Underpowered, perilously fragile, it would go backwards in a stiff headwind and be blown off the runway in a storm.

Mired in a 'liquidity trap', the real sides of crisis-torn economies are facing stiff headwinds for years to come.

Many of these ideas will meet stiff headwinds from the university teaching establishment in the ten-week consultation period now beginning, but they address glaring inadequacies.

Unfortunately, that coincided with stiff headwinds in some of its main markets, as yesterday's third-quarter numbers show.