidates who play dirty, but nothing gets a campaign reporter going like the smell of blood on the trail. Part of it has to do with boredom: journalists can only listen for so long to a candidate blather on about "a world of possibilities guided by goodness" before they get surly. —— Michelle Cottle, 'Nice Try'; New Republic, Feb 14, 2000

Maggie drank a little too much and got surly and made snide comments during the final toast. —— John L'Heureux, 'Having Everything'

With crooked yellowed teeth that jut from a mouth that spews profanity in a surly staccato, a freckled weather-beaten face and a prizefighter's swagger, Charlize Theron pulls off the year's most astounding screen makeover in Patty Jenkins's film ''Monster.'' At the very least the disappearance of the cool and creamy blond star into the body of a ruddy, bedraggled street person is an astounding cosmetic stunt. —— Stephen Holden; 'A Murderous Journey To Self-Destruction'; New York Times; Dec 24, 2003

For "lovers" we got directed to candlelit Lovers Boat Tours. For "ride", we were offered "the Amsterdam oddity of reasonably priced and excellently serviced taxis". And for "designer", we were sent to Megazino, a discount designer-clothes outlet. Being a group of shy and retiring journalists – OK, we still hadn't had a drink – we did not put the "lovers" recommendation to the test, but the "ride" taxis were indeed dramatically better than the expensive and surly norm, and Megazino was an oasis of Etro, Armani an D&G in a city not blessed with an excess of great clothes shops. Also, we did not even have to attempt to pronounce Megazino's consonant-soup address (ah, the English abroad) to the nice, cheap taxi driver – we just handed him the phone and let him read it from the display. —— 'Let your fingers do the walking in Amsterdam'; Independent Travel; 20 April 2003

Now that anthrax jokes in Manhattan have given way to whispered smallpox terrors, I'm back with the guilt I had on September 11 that my emotions as a New Yorker were in conflict with my feelings as a US citizen.--The Stars and Stripes are everywhere, formerly surly Arab news vendors smile and scrape, and the hot, lovely weather continues, but I am far from my "homeland", that un-American, Volkish-sounding term, because I am not getting the saturation reporting that US television gives our "national narratives". The US is at war; morale must be kept up. National security adviser Rice has asked newspapers not to publish Bin Laden's speeches, because of the concern that they may contain hidden messages to his cohorts. —— Darryl Pinckney;  'How Our Freedoms Died with the World Trade Centre'; Guardian; Oct 27 2001