When the Sri Lanka paceman Dhammika Prasad did precisely that to dismiss him, first ball, in the second innings of the Headingley Test at the end of June, it looked like a solid assessment, a glimpse into a testing future.
A crowd waving American flags and chanting "Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin" had gathered by noon at the airport in Colorado Springs, solid Republican territory, to catch a glimpse of her.
Despite talk of the Internet as a site of quickly glimpsed imagery and viral cat videos, a solid core of old-fashioned moralizing, even sermonizing, punditry is part of the daily burden it presents.
But the science-fiction overtones are reserved for X-ray View, which allows users to see through solid elements of the car – such as the windshield pillar and door panels – to glimpse objects that might be hidden.
One Labour MP sympathetic to Mr Brown says his man is so solid already in this area that all he needs to do is show "some glimpses of ankle" from time to time.
In the video below, part of blog keeping track of her current tour, we get a glimpse of Shakira's day out on the course in Mexico, where she shows off both her solid short game and picture-perfect swing.
