Vodafone's successful bid for Mannesmann is the first truly cross-border hostile takeover in Germany and is viewed as a catalyst for a spate of such mergers that were once considered unachievable on the Continent.
In a speech to both Houses of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster, Mr Higgins said: "I stand here at a time when the relationship between our two islands has, as I have said, achieved a closeness and warmth that once seemed unachievable".
"The Giuliani administration negotiated very hard," he said, "which resulted in several billion dollars in savings and the attainment of what was once thought to be unachievable reforms, such as extending sanitation routes, ending tenure for principals and the establishment of workfare".
Rapaille thinks of himself as a latter-day Amerigo Vespucci, a cartographer and pilot major, bringing maps of a Mundus Novus back to his patrons -- Ford, Procter & Gamble, Seagram, AT&T, General Mills, Birds Eye -- in order to better outfit the next wave of caravels, eager to colonize this place once thought to be dark, unachievable and obscure.
A 59 was once golf's Holy Grail, a magical unachievable number met with starry-eyed wonder.
Their use of health facilities was a last alternative for receiving treatment for complications once it became evident that homebirth was unachievable.
Men started to become obsolete somewhere in the early part of this new century, the arrival of vagina-obsessed rabbits, IVF and that unachievable platonic ideal called "Gosling" rendered my once-thriving gender irrelevant.
As the philosopher Avishai Margalit once put it (not apropos of Thoreau, though apropos of the similarly unachievable position of absolute stoicism), "I consider not being an option as being, in a way, enough of an argument".
Peace must once again become an ideal that we strive towards, rather than deemed an unachievable illusion.
They may say that once again the gap between rhetoric and reality is such that the goals are unachievable.
