His set-piece speeches include clunking attempts at triangulation; on issue after issue, he offers a right-wing proposition before nullifying it with a left-wing one.
There was always a dose of naivety to their zeal, not to mention clunking racial tokenism.
The raw material is a treasure trove, but the interface, on which buttons with similar functions appear here and there on different screens, and the cumbrous searching, mean that dreamers will find their fantasy entangled with clunking mechanics.
But he will need an angrier tone than he found for the expenses scandal, while avoiding the clunking class war that helped Labour lose a by-election last year.
Whether he will pull it off is anyone's guess (the feeling in the bones becomes more ominous by the day), but there is a strange comfort in the nostalgic vision of Gordon once again unleashing the clunking fist that made him such a fearfully effective machine politician.
There's no real lurching, clunking or whirring to signify transitions between electric and diesel operation – although there are the usual hybrid dash displays that show you what's going on.
Not everyone enjoys the sub-Countdown graphics and clunking puns, which Neil admits to writing himself, as he revels in its cheesiness.
Derivative plot, feeble characters, clunking dialogue, embarrassingly bad 3D special effects – M Night Shyamalan is at it again with his latest fantasy adventure When The Waterside Inn this year celebrated keeping three Michelin stars for 25 years, they threw a party.
Officially, of course, they are so over, left behind like the coach and horse and carrier's cart, hissing, clunking, smudging antitheses to our age of supposed clean efficiency.
Abstract noise sends the mind searching for concrete comparisons: clunking hard drives, breaking wires, muffled phones, turnstiles.
"Dyke on bike" is clunking.
