Word: ordeal
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...time he made it back to England, his troupe may have moved on to Italy; now he can apply while working in the U.K. The old system also gave British embassies too much discretion in determining whether performers deserved their visas. Clay remembers a particularly troublesome ordeal last year involving a Chinese trapeze act, in which two boys swinging on distant lines would throw a somersaulting female performer between them. "The embassy gave visas to the two boys because they had previously worked in the West," he recalls, "but they refused the girl simply because she hadn...
Among the passengers on US Airways Flight #1549 was Gerry McNamara, a partner at the executive recruiting firm Heidrick and Struggles. McNamara, a former U.S. Marine officer, wrote an inspirational account of his ordeal for the company's internal newsletter, and it has since been e-mailed around the country. Below, his account of that harrowing day in January...
...hunt. One of the unlikeliest Fawcett hunters, and possibly the last, is David Grann, a 40-year-old journalist who, by his own admission, doesn't even like camping. In 2005 he too entered the Brazilian jungle. Fortunately for him, he came out again. He wrote about his ordeal, and Fawcett's, in The Lost City of Z (Doubleday; 339 pages...
...since last July, people live under an unofficial curfew that turns the end of every workday into a race to get home before dark. Checkpoints are everywhere--in some cases within 165 ft. (50 m) of each other--and can turn a 15-minute trip into an hour-long ordeal, as soldiers question anyone whose identification papers mark him or her as an outsider or a possible LTTE member. Few people outside Mannar are aware of the extent of the militarization. Journalists are not allowed free access, and it is forbidden to take pictures of any military personnel or installation...
...trend. At work and at school, even on first introductions--at least among the latest inhabitants of The Real World--the hug is gaining ground on the handshake. There are many iterations, including the hip-hop hug (a manly shake-and-squeeze combo), the ass-out hug (an awkward ordeal that precludes genital contact) and, for someone you're really close to, the full frontal (your standard bear hug). The big squeeze has been on the rise at least since 2006, when the Free Hugs campaign exploded worldwide. It got another boost last year, when hikers from Ohio and Pennsylvania...