The files compiled by law enforcement and prosecutors were a burning fuse: they claimed to expose a vast network of organised crime, with evidence of bribery, abuse of power and widespread corruption at the very highest echelons of power.Corruption of the nation's media was at the heart of these allegations.
The Frenchman had a thoroughly unhappy evening: from the outset he was complaining about some of the tackling he received and when Shaw caught him from behind in the 48th minute the notoriously short Gallic fuse was reignited.
Being steady under pressure is one of Cameron's better attributes, though he does seem to have a short fuse (not the same thing).
Perhaps that quarrel was the spark that lit the fuse of this week's poem?
You'd hit the sand, get up and run a little bit more, hide behind one of those obstacles, put a bit of the explosive under it and fuse it and go on.
At 28 he was voted the best young chef in the world after a two-day cook out which saw him fuse Russian and Italian ingredients.
Another way that student houses challenge our survival skills is with their faulty fuse boxes.
In Mr Goodman's view, the children of Abraham's revelation are too bitterly divided among themselves to fuse seamlessly with anyone or anything.
A year ago, he angrily stormed out of an interview with this newspaper when he was asked about his plans in this area.One reason for Mr Jobs's short fuse may be that Apple's relatively skinny research and development budget has to work much harder than those of competitors who benefit from the huge spending of Microsoft and Intel.
In 2007 Warren Buffett told shareholders that public-sector pension funding was inadequate, and called it a time bomb with a long fuse.
Each side prefers to denounce the other, reinforcing the very polarisation that is preventing progress.Fixed today, hobbled tomorrowOptimists will point out that America is unlikely to face a European-style debt crisis in the near future, but the slow-burning fuse is itself a problem.
