One of the elderly fish sellers on the harbourside scolds her: "Lady, you'd rather have bodies on the beaches?
If you press too hard, the lights turn red, the bristles slow down and an unhappy face scolds you on the timer.
A visit from the professional scolds at the IMF could hardly be expected to lift the mood.Yet on March 19th, an IMF research mission delivered a surprising message to the Dutch parliament: lighten up.
Dorothea Negroponte of Greece muses, "Maybe we Europeans should throw Britain in the dustbin"; Sergio Zangaglia of Brussels urges Britain to have the "intellectual honesty" to leave the EU; Vincenzo Russo accuses The Economist of "preposterous arrogance"; a Parisian reader scolds us for "incredible rudeness".Why all this shock and horror?
And it scolds Sweden and Norway for allowing statutes of limitation to rule out prosecutions.But the centre, in a report on the investigation and prosecution of ex-Nazi war criminals around the world, reserves much of its criticism for countries of central and eastern Europe.
Baghdad should understand that sympathy for the Iraqi people does not mean that their leadership is liked, or that other Arabs will fight America on its behalf, scolds Cairo's official daily, Al Ahram.
The firm says the money will be used for "general corporate purposes", whatever that means.Corporate-governance scolds will squawk if Sinopec uses the $3 billion to buy upstream assets.
Not Mr Handy's 700 fellow villagers, who support 20 clubs among them; not the many good businesses he describes; not teachers, charity workers, artists, circus members and comedians (all of whom get a friendly nod); not western governments, which he scolds for trying to do too much.
When Mansour tries to correct her memories of their wedding night, she scolds him: "You remember one way and I remember another, and in the end it doesn't matter".
Otto Schily, Germany's interior minister, scolds Mr Stoiber for "rabble-rousing talk that smacks of dangerous nationalism".
Climate-change sceptics look at environmental types, and think they see the same hair-shirted scolds who 30 years ago wanted to ban big cars because oil was running out.
