In the event, however, Labour – in Mr Corbyn's characteristically flat phrase – "hung on" to 98% of the total of councillors it had chalked up when the same seats were last fought in a solid performance in 2012.
Castro, through a spokesman, phrased his own opposition to the decision in characteristically understated and inclusive language, saying, in part: "Texas has long been an example of how two neighboring countries can co-exist in a mutually beneficial way for the American economy.
And Mr. Rose, ending the concert, brought his characteristically large but concentrated sound to Chopin's A minor Waltz (Op. 34, No. 1) and a beautifully phrased reading of the Ballade No. 3 (Op. 47).
Mr. Álvarez sang with moments of characteristically warm, natural phrasing, and Mr. Hvorostovsky had his usual nobility and intelligence.
Characteristically, he alternated vocal phrases with harmonica phrases, built melodic solo choruses, and preferred fast "jump" tempos.
The two made "a lovely charming decadent hopeless couple," as Burton notes, in a characteristically wry and graceful phrase.
"It is a matter of waft rather than word-choice," he tells us, with a characteristically musical turn of phrase.Poems can also be unpredictable and unbiddable creatures.
Such lapses are offset by characteristically vivid turns of phrase, as when Bryson notes that Philo Farnsworth, who invented television only to have the idea stolen from him, became so embittered that "even his hair looked angry".
A sequence of three poems, "Revenue Customs", pays tribute to "dexterous drafters / of sub-sections, pluggers of loopholes"; in "Retirement" he acknowledges, with characteristically ambiguous precision of phrasing, "I could nearly hold the place / in my affections".
She notes in passing, and with a phrase that's characteristically both exact and surprising, "the rooks flying upwards snipping at the clouds".
