With husbands still calling friends from the payphone in the foyer for updates, or nipping across Finchley Road for a glimpse in the windows of Radio Rentals, it took an age for the ushers to get everyone settled.
Hang around long enough at Luton and you will meet a businessman or woman, usually middle-aged owners of companies in the south-east, who spend half their week as lotus eaters in Provence, nipping back for the other half to oversee their business being handled day-to-day by their staff.
With Alstom's board due to decide no later than June 23rd, chief executives are nipping in and out of government ministries as if they were cuckoo clocks, sweet-talking Alstom's unions in the intervals.
Latinos are always nipping back over the border.
People seem to like nipping away from the television set to use their always-on broadband connections during commercial breaks, says Mr Cole.
China's secret police are good at nipping political movements in the bud.
A restructuring plan agreed at the end of July will keep Poland's LOT in business in return for $200m of taxpayers' cash.In this section Workers of the world, log in Nipping at LinkedIn's heels The reversion of a species Hot rocks Flags of inconvenience Which media company are you?
In America electronic upstarts have been nipping at the exchanges' heels for years.
It was paid for by Mattel, Barbie's maker.In this section Workers of the world, log in Nipping at LinkedIn's heels The reversion of a species Hot rocks Which media company are you?
In the other direction, global technology giants such as Intel have long been putting advanced production facilities like chip-wafer fabrication plants in Israel, but now other countries are nipping at its heels.
Their fans argue that these corporate forms are better suited to a world of high tax, red tape and low interest rates than slothful public companies.In this section Workers of the world, log in Nipping at LinkedIn's heels The reversion of a species Hot rocks Which media company are you?
