Many retirees brought new political perspectives with them, shaped by contours far from the plains and mountains of the West, and have changed the complexion of this once solidly Republican county into something much less predictable.
They were a far cry from the "plain vanilla" syndicated loans it would have expected in an earlier credit cycle.
Often, it is far from plain whether the elder Menuhins look upon their son's career as his or theirs; in the father's mind, at least, it would seem to have assumed the character of a racial myth.
But although football, grievance and envy make a potent mixture, they hardly clinch the case for devolution, either to the North-East or to any other corner of England.It is, after all, still far from plain what the new regional governments should do.
They will need to guard against complacency and, while they came through a double header with Roma with a comfortable 4-0 aggregate scoreline, the tie was far from plain sailing, with the Italians missing numerous chances in both legs.
It was far from plain sailing for the Scot as he teetered on the brink of handing back his advantage several times, but he held on to level after one hour and 33 minutes.
Figheldean, Wiltshire Not far from Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge, we visit Figheldean (pronounced "filedean") on the advice of Rob Fryer, co-founder of the River and Lake Swimming Association (river-swim ming.co.uk).
By the time Gus Poyet replaced him, the Black Cats had collected just a single point from their opening seven Barclays Premier League games, and although it has been far from plain sailing since, the Uruguayan has sparked a significant recovery.
It was far from plain sailing for the Serbian, who also appeared to struggle with a hamstring injury.
However, the birth of the club was far from plain sailing, with bitter feuding and accusations of vote-rigging tearing the local football community apart.
