(In Botswana today, the imminent installation ceremony for the new chief of the Bayeyi people -- their first female chief -- requires presentation of the pelt of a freshly killed leopard, which will not be obtainable, and for which a display skin from the museum will have to be substituted).
An old, much-loved oak tree also figures in a symbolic fashion: the imminent wedding ceremony will take place beneath it, but the threatening, anti-genteel new neighbours are demanding that it be cut down as a danger to their property.
Unfounded rumours of wedding dates have made the front pages of supermarket magazines for years, and sent the world's media scurrying to places as far afield as Italy, India, southern Africa and France to stake out imminent "secret" ceremonies.
Compared with last year's fireworks, when Michael Moore led the charge against the then imminent war in Iraq, this year's ceremony was an exercise in group self-congratulation.
Once a deal was imminent, the Romney administration staged a photogenic bill-signing ceremony in Faneuil Hall with Senator Kennedy, who flew in from Washington, at the governor's behest.
More troublesome is the need for an imminent decision about the 55,000 programs required for the swearing-in ceremony.
The plan was for a Saturday afternoon ceremony; by 11 a.m. came the warnings of an imminent escalation in Irene's damaging winds and rain.
Whether the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games is the correct time and opportunity may be arguable, but their imminent disappearance from the landscape is certainly a cause for celebration.
The ceremony turned violent when two masked men holding rocket-propelled grenades jumped on a motorcycle while threatening an imminent attack on American soldiers.
