De facto, appointments tend to respect the almost obsessional balances between the Flemish and French-speaking communities as well as between the 'ministeriable' political families: mainly Christian-democrats, Socialists, Liberals, also (moderate) Nationalists, occasionally an Ecologist).

The obvious point to raise here is that these appointments tend to be for countries not necessarily tipped as tournament winners; success is typically linked to qualifying for major tournaments and then progressing as far as possible.

Bishops have been transferred and seminaries shut down; appointments in Mexico, Brazil, Peru and elsewhere have tended to restore the Latin American church to what its critics said it had traditionally been: an institution of the rich, for the rich, by the rich.

His appointments - safe, sound and unexciting - tend to confirm the preliminary view that George Bush will not be a President of ideas, innovation and inspiration.

But state records show that Mr. Bush's appointments still tend to be overwhelmingly white and mostly male in a state that is increasingly less so.

Such appointments, with their obligatory stops and starts, tend to give the genre a relation to fiction, plain, that military music has to music, plain.

It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the Bank, with the incumbent grooming his or her successor.